Economic downturn has negative effect on the collection plate

The Journal Sentinel from Milwaukee has an interesting article on offerings received by religious groups.

They report that the Lakeland Baptist Association saw its member contributions drop 15% in 2008.

Greater Milwaukee Synod of the ELCA dropped 6%.

These are certainly difficult times for churches. We will need to learn to be creative and trusting in the months ahead.

Read the complete article here.

How Personality Based Ministries End

I read quite a bit of material to keep current in religion and politics. I hope to keep you updated on some of the current events in religious news that I find significant or interesting.

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the Crystal Cathedral and the potential collapse of this ministry. Here is a particularly important quotation from the article:

"The Crystal Cathedral blames the recession for its woes. But it's clear that the elder Schuller's carefully orchestrated leadership transition, planned over a decade, has stumbled badly.

It's a problem common to personality driven ministries. Most have collapsed or been greatly diminished after their founders left the pulpit or died."

The temporary success of personality based ministries should not entice us to abandon the foundations of our faith.

You can read the entire article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/31/AR2009013100872.html?wprss=rss_religion

March for Life

Can't make it to the 36th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., next week? Follow the action online as LCMS President Gerald Kieschnick, members of the LCMS Sanctity of Human Life Committee, LCMS Life Ministry staff members, and Lutherans from around the country join thousands of other pro-life supporters expected this year. For up-to-the-minute web coverage (videos, audio interviews, photos, and more) about Lutherans on march day, visit www.lcms.org/marchforlife.

The Bible Translation that Rocked the World

Here's an article from Christian History that I hope you will enjoy.

The Bible Translation That Rocked the World

Luther's Bible introduced mass media, unified a nation, and set the standard for future translations.
Henry Zecher

Martin Luther was many things: preacher, teacher, orator, translator, theologian, composer, and family man. He came to symbolize everything the Protestant Reformation stood for.

But perhaps Luther's greatest achievement was the German Bible. No other work has had as strong an impact on a nation's development and heritage as has this Book.

In Luther's time, the German language consisted of several regional dialects (all similar to the tongue spoken in the courts of the Hapsburg and Luxemburg emperors). How were these scattered dialects united into one modern language? The rise of the middle class, the growth of trade, and the invention of the printing press all played a part. But the key factor was Luther's Bible.

The Wartburg Wonder

Following the Diet of Worms in 1521, Luther's territorial ruler, Frederick the Wise, had Luther hidden away for safekeeping in the castle at Wartburg. Luther settled down and translated Erasmus's Greek New Testament in only eleven weeks. This is a phenomenal feat under any circumstances, but Luther contended with darkened days, poor lighting, and his own generally poor health.

Das Newe Testament Deutzsch was published in September 1522. A typographical masterpiece, containing woodcuts from Lucas Cranach's workshop and selections from Albrecht Durer's famous Apocalypse series, the September Bibel sold an estimated five thousand copies in the first two months alone.

Luther then turned his attention to the Old Testament. Though well taught in both Greek and Hebrew, he would not attempt it alone. "Translators must never work by themselves," he wrote. "When one is alone, the best and most suitable words do not always occur to him." Luther thus formed a translation committee, which he dubbed his "Sanhedrin." If the notion of a translation committee seems obvious today, it is because such scholars as Philipp Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, John Bugenhagen, and Caspar Cruciger joined Luther in setting the precedent. Never before, and not for many years after, was the scholarship of this body equaled.

Forcing Prophets to Speak German

Luther remained the principal translator, however. His spirit motivated and guided the Sanhedrin in producing a translation that was not literal in the truest sense of the word. He wanted this Bible to be in spoken rather than bookish or written German. Before any word or phrase could be put on paper, it had to pass the test of Luther's ear, not his eye. It had to sound right. This was the German Bible's greatest asset, but it meant Luther had to straddle the fence between the free and the literal.

