We just finished the second round of voting for LCMS Synodical President, and the synod still doesn’t have an answer. According to the results posted at lcms.org, Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison received 46.3 percent. Rev. Dr. Joel Biermann received 46.0 percent. Three-tenths of one point apart. Merely 14 votes separating the two. We are now…
The mission infrastructure your congregation needs already exists. Most of it just isn’t pointed at anything yet.
There’s an accusation quietly circulating in Lutheran circles right now, and it usually sounds something like this: “If your church is growing, you must be watering something down.” It gets dressed up in more refined language with concerns about “faithful catechesis,” questions about “theological integrity,” whispers about whether a congregation is “truly confessional.” But strip…
Why knowing about the truth and actually being free are two completely different things Imagine. You go to the doctor and the scan shows something serious. The doctor sits down and tells you what she found. Do you look at her and say: well, that’s your version of the truth. I have my own version,…
There’s a moment that happens at every parade, every ballgame, every graveside service with a flag-draped casket where Americans who agree on almost nothing stand in the same posture, hand over heart, facing the same piece of cloth.
Faithfulness sometimes looks like letting go of what you’ve built so that something greater can be born. The case for merger, consolidation, and multisite as mission strategy — not institutional survival.
What happens when the light shows up in the places you’ve been hiding things You have a junk drawer. Don’t try to deny it. It’s the one in the kitchen. The one you close quickly when someone asks where the spoons are. It has a bottle opener, a lighter, some keys you can’t throw away…
The Outward Turn · Part One If your church ceased to exist tomorrow, would anyone outside your congregation know it was gone? Sit with that question for a moment before you answer it. Not the people on your roster. Not the families who would miss Sunday morning. Not the pastor whose livelihood depends on the…
Why the thing you’re drinking from isn’t satisfying the thirst you actually have We have a spring on the back of our property. It’s not dramatic. Just a wet spot on a hill that never dries out. Even in July when everything else is cracked and brown. Even in the winters when the temperature drops…
Why your passion is a doorway and not a distraction I have a friend whose entire world was sports. Not casually interested in sports. Completely fluent in sports. He could give you the batting average of any Reds player from 2014. He could tell you the rushing yards from every Buckeyes game he’d ever watched….
