Gottesblog

Ah, the poor Anglicans. But, of course, tossing aside the liturgy to make room for home grown stuff has NOTHING AT ALL to do with their other problems. After all, the liturgy is just adiaphora. . .

A bit of piety amongst us Confessionals for the past several years has been to insist on calling the pastor's office his "study." The idea behind this piety is a good one: we're not office workers toiling away at "paper work," we are shepherd's who are called to study the Word of God in prayer.

If you wear surgical gloves for absolution and the holy handshake, and a surgical mask while baptizing the youngins then you'll want to look into this. 

When a pastor and congregation, or parts of a congregation, have conflict one of the chief complaints against the pastor will almost certainly be that he is arrogant.

LCMS Pastor: "You know pastors need pastors, too. They need to hear absolution. That's why every few months I have the congregation absolve me at the beginning of the service instead of the other way around."

One of the hallmarks of the late 20th century Confessional movement (or traditional Lutheran movement, or sacramental Lutheran movement, or you pick a title) has been the recovery of the Fifth Chief Part of the catechism. Father Peter Bender's Concordia Catechetical Academy and curriculum have played a pivotal role in this for me and my parish, and for countless others.  Pastor by pastor, parish by parish, the gift Luther said we should be glad to run 100 miles to receive is slowly being reintroduced to Lutheranism.