"It is not possible to reproduce a foreign idiom in one's native tongue," he wrote. "The proper method of translation is to select the most fitting terms according to the usage of the language adopted. To translate properly is to render the spirit of a foreign language into our own idiom. I try to speak as men do in the market place. In rendering Moses, I make him so German that no one would suspect he was a Jew."

The translators used the court tongue as their base language but flavored it with the best of all the dialects they could find in the empire. Luther, a relentless perfectionist who might spend a month searching out a single word, talked at length with old Germans in the different regions. To better understand the sacrificial rituals in the Mosaic law, he had the town butcher cut up sheep so he could study their entrails. When he ran into the precious stones in the "new Jerusalem" that were unfamiliar to him, he had similar gems from the elector's collection brought for him to study. Read the rest of the article here

Dissertation Defense

I am happy to report that yesterday I completed my dissertation defense of Concordia at Christ Lutheran Church: Introducing the Lutheran Confessions to a Lutheran Congregation at Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN.

Dr. Q.

Christianity is a distinct culture.

Here is an excellent article by Rev. Dr. Scott R. Murray. If you haven't subscribed to his daily devotions email, you really owe it to yourself. Pastor Murray is pastor of Memorial Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas. This is part of his daily devotions for January 8, 2009.

Christianity is a distinct culture. Usually, we think of Christianity fitting into a given culture, such as Western culture; not as a separate and distinct culture. Culture comes from the Latin word (cultus) which means, among other things, "worship." Usually culture is defined as "the way of life for an entire society;" and includes worship, spirituality, structure, ethics, and behavior. Culture is about "everything."

Christianity is a distinct culture in so far as it reflects in the behavior of the church the spirituality of the God who gives it divine worship. The culture of the church includes a strong boundary between belief and unbelief, truth and falsehood, wisdom and foolishness. That boundary also implies a decisive break with the world and its ways. The cult of the Western world, although arising in the cradle of the church, is no longer directed by its original mother. Western culture has become a self-willed Nietzschean bastard, coming of age cut off from God its Father and its mother, the church. This coming of age has a profound effect on the church. She is now forced to distinguish herself from her bastard child. She can no longer expect support from the cult of the West based as it is on self willed and self centered knowledge; knowledge always critical of both Father and mother, as though an ill-mannered teen.

For example, the Western university and its open enquiry into truth and the nature of reality arises out of the Christian insistence that all of truth is God's. And though the Western university tradition was fraught with many battles over the validity of certain kinds of knowledge, still there was over the long haul an openness about the modes and methods of enquiry into the world and the nature of God. That openness is now being closed off in the dying of the light. Matters of spirit, life, truth, beauty, ultimacy, and God are routinely ruled "out of bounds" in the so-called secular universities. They have forgotten that even the saeculum, "the age" remains God's. Finally, the cultus of the West has become the cult of the self; drowning in the solipsistic sea of foolishness and rabid and intentional ignorance of the cross of Christ. How tragically this narrowing of thought impoverishes the Western world. But this foolish narrowness is not new to Christianity. It has its roots in Eden's invention of the cult of self. Paul the apostle speaks of it as the foolishness of unbelief. The foolishness of the cross despite all this still looms as the wisdom of God. This is the church's cultus.

The Real Twelve Days of Christmas

Here's an article from ChristianHistory.Net that you may be interested in. It begins:

The Real Twelve Days of Christmas

Celebrating Christ's birth with saints of the faith during the actual Christmas season.

Edwin and Jennifer Woodruff Tait

Sometime in November, as things now stand, the "Christmas season" begins. The streets are hung with lights, the stores are decorated with red and green, and you can't turn on the radio without hearing songs about the spirit of the season and the glories of Santa Claus. The excitement builds to a climax on the morning of December 25, and then it stops, abruptly. Christmas is over, the New Year begins, and people go back to their normal lives.

