Posts Categorized: Doctrine
Worship is not about time, it is about Time
Gottesdienst Online has some commentary about an article regarding a church who is introducing a worship service sans ceremony in order to fit it into 30 minutes to make it more palatable to the culture. This kind of thing is a capitulation to our facebook-twitter immediate-gratification drive-thru-window entertain-me-and-quick-or-I-will-be-bored culture. Worship is seen as, at best,… Read more »
Ends Justifying Means
I just saw a Gottesdienst blog post raising awareness of the capitulation of Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois. Sad situation, and I’m sure the first of many, but one sentence caught my attention: This is not really a tough decision ethically, because the bending or compromising of principles is never a good thing… Read more »
Worship is Preaching
Below is an email I sent to the WELS Hymnal Committee: Thank you for your patient work on the new hymnal. You have one of those impossible tasks wherein you will displease perhaps the bulk of people regardless of the result. Yet, it is a good work, and God will bless faithful work. I wanted… Read more »
Small Groups as an abandonment of the individual in favor of the community
Ran across this lecture by Chris Rosebrough recently, it is an interesting look at the intersection of philosophy, history, and the church growth movement. Highly recommend taking the time to listen. Probably also worth looking at the additional materials he has included.
A reason for the new WELS hymnal project
I’ve been looking for a stated reason why we are making a new hymnal. I’ve been afraid that the primary reason was simply to create something new, a generally bad reason for almost anything, but especially bad applied to the public worship of God’s people. However, in the March 2014 WELS Connection Close-up, there is… Read more »
Several things every confessional Lutheran church website must have
I’ve been on the road and trying to find places to worship of late. In doing so, I’m noticing several things that I always need on a site. I am listing them below for all the webmasters out there, and for me personally since the website I maintain for the church in which God has placed… Read more »
NIV as temporary
Interesting thoughts from Steadfast Lutherans today: The practice at Biblica has been to make the old versions disappear. That means one can no longer purchase a 1978 or 1984 version, nor can one access these versions online. … This means that the intended maximum lifetime use of the 1984 edition was 15 years. If a congregation or synod… Read more »
By faith alone.
Bah. It is all too hard. Why must I attempt to wrap my head around God’s gifts? Why can I not simply ignore the doubts which Satan implants and the sinful flesh relishes? Why must even my faith be imperfect? We are caught in a paradox where we understand and comprehend all things through reason…. Read more »
VBS and Worship
Can we stop this VBS thing? Someone make up their mind. Is VBS supposed to be teaching the young, evangelizing the lost, giving parents mornings off during the summer, or what? I think our true colors often come out with what we teach our kids. We have liturgy on Sunday morning, but in VBS we… Read more »