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Psalm 32 Beati quorum remissae sunt iniquitates
By Mary Abrahamson Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, A Psalm of David David starts this well known Psalm with the acknowledgment of God’s great mercy and forgiveness. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit. But then David changes direction. He describes his life under sin. Like David, we hide our sin, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are not sinning, or that our sin is not so very bad. Other times we simply will not let ourselves admit that what we are doing is wrong. Like David, we feel the weight…
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Amazing
By Allison Hull “You look AMAZING in that dress!” “Wow, I can’t believe how beautiful you are in that outfit!” “You got a haircut — it suits you so well!” Gushing about other people in their clothes comes easy to me. I can say those things as an outsider looking at them. I can see how the right type of clothes just puts them at ease and makes them glow. I see how a new haircut or color can give them an extra bounce in their step. And I see that when I comment on it they seem to transform and really own their look. They truly do look amazing…
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God Did Not Name This Blog
By Vanessa Rasanen My email seems to have become the electronic version of our snail-mail box — a frustrating and sad mess of junk mail and bills. I’ve spent months upon months unsubscribing and spring cleaning whatever mailing lists I’ve landed on — with one of my 3 (or is it 4?) addresses, but I’m still drowning in junkmail. So I might get a wee-bit excited when I see emails from friends. Okay, those actually don’t happen very often. It must be getting bad, because when I got a mass mailing from a fellow blogger I hadn’t heard from in a while, you wouldn’t believe how exciting that was. So maybe it had…
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Four Ways to Support Missions
By Vanessa Rasanen We want to help this ministry or that mission, but we only see the big ways to do so — seminary to become a pastor or becoming a missionary and personally setting our own boots to the ground. Yet we often have other vocations and limitations that prevent these paths being chosen — be that the young children in our keep, physical limitations on our abilities, or financial strains on our budgets. We need not throw up our hands in defeat, though, deciding it simply isn’t our job to help these people and shrugging off our desire to do more. We can help and serve even when…
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Help Support the Stephens Family and Lutherans in Africa
Lutherans in Africa (LIA) is an organization which trains and educates Lutheran pastors in Africa, providing confessional Lutheran materials in the languages of the people so they can have access to wonderful resources such as hymnals, The Book of Concord, Luther’s Small Catechism, and more. The Lutheran church in Africa is growing so rapidly that in many cases one pastor serves 12 parishes and these pastors desire more training than they have received. Recently, LIA purchased a plot of land to build a seminary on to better serve these needs. Jason Stephens and his family learned about the work to build the seminary and soon realized he had the skills and…
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6 Ways to Support the Military in Your Congregation
By Vanessa Rasanen Our nation has been at war for a decade and a half — even if the word “war” isn’t actually used. While our media has slowed in their coverage, many military families continue to face deployments, separation, and hardships. Now, before you click away thinking this post doesn’t apply to you or your church, not so fast. Whether your congregation is one block or hundreds of miles from the nearest military installation, you may have military and their families in attendance. National guardsmen and reservists often live away from their units, perhaps even in entirely different states. While families differ in their needs and preferences for support, the…
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Easter Afternoon
By Allison Hull Everybody’s in the house. All right. We need to eat. Peanut butter sandwiches for all, and you can get your own drink. Mommy and daddy are just going to lay down for a few minutes and just shut our ey… And they’re out. Is this anyone else’s Easter Sunday afternoon? After going full force through Holy Week and then getting up early for the Sunrise service, smiling, keeping the kids in check, running up and down the choir loft stairs 5 times, then trying to keep the kids’ clothes clean while they eat messily and do it all again for the second service, and finally walking out…
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Good Friday 2016
By Amanda Markel Good Friday 2016 gives us a unique opportunity for a rare glimpse at the church year coming full circle, because this year, Good Friday’s movable date falls on the same date as one of the principal feasts of Christ: The Annunciation. Too often, we separate the Jesus of Christmas from the Jesus of Good Friday. We don’t want to think of the baby swaddled in the manger dying, and when we picture Jesus suffering on the cross, the image of a tiny, helpless baby is far from our minds. But that baby, whose coming was announced first to Mary in Nazareth, was born to save us…
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For Those Weary in Discernment
By Vanessa Rasanen I am tired. And while a lot of that could be blamed on pregnancy exhaustion and restless sleep, some of it has to do with discernment. Discernment is tiring. How wonderful would it be if we could trust anything with the “Jesus” label on it? How awesomely simple would it be if we could determine Truth based on how we feel? Yet, it’s not that easy. As I’ve grown in my understanding of scripture and Lutheran doctrine, I’ve found myself becoming more wary when approaching the Christian writing of others, whether in blog posts, books, or even simple tweets. A red flag automatically raises when words initiate…
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Psalms for Holy Week
By Mary Abrahamson In the Christian church, seven Psalms have historically been classified as the Penitential Psalms. These psalms focus on our sin and our need for a Savior. Some show how a particular sin or sinful lifestyle can eat at us. Others meditate more generally on sinful nature or sin in the world. On repentance and salvation, too, some are more specific and others more general. These Psalms have been used in a variety of liturgical devotional ways throughout the history of Christianity. Some traditions use them during all of Lent; others use one Psalm a day during Holy week. The Eastern church uses them in specific liturgical rites…
