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The Elephant in the Pews
By Amanda Markel There’s an elephant in the living room in some of our churches and it’s time to stop ignoring it. That elephant is the former church workers in our midst. The “elephant in the corner” metaphor doesn’t apply to every former church worker. There is a group of retirees, especially pastors, that receive a place of honor in our congregations, such as the pastors emeriti. They who have served many successful, although often hard, years and are now retired, but willing to help out from time to time, are not the people I’m talking about. The former church workers that I’m talking about are often younger, although not…
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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,…