The traditional Christian celebration of Christmas is exactly the opposite. The season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and for nearly a month Christians await the coming of Christ in a spirit of expectation, singing hymns of longing. Then, on December 25, Christmas Day itself ushers in twelve days of celebration, ending only on January 6 with the feast of the Epiphany. Exhortations to follow this calendar rather than the secular one have become routine at this time of year. But often the focus falls on giving Advent its due, with the Twelve Days of Christmas relegated to the words of a cryptic traditional carol. Most people are simply too tired after Christmas Day to do much celebrating.

The "real" twelve days of Christmas are important not just as a way of thumbing our noses at secular ideas of the "Christmas season." They are important because they give us a way of reflecting on what the Incarnation means in our lives.

Read the rest of the article.

Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs

Here's an interesting article about a study published in the winter 2008 issue of the Sociological Quarterly.

Church Attendance Boosts Student GPAs

The article says "If you want to boost your teenager's grade point average, take the kid to church."

"Students who attend religious services weekly average a GPA .144 higher than those who never attend services, said Jennifer Glanville, a sociologist at the University of Iowa."

"The study ... identifies several reasons the students do better:

• They have regular contact with adults from various generations who serve as role models.
• Their parents are more likely to communicate with their friends' parents.
• They develop friendships with peers who have similar norms and values.
• They're more likely to participate in extracurricular activities."

"Kids who attended church were also more likely to have friends with higher GPAs who skipped school less often, Glanville said."

Read the article here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080819/sc_livescience/churchattendanceboostsstudentgpas

Secondhand Witnessing

Christianity Today sent me an email promoting a piece titled Secondhand Witnessing by Holly Vicente Robaina.

The email made this interesting comment "the desire to share our faith through Christian paraphernalia often comes from a good place: we want others to experience the difference Jesus can make in their lives. But this approach may do just the opposite, repel rather than invite conversation."

Read the entire blogpost at Walk With Me - A Today's Christian Woman Blog.

Midwest Flooding

Here's a report on what's going on with the LCMS and the Midwest Flooding:

Members turn to each other for help after flooding hits Midwest

By Linda C. Hoops

While storms continued to sweep over much of the Upper Midwest Thursday (June 12), LCMS congregations and members began assessing damage, but still managed to find some rays of hope amidst the devastation.

Read the full article

Issues, Etc

You may have heard about LCMS radio show, Issues Etc. that was taken off the air. Here's a Wall Street Journal Online opinion piece that is helpful in understanding what's happening.

WSJ

HOUSES OF WORSHIP

Radio Silence
By MOLLIE ZIEGLER HEMINGWAY
March 28, 2008; Page W11

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120667366412170875.html

The folded napkin

There is a story floating around the Internet on the folded napkin mentioned in John 20:7. The interpretation given in this e-story is that the folded napkin is a symbolic message from Jesus meaning that Jesus is coming back. I had never heard this story before, so I thought I'd check out what commentators say about John 20:7. The ones that I checked were unanimous in saying that since things were orderly in the tomb, this meant that there had not been a grave robbery.

None of them mentioned a symbolic meaning, "I'm coming back." Of course we believe that Christ will return but probably the folded napkin is not a coded message from Jesus. It seems that this story originated in 2007. No one knows where. Here are a couple of places that you can check this out.

JerusalemPerspective.com Exploring the Jewish background to the Life and Words of Jesus
http://forum.jerusalemperspective.com/viewtopic.php?t=377

Truth or Fiction.com The Folded Napkin in Jesus' Tomb
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/f/folded-napkin.htm

Forgery Trial In Israel

As you may know I have an interest in Biblical archaeology. A number of years ago an ossuary (bone box) with an inscription “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," came to light. It became quite famous. Eventually the Israel Antiquities Authority declared it a forgery along with some other rather famous artifacts. It seems to some that the story is over but in fact nothing has been settled yet. A number of scholars believe that the James ossuary inscription is authentic. Read a commentary on the Forgery Trial here. http://bib-arch.org/trial/bswbTrialIntro.asp

Lutheran Church Burned in Kenya

Springs of Life Lutheran Church, nursery school, and the newly remodeled Luther Health Centre in Kibera, Kenya, were looted and set ablaze Thursday afternoon as riots continued for the fifth day following heated presidential elections. "No amount of pleading would stop them," said Rev. David Chuchu, Project Coordinator for ELCK (Evangelical Lutheran Church Kenya). He also said a neighboring African Inland Church was burned.

