The President of the Southern District of the LCMS, the Rev. Eric Johnson, encourages pastors to have a father confessor, to make private confessions and receive absolution, and he wisely encourages pastors under his oversight to not make confessions to him because of the nature of his office.
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Some ecumenism is built around mutual suffering.
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The Rev. Eugene Schmid is remembered joyfully by my congregation: Salem Lutheran Church in Gretna, Louisiana. Pastor Schmid took a call (his second) to Salem in 1919. He served until his death in 1967 - forty-seven years. His name dominates our parish records. He baptized the babies, confirmed them, communed them, married them, and baptized their babies - and then confirmed them, married them, and baptized their babies.
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One of the things that I like about the Gottesdienst Crowd is that we are not advocates for the liturgy because of personal taste or effete sensibilities, or an intellectual devotion to historical marginalia. Pastors and laypeople involved in the life of the church understand that as the blood of Christ is the lifeblood of the Church, Sunday morning Divine Services are the vessels that carry the blood of the Lamb to us. Hence our name Gottesdienst.
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