Bethany and Concordia

When I began sending out newsletters, I thought it would be sporadic. The last one was in 2008, so my prediction was correct. There are good reasons why this newsletter should be sporadic, even though I am a full-time pastor. Those reasons are the things more important than sending out newsletters, things that should not be sporadic.

Our most important activity is the weekly Divine Service. Behind that comes our efforts to educate all ages, especially (for me) those in catechism class. I’m pleased to report that my efforts to keep those from becoming sporadic have been working! Yet we should still keep encouraging each other to make use of them on a non-sporadic basis. That includes Lutheran Family Fellowship at Bethany, which is a faith-growing activity for youth, for children, and for adults.

Vicar

There are two major items of news in our parish. First and foremost, we have requested a vicar from our synod’s seminary, and one has been assigned. (A vicar is a 4th-year seminary student, who will serve and learn in a parish for eleven months.)

A number of early pledges showed a surprising level of commitment among our members to support a vicar, and the vicar’s housing and utilities have worked out so well that we have to give God the credit for making this possible. If that were not enough, the vicar assigned to us is Samuel Gullixson, whose wife Anna is a daughter of (pending) Concordia member Beda Norman. Beda recently moved to Klickitat, and is excited to have the Gullixsons, with her 7-month-old grandson Abel, in the area. They will arrive in early July, but Terry Nelson will be driving their truck back from Mankato. When he arrives in The Dalles, we could use your help unloading it into the Gullixson’s house on 16th Street below MCMC.

Visits

The second news item is that all our Bethany members will be receiving a call from Linda Griswold, who has graciously consented to set up home visit appointments for me. Home visits are much more important than sending a newsletter, and only a little less important than our education efforts. It’s your family’s chance to speak to me in private, with my full attention. We’ll also have a brief Bible study and talk about how we might better serve each other. I anticipate that we’ll do the same kind of thing at Concordia in 2010. Vicar Gullixson will accompany me on some of these visits.

If you’d like to receive newsletters more often, you can do so online! Go to our church web site (address on the bulletin), and click the “Newsletter (blog)” link in the left-side navigation bar.

As we begin another summer in this beautiful land God made, I wish you peace and safety in your travels and enjoyment in your recreation. Remember to acknowledge the One who provides all these things for us, not only in your thoughts, but in your daily words, and in your weekly actions. Jesus loves you in such a way that He has provided an even better place for us all. I look forward to seeing you in church, where He comes weekly to bestow this greatest gift.

I’ve finally looked into the slight distortion in our audio sermons. It made my voice sound slightly chipmunkish, but otherwise OK. Though I suspected the problem was a mistake on my part, it turns out to be a mistake on the part of our microphone recording device. The non-technical will be glad to know that I can apparently correct it, so hopefully future recordings will sound closer to normal.

The technically-inclined may want to know what the problem actually is. My recording device, a Zoom H2, seems to be using a sample rate somewhat lower than the rate it claims to use. Since I record this audio to compact disc, I use a sample rate of 44.1 kilohertz, meaning there are 44,100 digital samples taken per second. That’s the standard for audio CDs. However, when the CD has been made, or when your computer plays a file made with the incorrect assumption that the source audio was truly recorded at 44.1 khz, it results in some distortion of the sound. The effect is the same as with a tape recorder that runs slower than it should. When the tape is played on a correctly-running tape player, voices will be chipmunkish.

The solution for now is to have the recorder use a sample rate of 48 khz (an industry standard for DVDs and other media), which turns out to be a little lower than that as well. Then, when I encode that audio data for compression, I override the incoming audio file’s reported 48 khz sample rate with a sample rate of 44.1 khz. The result sounds much better in testing.

On a related note, I apparently upgraded some of the software needed to add a service to the sermon audio archives on our web site, and the new version changed something. It rendered unusable the mp3 files from the first four Sundays in May, but I was able to restore the most recent one after finding and fixing the problem. The Speex files were unaffected.

