The Organization Declares the Word - OR - The Word of God Forms the Institution According to God's Will

 

I am quite sure that many agree with this basic description of denominations today - 

The organization, just like the Church of Rome, tells everyone what the Scriptures say - that is, the Biblical passages they mangle mercilessly.

In this respect, there is no difference between one denomination and the others, except a different emphasis. The important part is who rules what the Scriptures say.

They agree about repudiating the Apostolic witness in the Majority Text, and they despise the King James Version - the best and most precise English Bible.

They punish and expel those who seek the Word instead of the brass-knuckle law of the denomination. 

They reward their in-bred relatives, protect their felons, and treat any departure from their decrees as horrible sins punishable by stink-eye, shunning, and permanent exclusion. 

In Contrast

Those who study the Word of God as it is, instead of forcing a specific structure on everyone (to benefit the hierarchy), will find that God's efficacious Word accomplishes miracles apart from land, titles, and endowments.

One small but significant example - I have joked with people that if I demanded a member find and produce hundreds of classic Lutheran and Christian works, with dozens of them brought into print, I would have been called a bully, a thug, a tyrant, a megalomaniac. 

But that is what Alec Satin, Lutheran Librarian, has done - and he continues! If I post numbers, they will be obsolete tomorrow. 

Or - "Listen here - Norma A. Boeckler - buy and learn Photoshop and start producing Christian graphics - hundreds upon hundreds - many hundreds alone just for The Lutheran Hymnal hymns!" 

My email would have boiled over with rage from the membership and many other readers. But Norma did that on her own because she loves combining art with the Christian Faith.

Pastor Rydecki Is No Longer an ELDONUT

 

About Emmanuel

Rev. Paul A. Rydecki, Pastor

Greetings! Emmanuel Lutheran Church has been gathering around God’s Word and Sacraments in Las Cruces since the late 1970’s.  We officially organized as a mission of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) in 1987.  For awhile we met together in homes, at bridge clubs and at the local VFW, but since 1992 we have been gathering at our present facility on Highway 70. We became an independent Lutheran congregation in 2012, no longer affiliated with the WELS.

Rev. Paul A. Rydecki has been serving as our pastor since April, 2007. Pastor Rydecki graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2000 after completing eight years of pastoral training and was ordained into the Office of the Holy Ministry in July, 2000. He served as a WELS missionary in Puerto Rico and in Mexico from 2000 – 2007 and was a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA) from 2013 until 2022, when he chose to become an independent Lutheran pastor. He is fluent in Spanish, and also has a love for German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

Inevitable - Plants and Weeds

 

 

We had a funny episode yesterday. Ranger Bob decided to move the soil from his non-productive flower boxes and donate the contents to my yard. Soon the truck appeared with a load of soil and three men, so I went to get my shoes on and see where they were putting it.

Two mounds of soil were parked on top of two Coconut Daisies, which I had planted and watered almost daily during the drought. The soil movers left the scene quickly, so I grabbed my roll of POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS and stretched the tape across the entrance to the backyard.

We had a laugh over the plight of the two plants and a ton of soil covering them. Moreover, a thick layer of wood mulch was also buried.

Gardeners soon learn this - or abandon the hobby. "Every year will be great disappointments and even greater surprises." This year, my collection of butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees reached a peak, where all three creature groups conspired to generate a constant display to enjoy. In the afternoon shade, the sun is behind the house and we drink coffee and watch. The fearless hummingbirds come within inches.

The Coconut Daisies were prospering in the Rose Garden while suffering in the burning heat of the backyard fence area. 

The Gospel lesson for Matthew 7:15ff is quite clear - weeds produce nothing of value, but good plants can only produce good fruit. Even the Rugosa Rose is doing its part. That plant is not much for roses but produces big, fat, red seed pods called "hips." The hips are loaded with Vitamin C and invite 

• birds to gather them, 
• people to make rose hip tea for colds and poxes.

 "I am stuck on Unstuck Church, cuz Unstuck's stuck on me. I am..."

"Barry Manilow took a break from singing “Mandy” to write the popular “I am stuck on Band-Aid” jingle in 1976. This jingle, and the commercial it was part of, were all over TV in the 80’s. The campaign even went on to receive a CLIO award for excellence in advertising. People haven’t been able to get the song out of their heads ever since!"

The laughable clowns like the Unstuck zombies try so hard to develop a product they can sell to the desperate. I can give away a non-secret: "Those who believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins and rose from the grave - they will produce fruit, the nature of God's plan. That fruit will glorify God in every possible way."

If you search for these men's failures, look around. Their rapidly growing weeds have filled the world with astonishment and prompted this question - "How do we get rid of them?"