Friday, October 20, 2023

One Small Step for a Congregation, One Giant Leap for Zoom

 

Charlie Sue: "You broke IBM, then Vimeo, what's NEXT!?"

Vimeo did us a favor last Sunday by conking out and staying out. This last straw led us into Zoom. I will be practicing tomorrow. It works with a link that I will send around and we can save the services for the Left Coast, where people get up much later than the Midwest and East Coast.

If you are skipped, let me know so I can send the link and also build up a good list. Before, the Vimeos and ancient IBMs were just there for everyone.

My prehistoric computer quit for good, but I had a spare. I finished the project of having a real Library with all the books and another computer - yes three main computers. I also have a laptop for trips. The Four are 

  1. The Library, 
  2. The Chapel, and 
  3. The Office, and 
  4. The Traveler.

The lonely coffee table  - where the Office computer waited for its big day - is now the place where choice Lutheran books and other classics are boxed and sent away for free. Our first happy recipient is enjoying hers now. More details will follow.

Alec Satin's Lutheran Library - Luther Examined and Reexamined

 



Almost Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Trinity 20 Second Sermon - "However, as I said, it is our old Adam, the corrupt nature, that does not allow the heart to lay hold of this knowledge, joy and consolation."

 

 


Complete Sermon -> Trinity 20 - Second Sermon - Parable of the Wedding Feast, Matthew 22:1-14


10. Therefore, wherever you see or hear bride and bridegroom, or the joy and beauty of a marriage feast, there open your eyes and heart, and behold what your loving Lord and Savior presents and shows to you, who prepares a glorious, royal marriage feast for you, his beloved bride, a living member if you believe in him. In that is eternal joy, good cheer, singing and springing, eternal ornaments, and all riches and the fullness of everything good.

11. Therefore a hearty confidence in him should grow and increase in thee that he called and chose thee through baptism to his fellowship through his inexpressible hearty love and received thee, to release thee from sin, eternal death and the power of satan, and imparted to thee his body and life, and all that he has; yea, he so completely gave himself to thee, that thou mayest not only glory in what he did for thy sake and gave to thee, but thou mayest comfortably and joyfully glory in him as being thine. And as a bride relies with hearty confidence upon her bridegroom and holds the heart of the bridegroom as her own heart, so do thou rely from the depth of thy heart upon the love of Christ, and entertain no doubt that he is not otherwise disposed to thee than as thy own heart is.

12. But this is opposed beyond measure in us by our old Adam, our flesh and blood, our blindness and the stiffened hardness of our hearts, which does not permit us to see or believe it; especially if we see and experience in ourselves and in this miserable life other things before our eyes and senses. For reason sees and understands it well that the marriage feast and bridal love are in themselves a lovely and cheerful picture, and it may be taught that Christ is a beautiful, noble, pious and faithful bridegroom, and his church a glorious, blessed bride. But things come to a stop later, when everyone is to believe for himself that he is also of Christ and a member of his body and Christ bears such a heart and love toward him. The reason is that I do not see such excellent glory in myself, but on the contrary my weakness and unworthiness, and feel nothing but sorrow, sadness and all kinds of suffering and even death, the grave, and maggots, which are about to consume me.

13. But in the face of this you should learn to believe the Word Christ himself speaks to you and God commands you to believe, that it is true (unless you wish to give God the lie) regardless of what you feel in your heart. For if you should believe, you must not cleave to what your thoughts and feelings say to you, but to what God’s Word says, no matter how little of it you may experience. Therefore, if you are a person who feels his need and misery and desires from the heart to partake of this comfort and love of Christ, then incline your ears and heart hither to Christ, and lay hold of this comforting picture he presents to you, wherewith he shows that he will have himself known and believed by you, that he has in his heart a much warmer love and a more loyal fidelity to you, than any bridegroom to his beloved bride. And on the other hand you should have a much heartier and greater confidence and joy in him than any bride has to her bridegroom. So that here you may justly chastise yourself because of your unbelief, and say: Behold, can the bridal love cause such hearty confidence and joy between the bride and the bridegroom, which is still of a low order and transitory? Why do I not rejoice much more over my holy and faithful Savior, Christ, who gave himself for me and to me wholly as my own?

Shame on me because of my unbelief, that my heart is not here full of laughter and eternal joy, when I hear and know how he says to me through his Word that he will be my beloved bridegroom. Should I not much rather have here another, a higher joy, and my eyes, thoughts, heart, and whole life cleave more to my beloved Savior, than a bride to her bridegroom, who, if she is a pious and true bride, sees and hears indeed nothing more gladly than her spouse? Yea, even when she does not see him and he is absent from her, her heart cleaves to him, so that she can not but think of him.

14. However, as I said, it is our old Adam, the corrupt nature, that does not allow the heart to lay hold of this knowledge, joy and consolation.

Fake Pastoral Shortage Alarms Mirthless Mark Schroeder - "I Thought We Were Closing Parishes Fast Enough!"

 

 J. C. Penney's

 Orans posture in ELDONA, a bit off.


  • The COP was informed that a task force to address the called worker shortage will be appointed in the coming weeks, as directed by the synod convention. The task force will craft recommendations for a synodwide effort to increase the number of candidates for the public ministry.
  • The COP approved a proposal to extend and encourage WELS teaching ministry certification for all early childhood teachers, whether called or hired. The COP also approved a proposal that makes a distinction between synodwide early childhood teacher certification (meaning that such certified teachers are able to be called anywhere) and local teacher certification, which certifies early childhood teachers for service in their own local congregation only.
  • The COP is asking the Synodical Council’s Compensation Review Committee to propose an appropriate manner of compensating directors and teachers for increased time commitments and responsibilities involved in early childhood education.
  • The Early Childhood Ministry Support Task Force is producing a document as a resource for early childhood education (ECE) leaders, boards, district coordinators, and district presidents to build awareness and give strategies on how to efficiently operate an ECE program while meeting the needs of ECE staff, parents, and children.
WELS has entered the majority grandparent stage, so a tide of seminary candidates is more of an ebb tide, the golden sun sinking in the West, oversized dorms for undersized classes. The ELS proved that when they started a parish in Bowling Green and saw everyone exit to the pearly gates.

The Diaper Changing Academies are the barns built in the hope of more kids, even though the other mainline declining congregations are doing the same thing.

Meanwhile, WELS has a number of former pastors in non-pastoral positions. The sect, run by GA Hazing graduates related to each other, is low on production and not likely to improve. They are especially enchanted by two deadly poisons:
1. Objective Faithless Justification is so obnoxious that they needed a new NIV to support the fantasy of everyone in the world being born forgiven and saved. The older NIV did not even attempt to claim OJ in Romans 3, but the newest version is defiantly Universalist. (Defiantly is WELS for definitely - not too good at spelling, either.) Justification by Faith makes them foam in the mouth.
2. The WELS pastors, in or out of the ministry, are so absorbed in their precious UOJ that they have no faith. They cannot teach or preach faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, miracle worker and Teacher, healing lepers and raising the dead, suffering on the cross for the sins of the world, rising from the grave and ascending to Heaven. 

The synod photographer needs a light bar.