Gene Edward Veith quotes Anthony Sacramone, describing the way the Christian Church responds to a hostile culture. For a long time now, many have assumed that the American culture we live in somehow promotes, or at least allows Christian values. It has become evident over the years that this is not only untrue, but that our culture has been actively undermining and deconstructing Christian values. The goal of this strategy is the destruction of the Church, even here in the United States. Understand that when I write “Church,” I mean genuine believers everywhere who gather around God’s Word and Sacraments, not the visible institutions of this world that we call “churches.” It is the Church of Jesus Christ to which our culture is hostile, and this is evident in those congregations and church bodies that have abdicated the pure teaching of holy scripture. Those are the ones that our culture affirms, while faithful congregations and church bodies are condemned as “haters” and “intolerant.”

So it has ever been in this fallen world, and the sooner we accept the reality, the better prepared we Christians will be. In the article that Veith quotes, Sacramone points to the ways various denominations have established a foothold in the hostile culture. For Lutherans, he mentions Christian day schools, while for Roman Catholics and others, he mentions hospitals. He points out that socialized medicine may eliminate the most important characteristics of Christian hospitals, but our hostile culture has long attempted to compromise the foothold of Christian schools, too. In this phase of the struggle, things may be going better for our schools than for hospitals, but the next phase may bring something else. An evaluation of the current public school curriculum reveals an active agenda there that is hostile toward Christianity, and bent upon programming students with a secular worldview. This presents serious challenges to Christian parents, who are often at a disadvantage in the time they have available to spend with their children. At the moment, I am thankful that my own family is able to provide a Christian school at home, and I am happy to offer materials like this for families and schools that can make some use of it.

The hostility of culture toward our faith is worth much meditation and prayer. Maybe there are other ways for us to establish a foothold for our faith, or to raise our children to be the future of the Church. But finally, we must concede that our own strength is not enough. The Church is founded upon the confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and only upon that foundation will she stand through the End.

Christianity is no ordinary religion. It’s the true religion. Though many of our neighbors are “choosing” their religion, they fail to realize that these choices bring them no closer to the true God or eternal life.

Being a member of the Christian Church is not like joining a club. No, it’s much better than that. First, nobody can just decide to join the Christian Church. Membership comes from the Holy Spirit alone, who works this miracle through the message of the Gospel and through Baptism. Second, a club imposes obligations upon its members, like dues or participation in club events. Membership in the Christian Church is far too costly for any of us to afford. Our dues were paid forever by the blood of God’s Son. The benefits of a club are quite temporary, but membership in the Christian Church grows into eternal life.

The Christian Church is the collection of God’s saints in Christ “in which the Gospel in purely taught and the Sacraments are correctly administered” (Augsburg Confession VII). It’s world-wide, and spans Time from Adam to the End. Your local congregation is one expression of it.

However, just because a congregation calls itself “Christian” does not mean it is. Read the quote again in the last paragraph. If the Gospel is impurely taught, or if the Sacraments are incorrectly administered, we can’t be 100% sure that the Christian Church is there. So please, if you have a criticism about the teaching of the Gospel or the administration of the Sacraments at your congregation, speak to your pastor ASAP.

Beside the Holy Christian Church, we also call our local congregation a “church.” Like the Church, churches don’t charge any dues. Their benefits are also eternal, as long as they teach the pure Gospel and administer the Sacraments correctly. But unlike the Church, we can see who belongs to our local congregation, and we have operating expenses to keep the lights on, the doors open, the restrooms working, the lawn mowed, and — most importantly – the Gospel preached and taught from week to week, and the Sacraments administered.

The Gospel and the Sacraments are a conduit provided by God that runs directly from Christ crucified almost 2,000 years ago to the person who hears the Gospel or receives the Sacraments. It’s how we receive forgiveness of sins, spiritual rebirth, faith, and eternal life. It’s how the Holy Spirit blesses us. We need it daily.

