One year and counting!

Well, I have been here a year today. My first anniversary.
Is the honeymoon over? More importantly am I prepared to work at making this relationship happen? Yes. Or as they said up north in my seminary days -- You Betcha, ya sure!
Here are some review items from the year:
We took a photo at the former church location on Cole Avenue for the 86th birthday of the congregation. A new Men-ghetti (Men Who Love Spaghetti) fellowship group was started. A few folks tried their building skills with a Habitat for Humanity house in Old Plano. We shared special worship services for Lent and Advent besides our regular Sunday morning celebration of prayer, singing, Scriptures, sermon, and communion. In addition, we celebrated two special German-language services for Mid-Summer and Reformation Sunday. And some seven languages infused our Pentecost celebration. For Thanksgiving we joined with two area Lutherans congregations for worship. We also hosted the synod-wide Reformation Day “Marty Party” on October 31.
We spruced up the building a bit, especially our long hallway. We offered film festivals of Bible-themed movies as well as the Life of Luther. I also started leading a Thursday morning Bible Study at the Classic Residences, a Senior High Rise nearby. Plus Confirmation classes were initiated.

I Timothy 1:5: “But the aim … is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.”

Happy First Anniversary, indeed!

Haiti News

Such tragic reports are coming out of Haiti -- the sheer number of deaths is almost overwhelming, almost unreal. Sometimes it helps to narrow to one person. In my case, I just heard about a young Lutheran seminary student, Benjamin Larson, killed while training lay people for leadership in the fledgling Haitian Lutheran Church. You can read more from CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/01/14/haiti.seminarian.killed/index.html (You have to paste this link into your browser.)
Now I have connections -- he is about the same age as my oldest child; I am a pastor and still remember the excitement of internship and preparing for a first call; I now teach a class for lay leadership development.
Now I can connect with one of the thousands; now the thousands become more real.
How can our hearts reach out to even more families at the loss of many more young men, many more servants of God, many more mothers and fathers and children and ... ?

https://community.elca.org/NetCommunity/SSLPage.aspx?pid=538

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. The people of God have mercy.

Post-Christmas in Ireland

I took off for Ireland the Sunday after Christmas with wife, daughter, son, and mother-in-law in tow.
What a surprisingly wonderful country! Also, what a freezing cold country! (Coldest winter in a 100 years.) I enjoyed discovering so much. Perhaps I will comment more fully later, but for right now, I want to reflect on the "Celtic" cross.
Much has been made of its shape -- cross with round circle. Debate has been if that was a way to incorporate pre-Christian beliefs. But I want to say, I was amazed at its presence in the country. I saw ancient crosses (from about 1000 AD) through modern gravestones with the motif. I was especially impressed by the Monasterboice crosses I saw the first day in country. Photos are attached. Huge structures affirming the crucifixion, but other space with pictures of other Christian stories. Amazing design and execution. Enjoy the photos.

"Religious" Christmas Stamp

For the past several years, I have made it a point to ask for the "religious" Christmas stamp. I pick the Virgin and Child art rather than snow people or Christmas trees or antique toys or nutcrackers or whatever else is offered, even though those others can be cutely tempting. But I may have to be even more specific. For several years in the USA, postal customers wanting a "religious" holiday stamp in the Fall can/could select from Virgin and Child or EID or Hanukkah stamps. So, I think I will need to be even more vocal in my religious stamp preference and ask specifically for the Christian stamp! That could be a small witness to our special celebration.
Merry (almost) Christmas!

Advent, NOT Christmas

Here it is the second Wednesday in the Season of Advent. I am preparing for Evening Prayer and expect a small group to be present. I know I am supposed to focus on anticipation of Christ, the coming of the Lord. In other words, NO Christmas carols. Yet, it is the joy of Christmas I am looking forward to as well. What a great time to pull out all the Christian celebration and the secular world will even join in a little of it. So I wait -- but I want to get there -- part of that "proleptic eschatology" that my buddy Ryan Mills reminded me of. (Yes, he is a pastor, too.) Basically, it is the "already, but not yet" nature of the faith we have. All the promise is ours, but we we have not yet seen it all. That does not make it less true, just less realized. Ah, well, perhaps, I could at least put up this much Christmas decoration (my house would be on the right hand side -- that's where you want to be when it comes to God!).



(The red lights say "Ditto" in case it is not showing well.)

"The Blind Side"

"The Blind Side" : NOT a Thanksgiving turkey, but a Thanksgiving gift for the movie-going public.
What a warm, rich, challenging film for movie-goers this season -- and NO vampires!
I did not have great expectations of the film, but was deeply impressed by a tear-jerker film, which dealt with Southern racism, football frenzy, drug culture and its threat on poor families and young persons. What about those lost children that are "raised" in the middle of addicted parents and their pushers? How do they survive? Well, here is one story. Although a white family ultimately rescues the young man, he has independently developed skills that allow him to escape, to embrace the opportunity provided. One could only wish that situation for all children in such poverty and potential hopelessness.
Another noteworthy aspect of this film was the Christian faith that was just included as an obvious aspect of the family's life. No apologies; no creepiness; just a real faith lived out in the interaction with others. One hopes that good Christian folks would open the table of thanksgiving for even more unlikely characters -- not just in films but in everyday life.

Social Networking and the Church

Social Networking is what the church is all about -- from the time of Jesus calling the 12 Apostles as well as the numerous men, women, and children to his side during his earthly ministry, to the Pentecost celebration, to the work of Paul calling scattered races to believe. The church is in the social networking business. The challenge is how to make that happen in this time when so many other options abound. Sunday church, well done, is a great place to start.

Mighty Fortress LEGO-style

Yes, that great Lutheran festival of Reformation Day is approaching on October 31! And Luther has invaded even LEGO-world! (Check out his hammer as LEGO Luther is ready to post the 95 Theses again!)
Enjoy!

New York City Research

For the last of my Continuing Education this year, I visit Wagner College on Staten Island in New York City, in order to research Northern Lutheran observations on the South, slavery, and the Civil War. Wagner holds the Sutter Memorial Archives related to New York area Lutheranism. The collection proved to be more extensive than I anticipated. Do I have to go again? Soon? To New York City?
Thanks so much to Clint Daggan, the son of the Sutter Archivist, John Daggan. Clint also showed me some of his research into northern responses to the Civil War -- very helpful indeed.
When I researched the history of Texas Lutherans long ago, I interviewed a very senior pastor (Fred Kern) who actually left Texas in the 1920's to attend Wagner. I tried to imagine this tall Texas from the scrub of south central Texas in the big city of New York -- what a cultural shift, but he taught horseback riding in Central Park and met his wife, an accomplished musician, in the city. God leads folks all kinds of directions.
Do I have to go again? Soon?

"I am a seething mass of Lutheran Midwestern guilt."

"I am a seething mass of Lutheran Midwestern guilt," said David Letterman on national TV. Letterman may not be the poster child of the Lutheran faith with the subsequent confession of multiple partner sexual experiences.
I would have hoped that his Midwestern Lutheran experience would have limited his transgressions. Perhaps the guilt after one or two experiences could have stopped or slowed him. Is he feeling guilty only because he got caught?
We do not yet know the extent of his actions, but we can hope that his guilt will limit his future actions. And we could hope even more, that he might embrace his Christian roots and embrace personal reform: personal witness to sin, forgiveness, and new life.