Northwoods Seelsorger

Most of us realize that the era of church growth has come to an end. In fact, it never really existed.  The mega churches simply recycled the disgruntled church shoppers by luring them in with promises of entertainment and feel-good services.  The current number of Lutherans in this country rests at 7.4 million.  That number represents a 10% drop during the years 1990 to 2010.  So, all those efforts to "grow the church" did little to nothing to stem the tide of loss.  Truth be known we probably sent as many to other denominations as out the back door. Now compare that figure with a place like India which has enjoyed a 1,379% growth rate in the Lutheran Church in that same 20 year period.  They currently have 1.9 million members in a country known more for its Hindus and other non-Christians as for Christians in general.  Ethiopia gave me another surprise.  They have 5.6 million total Lutherans and have registered a growth rate of 495%.  ...

Yesterday my parish celebrated its 125th anniversary.  In 1886, gathering in a log cabin structure, they made a beginning in the yet unbroken wilderness of northern Wisconsin that would later become a thriving rural parish. Times such as this give pause for reflection and an opportunity to gain perspective.  Many congregations, like people, are known to go through periods of panic and concern, especially when giving wanes and pews are empty.  They look to the unknown future and predict a dismal outcome.  Unfortunately such forecasting is terribly shortsighted.  Looking back we realize that we have lived through times far more challenging than anything recently experienced.  Certainly the Great Depression should have signaled our demise when economic distress reached its critical heights.  Yet still St. Peter congregation survived.  Anniversaries remind the parish that it is all about God's grace.  Looking back they should be humbled to real...

Recently news came in that Concordia University - St. Paul (my alma mater, class of '83) has a new president: t he Rev. Tom Ries .  Although a graduate of the seminary his passion seems to lie as much with financial management as with theology. His post-graduate education involves a MBA from the University of Minnesota, along with an almost earned Ph.D, the emphasis being finances in higher education. After a time with the LCMS Foundation as president, CSP recruited Ries as its own 9th president in its 118 year history.  I have never had the privilege of serving on a search committee for a college, university or seminary, so my knowledge of the criteria used to choose a president is next to zero.  However, looking back at the various presidents of the institutions where I have studied, I wonder if the criteria is changing.  When I was in college the president was a former chaplain and two-star general in the U.S. Army.  Other successors, as I recall, were creden...

Over the years I have wrestled with evangelism.  Not so much the doing of it, but the guilt of it, or better said, the guilt of not doing it.  Looking back in the history of my congregation as we prepare for our 125th anniversary, I noticed huge evangelism pushes back into the 1960's, and no doubt beyond.  It was "Church Growth" and "web evangelism"  and things of this sort by the 80's when my ministry started.  I remember going down to Ann Arbor to be trained in the Dialog Evangelism II program that had just been launched.  They took D.James Kennedy's work and reworked it again from Biesenthal's prior reworking, changing the "dialog questions" to reflect the new realities they observed in the population.  By the time I arrived out here in the country in 2000 Evangelism as a 'program' seemed much on the wane.  At any rate, one finds it difficult to carry out traditional door-to-door methods when your neighbors are mostly a half mil...

Dr. Matthew Becker recently highlighted the case of Pr. Robert Stuenkel who admitted to communing with his wife in an ELCA church and now finds himself under the cloud of discipline for his actions.  However, beyond Stuenkel's personal situation, Dr. Becker takes the opportunity to expand his discussion to the Synod's overall policy and practice regarding Close Communion.  Having faced this issue in my own parish with all the emotion and divisiveness that it can often bring, I understand the difficulties involved in the actual application of this policy. It is not my intention of arguing the pros and cons of the Synod's close(d) communion practice or the general tenets of our fellowship practice, although such would be a useful discussion.  I simply wish to ponder the implications of dispensing with our policies in these areas and what it would mean, long term, for our churches.  Now I do not propose strict avoidance of all worship settings in other churches, or the...