December is when we think about the next year’s church budget. You might do this in your family, too. I’d like you to remember a few things this December. First, remember the priceless gift of God’s Son, and what a difference He has made in your existence. Second, remember that our church budget is an opportunity for each of us to return thanks to God, because it’s mainly our tithes and thank-offerings that make it work. Third, remember to consider the church budget responsibly, with God’s priorities and the world economy in mind. Fourth, remember the example of saints like Abraham (Gen. 14:20) and Jacob (Gen. 28:22), who dedicated a set percentage of God’s blessings back to Him, and were blessed through it. Fifth, remember that God has provided all our blessings, and will always give us far more than we can give in return (Mal. 3:10).

In this economy when many 401(k)s have become 201(k)s, God challenges us to remember Him from whom all blessings flow. Our money reads, “In God We Trust.” Our actions usually speak louder than words. I invite you to prepare for Christmas in the thankfulness that God has chosen you to be His own, brought you into His Church, and continues to provide you with the food of eternal life. What could be better than that?

After opening devotion, we had a few ideas to consider for future activities at LFF. Kirk provided quite a few, and Pastor said that anyone who would like to have a particular activity some night will have to bring any extra equipment and supplies we might need. For example: ingredients for cooking. If you’d like others to plan an activity with you ahead of time, just get it into the Sunday announcements the week of LFF.

This week, we had a nice group come for a book club discussion, and our first night with the new Wii game systems. Did people seem to like the Wiis? As they say in France: Wii Wii!

The word “unconscionable” refers to things that can’t be done in good conscience. This word has been in the political vocabulary for a while now, but the notion itself has direct ties to the Lutheran church, and to October 31. It was on that date that a 35-year-old Martin Luther posted his earth-shaking 95 Theses at the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. He didn’t think they would have such a profound effect. Most controversial was Luther’s boldness to propose debate on the policies of certain servants of the Roman church, and to suggest that these policies must be governed ultimately by God’s Word. That’s all he did in the 95 Theses. It may not sound so revolutionary, but it leads us to the word, “unconscionable.”

Fast forward to 1521, when Luther appeared before an imperial diet to give account for what he had been teaching. He wasn’t even given an opportunity to defend himself. He was assumed guilty of heresy, and demanded by the Holy Roman Emperor to recant most of his writings. He refused, saying that his conscience was captive to the Word of God. That lone act of defiance on the basis of a single concience inspired the western world, even influencing the founders of the United States, about 250 years later. There, we see the secular world recognize that every individual has certain innate liberties granted by our creator, and it is the duty of government to protect them for its citizens as well as possible. In the tradition of the Magna Carta and the Mayflower Compact, our government has even protected its individual citizens by limiting itself in the Bill of Rights. Thank you, Martin Luther.

Citizens of the United States are asked to exercise their good judgment and vote for representatives who will govern democratically. We are asked to evaluate the record, the character, and the platform of each candidate for each office, and figure out who would best handle the issues of the day. How should Christians participate?

We should begin by reminding ourselves that earthly governments — even bad ones — are authorized by God to carry out some of His work (Rom. 13). For a Christian, to rebel against his earthly government is to rebel against God. It also should go without saying that Christians are bound by the moral law of God, and so should never participate in fraud, deception, and the like, including some of the “spin” that we hear in politics and the news. Jesus told His disciples, Matthew 10:16, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

There are many issues mentioned during campaign season. Some of them are matters of opinion, and Christians can easily disagree with each other. Other issues are matters of judgment, where Christians may disagree, though the principles taught by holy scripture might guide most Christians one way or the other. Still other issues are not really issues of debate for Christians, but dealbreakers or showstoppers that would make a vote for a particular candidate truly unconscionable.

Christian voters have a responsibility before God to educate themselves and vote in good conscience. If a Christian votes for a candidate who wins and then commits some terribly sinful official act, does the Christian share in the office-holder’s guilt before God? Of course not, unless the voter knew when he cast his vote that the candidate would likely do it.

