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Where do tears go in the Divine Service? Emotions in the Lutheran Church
I’ve never been a mountaintop Christian. In fact, my tent has seemingly been pitched in the valley. But that didn’t keep me from climbing. I surrounded myself with positive people, hung pithy sayings above my sink and by my door, and renounced all negative energy. I even said prayers that bound Satan and established a hedge of protection around those I loved. I chose to praise on the mountain more, and cry in the valley less. I was determined to be too blessed to be depressed. However, incantations and mantras are short lived in the face of real life trials. Dysfunction, disease, and death have a way of making headway…
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Whitewashed In Brokenness
By Kaitlin Jandereski A lot of normality goes on in this world. People wake up, fix their daily cup of joe and read their Treasury of Daily Prayer. Then they brush their teeth, comb their hair, clock in and end the day with tired feet. It’s all in the day-to-day grind. Except when it’s not. Except when something is off, when your stomach turns before you know why, when your day-to-day life isn’t like any other day anymore. I had a day like that and I think it’s important that we talk about it. *** On a winter eve, a friend of mine had asked me to come to his…
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Call Week
By Holly Scheer This is “Call Week” for the LCMS. This is the week when Vicarage placements, Deaconess assignments, and first Calls for seminarians are issued. The services started Monday night and continue through the week. You can view them in real time or check out the lists after the fact — here and here. For anyone unfamiliar with the gravity of this week, here’s a bit of background. Most of the pastors and deaconesses in our Synod, after completing their bachelor’s degree, are trained at one of two seminaries — Ft. Wayne and St. Louis. This involves uprooting the family and moving. That’s move number one. After their second year of study,…
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Comfort for Those Tending to the Lord’s Littlest Sheep, Part 2
by Keri Wolfmueller Understanding Age Appropriate Behavior Greetings! If you are just now joining us, please see Comfort for Those Tending to the Lord’s Littlest Sheep, Part 1. Surprisingly, one of the most valid arguments against having children in church is sometimes brought to us from educators or pediatricians. These men and women have invested years into studying how children learn, how to best instruct them, how to care for them, and keep them healthy. (Please note the use of the word sometimes, this is not an absolute to these vocations.) The argument goes something like this, “It is not appropriate to expect young children to sit through an hour…
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Celebrating the Many Members of the One Body
by Vanessa Rasanen We bloggers know the value of being real and transparent in our writing. Our readers want to connect, to read the words and to know the person behind them is just like them — flaws, struggles, warts and all. Okay, maybe not warts. But blemishes, for sure. We cringe when someone portrays themselves or their life as too perfect and pristine. We balk at Instagram feeds and Facebook timelines that appear spotless. No woman could possibly keep her house looking like that, or cook a meal like that, or dress like that every day. Obviously she’s not showing us the real her, the her who goes unshowered on Saturdays,…
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For Difficult Times
by Deac. Mary J. Moerbe In an ironic twist, encouragement means entirely different things to different groups of people. For many, it has become a matter of sharing personal strength or perhaps reinforcing the other person’s confidence in him- or herself. It’s a catchphrase to accompany empowerment in inspirational memes. Such self-focus and inward direction generally turns me off. Anyone who knows me would know better than point me inward! Let’s leave puffing up to baked goods and balloons, and keep it far away from my emotional and spiritual well-being, especially during times of stress and distress! I haven’t made a formal study of it, so correct me if I’m…
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For All Who Are Weary
Whether you’re married, a mother, or working outside the home, one fact is true about the vast majority of women these days. We’re exhausted. We’re stressed out, overcommitted, tired, and dissatisfied with how we balance our responsibilities and our family life. Women are leaving the church or never joining in the first place, becoming part of the “Nones”, the group of Americans who claim “spirituality” but no particular religious affiliation, in numbers that have never been seen before. I can’t always blame them. There’s so much to DO to be a good Christian woman these days. Could it be that more women are burning out or just choosing not to get…
