Gottesblog

Unite Collective Leadership is right about the importance of feedback to those in leadership. “Feedback is not a four-letter word.” All leaders need to know what is happening under their authority, as well as to learn how “stakeholders” are responding to what is going on.

I’m Mike, the youth director here, and I first talked to Pastor Tim about preaching, and Tim is so collaborative. He’s like, “Let’s do it,” and I’m thinking, “This is going to be awesome.”

The Texas District of the LCMS released a short video explaining what the Texas District does. Here it is in its entirety, in their own words:

Luther House of Study is an alternative, online seminary that partners with Unite Leadership Collective (ULC). ULC has, in their own words, “partnered with Kairos University and Luther House of Study (LHOS) to bring affordable and accelerated education on your path to becoming a Shepherd, Evangelist, or Executive Director in your local congregation.”

The Christian faith is a both/and matter. It is neither spiritual to the detriment of the physical (as Gnostics, and as, to a lesser extent, sacramentarian Evangelicals confess), nor is it material to the detriment of the spiritual (as atheists and rationalists confess).

I often hear advocates of “contemporary worship” (CoWo) make the claim that they are liturgical - they just use “modern instruments” instead of the pipe organ. And so, I have been on a hunt to find this elusive unicorn…

A lot of our rebellion against God’s created order and against His Word involves the concept of “gender.”

The above wonderful CCLE presentation - which I highly recommend - introduced me to a reading plan that I had never heard of before: the Professor Grant Horner plan. Instead of four streams tied to the particular calendar day, Horner has ten streams of one chapter each.

She did not find me “unapproachable.” In fact, she approached me. She sought me out. If you’re drowning in a pool, the guy with the lifeguard uniform is the most approachable person of all. Had the pastor who said clericals “don’t work” for him had been the one walking past Joellen instead of me, she would not have approached him. The clerical shirt made me approachable - not a sportsball jersey or even a T-Shirt with some Jesus glurge on it.

Ordinations and Installations are joyful and yet formal events for churches and pastors. Vows are taken and repeated. Scripture is read. There is a formal blessing by the District President. And the draw of tradition is so great that even in some of the most casual and hipster LCMS congregations, the red stole often persists, even if used only for this occasion…

But on this occasion, this large-church pastor said the quiet part out loud:

I guess the large churches are large churches because they're they're doing something right. I mean, I don't know how to say that in the context of, I mean, God is blessing what we're doing.