Pastor H.C. Curtis, in addition to referencing C.S. Lewis, who I included in the previous post, also mentioned what he termed the "seminal" article on the subject by Dr. David Scaer.  Predictably Dr. Becker scoffed at the 'seminal' idea of it all, suggesting that even his peers at St. Louis had issues with what he wrote.  At any rate, for those who may not have read this essay, a pdf copy of the CTQ article, "The Validity of the Churchly Acts of Ordained Women" from 1989 can be found here .  It is worth reading, despite Becker's disapproval.  Dr. Scaer does refer to his writing as "an exploratory essay," recognizing that responses to the issue of women's ordination is a relatively new challenge for the church to face (perhaps much more then than now.)  He notes well how the movement toward WO may also bring about adjustments in other theological areas, including our view of God Himself (as in the intrusion of inclusive language substitutin...

Dr. Ed Schroeder of the Crossings website certainly represents the left side of Lutheran thinking.  Thus, one should not be surprised if he champions liberal topics and issues (e.g. women's ordination, ecumenism, etc.), or if he refuses to embrace items like the inerrancy or infallibility of Holy Scripture.  After all, Dr. Schroeder left the LCMS many years ago in disagreement over many of those very issues.  It did seem surprising, however, to see his willingness not only to support homosexuality, but to allow the argument that the Confessions and Luther could be used to defend the idea that a person is "wired to be gay."  The thinking asserts that Luther would discuss the issue from the point of view of this theology of Creation (First Article) and given his opposition to forced celibacy in the priesthood would find homosexuality simply a 'left kingdom' item outside of the dictates of Scripture.  I would encourage readers to review the article "Topic: Gay i...

Pastor H. R. Curtis, in responding to Dr. Becker , recommended to the latter that he read the short article by C.S. Lewis entitled "Priestesses in the Church?"   Given the limitations of his venue of response he could not reproduce the source.  However, below, I share with you some passages quite pertinent to the current discussion on the relevance of gender when speaking of the Office of the Holy Ministry, or as Lewis puts it in Church of England terms, the role of priest.  I encourage anyone to read the article in full which can be found here , among other places, I suspect. Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to "Our Mother which art in heaven" as to "Our Father". Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity...

On many occasions this blog site has highlighted and critiqued Dr. Becker's own blog posts and other comments. Recently one of his posts spilled over into the realm of the Brothers of John the Steadfast site .  He also made an appearance on the ALPB site under the thread "Women's Ordination in the LCMS."   The dialogues have been spirited, to say the least.  After reading many of the posts on both sites (which I encourage readers here to review as well), a few thoughts occur to me: Dr. Becker expresses a theology that more and more resembles what I thought we battled and put to rest in the 1970's (more or less).  He does not seem to like the idea of a fully infallible and inerrant scripture, preferring to retreat instead to a culturally conditioned message of questionable relevancy (for some sections of scripture, at least.)   Although he quite willingly airs his views publicly and forcefully (on his blog and in other forums such as Gottesdienst, ALBP and Ste...

The Rev. Dr. F. Dean Lueking, a noted name from a past era in LCMS battles and current personality supporting present efforts to see certain liberal topics find acceptance, wrote an article on the renewed Daystar Journal website that offers interesting insights into a time of importance in Missouri's history.  I leave you to read the whole article, "Lutheranism: A Confessional Movement in the Church Catholic," and draw your own conclusions on its overall message (follow the link above.)  For my part I wish to extract but one section for comment.  Toward the end of his article in a concluding section entitled "SO, THEN...," Dr. Lueking states: Current hot button issues before LCMS Lutherans, women’s ordination and sexual ethics come to mind, are abstractions until and unless met by real people of faith, women and men, gay and straight, who wrestle them through in the power of the Word in the congregation. Denominational resolutions devoid of what is learned...

Well, it didn't take long to jump back into parish work.  Since the pastor scheduled to preach for me yesterday finds himself suffering from acute back issues, I returned to the pulpit a bit earlier than planned.  The past two weeks, however, offered a wonderful respite and sabbatical from regular parish responsibilities, so resuming work didn't bring the stress it might otherwise have.  Nevertheless, this session, like the one last summer, did bring challenges, at least in the ability to sit for extended periods of time and remain alert.  Between the two courses I logged around 60 hours of class time.  Dr. Pfatteicher and Dr. Herman provided much to think about and gave me a nice closure to the coursework part of my degree work.  I also took time to meet with my thesis advisor Dr. Arnold Klukas, to discuss preliminary work on the capstone of my degree.  As mentioned earlier I will be researching the use of the Apocalypse in the worship of the church....