In Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” there is a character named Shylock who lends money to a deadbeat named Bassanio. Bassanio also agrees to name his friend, Antonio, as a guarantor for the loan on Shylock’s advice. Shylock gives this advice because Antonio has wronged him, and he wants revenge. When the debt comes due,…

This past Sunday after worship, we debuted a new thing at University Lutheran. As a part of our “A Jesus Centered Community” annual focus we’re asking people to join us on a weekly “Red Letter Challenge”. This is based on the book and work of LCMS pastor, Rev. Zach Zehnder who encourages us to think…

My two eldest girls have this thing at their school that is called “All Pro Dads,” that they finally convinced me to attend. The program actually seems to be a great thing. Myself and a bunch of other dads of kids in the school sat at the cafeteria tables and talked through some good virtue based…

As we round out the end of our “True Presence” annual focus, we can start to look at what is coming with the new annual focus year. Our annual focus for the 2023-24 Church year that will start on December 3rd is going to be “A Jesus Centered Community”. That phrase hopefully sounds familiar. It…

Our annual focus year for “True Presence” is coming to a close. As we look back on the past year, there has been an attempt to show that God is truly present with us, and also that we, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirt, are the presence of God for so many of our…

When you look up the phrase “To Kingdom Come…” you find that it’s a euphemism for “into the next world.” So when someone says, “I’m going to blow you to kingdom come…” they are meaning that they are going to make you go to the afterlife. It is an interesting phrase because of it’s bad…

I just got back from a meeting at a local coffee house called Red Eye coffee. While I was there I bumped into several people that I know. This particular coffee house started off as a ministry of a church in town and as such, it gained the patronage of several fellow church types like…

Someone stopped me yesterday as I was walking through campus. She wanted to pitch me the idea of donating to an endeavor to help children with cancer. As a part of her pitch, she asked me what I did. I told her I was a pastor. She asked me what the “mission” of our church…

Re- It’s a prefix that means to do over again. There are things about “re” that we don’t like. We don’t like having to do things over again. That usually means that we’ve failed the first time. And so when we hear the word “Reformation” we like to ignore the “re”. We like to think…

“War…what is it good for?” That line itself probably is enough to evoke memory of Edwin Starr’s 1970 hit. The lyrics continue, answering the question, “absolutely nothing.” The screens of our cellphones, tablets, and televisions have been showing us images of war for quite some time now. We have witnessed war in the Ukraine and…