In a democratic republic, the voters bear some responsibility for the people they elect. A scholar at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who is a German emigrant, recently wrote about the collective shame many Germans bear over the atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazi party in the 1930s and 1940s. It’s possible that they would not bear this shame if Hitler had siezed power by force, instead of being elected by popular vote. His unconscionable official acts have affected the conscience even of non-religious German people. This seminary scholar believes that future generations of Americans will likewise be ashamed of the hidden atrocities committed now against millions of unborn children.

Shame is when someone thinks he is associated in wrongdoing. Guilt is when someone knows it. Yet both shame and guilt can be called a “bad concience,” and so both require God’s forgiveness. That’s the business of the Church, not the government. If you have any shame or guilt, the only thing to do is confess it to God, and He will forgive you. That’s why Jesus died: to redeem you from sin and the power of death, for a life of free service to Him on earth, and eternal life in heaven.

When those in your household cast a vote this year, join me in thanking God for Martin Luther, and especially for Jesus Christ; and in asking that He guide our consciences by His Word, and bless us with good government on earth.

Here’s a selection from the photos I took. Enjoy.

It’s easy to overlook the blessings we have. When I moved to the Gorge 37 months ago (already!), the whole place was strange and new. For months, I heard it repeated, “This much rainy weather is really not normal for us this time of year.” But I didn’t know any better. My first impression was that the Gorge is a beautiful place to be, especially when cloudy. But now when I travel through the Gorge, I give the traffic and roads more attention. The scenery is still beautiful, but sadly, it doesn’t make the same strong impression as at first.

Wouldn’t it be great if our church offered some activity for high school youth, or for grade-school age kids? Wouldn’t it be great of we could support a high-quality Christian education program? Wouldn’t it be great if we had something to which we could invite our friends and the people in our community? Sure it would.

Actually, we do have all those things, but we probably take them for granted. Sunday School and Catechism (”confirmation”) class are high-quality courses in the history and meaning of the holy Bible. Sunday School is taught by dedicated, unpaid volunteers who rightly consider it a worthy use of their precious time. Catechism is taught by an ordained minister with 8 years of training and 10 years of experience. What’s more, adult Bible study continues that learning opportunity from confirmation until death.

We’re planning a Thursday evening event at Concordia for fun and fellowship around the Bible, to include kids who are younger than 11 and confirmed youth. What would you like to do on Thursdays?

On Tuesday, August 26, Bethany will hold its next “Lutheran Family Fellowship” night, from 5:30 to 7 PM. Granted, it’s not just for kids. It’s better than that: it’s for whole families. (And this time, we’ll launch [safe] rockets!) It includes free supper too, so you don’t have to prepare anything.

You see, I believe that our families are split up enough already. To keep kids out of trouble, they usually have so many things piled into their schedules that the whole family has to work around it. For many families, a 10-minute dinner together is a luxury.

It’s no wonder that our parents with children have little energy left to spearhead a church youth activity! It’s too much to expect them to support all the secular activities, and then organize something at church to boot. Instead, why not just bring them all for 90 minutes, for simple fellowship and fun with our other families? The trick is to keep it low-key, not demanding. You just show up. That’s Lutheran Family Fellowship.

I’d love to engage kids at church, without competing as entertainment against other activities. Is it a matter of offering more? Looking at what we already offer, I don’t think so. As small churches, we can easily spread ourselves too thin. But if we invite and help each other to use — really use — the blessings we already have, we’ll find ourselves the richer for it.

Unlike in some churches, kids are always an important part of our Divine Service. We don’t send them somewhere else during that time, because the point is God’s forgiveness, and it’s for everyone. May we never take for granted the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, or the Word and Sacraments He uses to bring us forgiveness. That’s the Church’s most effective program for youth and children.

Here’s an exercise to informally measure the strength of your spiritual radar. How long will it take you to identify what’s wrong with this picture? It’s cropped to protect the “innocent” and to make the exercise easier. I may have made it too easy. (I took the photo today.)