Many thanks to all the participants at the Gottesdienst West conference out in Ravenna, NE a couple of weeks ago - especially to our hosts, Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Fr. Micah Gaunt, and Mrs. Gaunt for her super excellent cinnamon rolls.

This was especially enjoyable for me as I got to catch up with some friends from my Seward days and even with a couple of dear parishioners from my home church.

Considering that it was the middle of June, on a Friday, in sparsely populated central Nebraska we were very happy with the response: we had 13 pre-register - and maybe we even tempted a few to carpool out to Kewanee in the fall for Gottesdienst Central with Rev. Dr. David Scaer.

You can read the paper I delivered here. This is an attempt to take the doctrine of election as the starting point in missions and worship - and a critique of what I term the Functional Arminianism of much of modern Lutheran thinking on the topic.

+HRC