Read More

LCMS missionaries OK in Kenya

Two Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod missionary couples stationed outside of Nairobi, Kenya, are safe and do not appear to be in harm's way despite five days of post-election rioting in the city that has led to more than 300 deaths, widespread destruction of property, and the displacement of more than 100,000 people.

Read More

Gospel of Judas - a correction

If you have been following the news about the so-called Gospel of Judas, this New York Times Article will be of interest to you . Apparently the National Geographic Society got the translation of the Gospel of Judas wrong.

April DeConick, a specialist in Gnostic Christianity, writes that the National Geographic Society made important errors in its publication ofThe Gospel of Judas.

Here is another article from the Christian Century that covers the same subject. It pays to wait until all the evidence is in.

The Golden Compass

Here are some Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod resources on The Golden Compass

Thoughts on The Golden Compass: C.S. Lewis and His Anti-Self

by Dr. Joel D. Heck

FREE "Golden Compass" Downloadable Study Questions from CPH!

California Fires

LCMS Provides Aid to Wildfire Victims

In its role as a first-responder when disaster strikes, LCMS World Relief and Human Care, the mercy arm of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS), is assessing needs and determining ways the church can render aid in fire-ravaged Southern California. Assistance will include providing grants to the LCMS Pacific Southwest District so that along with emotional and spiritual care, the district also can provide financial assistance to its congregations, members, and neighbors in need.

There are some 216 LCMS congregations in Southern California with 70,393 members. At present, no LCMS churches are reporting damage, though many members’ homes have been destroyed or damaged. At least two congregations are in the line of fire—Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church in Lake Arrowhead and Light of the Valley in Valley Center.

Rev. Glenn Merritt, director of disaster response, and Rev. Carlos Hernandez, director of districts and congregations, both for LCMS World Relief and Human Care, are in Southern California meeting with LCMS pastors and Pacific Southwest District staff to identify resources. Early response and assistance includes: Members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Temecula are volunteering at the local Red Cross shelter to help their neighbors in distress; St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Pacific Beach is accepting donations to distribute to thousands of evacuees at Qualcomm Stadium and Del Mar Fairgrounds; Rev. Douglas Jones of St. James Lutheran Church in Imperial Beach spent Monday and Tuesday at Qualcomm Stadium providing spiritual support in the medical section; Several churches, including Community Lutheran Church in Escondido, are serving as shelters for some of the displaced persons.

LCMS World Relief and Human Care made an initial disbursement of $50,000 today to the Pacific Southwest District office to be distributed to congregations to assist members who were evacuated. “Financial assistance, volunteering, and providing shelter are just some of the ways we are providing immediate assessment and response,” said LCMS World Relief and Human Care’s Hernandez. “Much work lies ahead of us as needs continue to surface in the aftermath of what is being called one of the worst fire disasters in California history.”

For more information on the LCMS response to the Southern California wildfire disaster, visit http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=12681.

Issues Etc and Small Groups

Sunday night Issues Etc. had an interesting two hour show on small groups.

Rev. Tim Rossow of Bethany Lutheran Church Naperville, IL is the featured guest.

Pastor Rossow and I have taken many Doctor of Ministry classes together. He is an extremely intelligent and articulate man. Here is a link to the Issues Etc site.

Reformation Worship

I hope that you will take advantage of both Reformation worship opportunities.

1. Christ Lutheran Church - October 28 8:00 & 10:45 a.m. Christ Lutheran Brass and Christus Choir. I'll be preaching.

2. St. Joseph Circuit Reformation Service, St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Niles, Mi. 4 p.m. Preacher: The Rev. Dr. Cameron A. MacKenzie

Dr. MacKenzie is supervisor for my Doctor of Ministry project/dissertation!