If you’re here on a Sunday morning, right after the Words of Institution (“On the night in which He was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ….”) and right before people come up to receive communion, you will hear something to the effect of “we believe that this meal is truly the Body and Blood of our…
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Church Blog (Page 30)
The old joke goes that two Lutherans went to go see a Star Wars film together and when they heard a character say, “the force be with you,” they responded, “and also with you.” We have a lot of fun in Easter proclaiming “He is Risen!” and then responding “He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!” Those…
One of the questions I get from time to time from non-Lutheran students is, “hey, what are all those ‘Lutheran’ holidays about?” I try to explain that they are more than just “Lutheran” holidays, but that most liturgical Christians celebrate these things. Those holidays include things like Pink Candle Sunday, Pentecost, Reformation Day…and of course,…
“What do you do?” It’s a question that I get from time to time. It is the dynamic equivalent of the college “What’s your major?” Some people bemoan those questions because they are so cliche, but I actually think that there is something to them. When we ask “what do you do?” we’re asking for…
Not too long ago I ran across an internet video that talked about a church in Finland that hosted a “Metal Mass,” wherein worship was conducted alongside heavy metal instrumentation and style, like electric guitars, headbanging drummers, rapid melodies, and soaring solos. This maybe fits for Finland, which supposedly has the highest per capital metal…
When my family moved to St. Louis in my teens, we went “church shopping”. It’s probably the only time that I’ve done this since I was relatively unchurched for much of college and then I was assigned my churches from that point on without much choice in the matter. I remember that we would go…
“The fightin’ Missiourians….” I’ll never forget someone telling me that our Lutheran church body was nicknamed this in the past. It makes sense. Lutherans can be a contentious bunch, it’s in our DNA. We told the Roman Catholic church to go fly a kite over indulgences, and we haven’t necessarily worked out all of our…
This comes from a question we received: “Why not use grape juice and a loaf of bread? Wouldn’t any liquid/solid food combo do?” So once upon a time, I remember this theoretical coming up in conversation: What if I’m with a church group and all we have with us is some grape kool aid and…
Little closet boxes, tiny little purple ribbon stoles, elaborate screens that hide collared men behind them, prescriptions to say 452 “Hail Mary’s” and 312 “Our Father’s”, starting off with the line “Forgive me, Father, it has been x amount of days since my last confession…” etc etc…. Those are the images that come up when…
On any given Sunday during worship, I am playing two different roles. Those roles are sacrificial and sacramental, and you can tell the difference by the way that I am facing. It explains one of the questions that I get quite often from people who didn’t grow up in the Lutheran church, “why do you…