Gottesblog

I’ve enjoyed some of the comments on my last piece about the children’s sermon - here at the blog, and on social media: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The strong reactions suggest that this is a topic that needs to be discussed.

I’m amazed that there are still people out there who think that by adding some fad element to the liturgy, we can “grow the church” by “attracting the youth.” One of the worst of such techniques is the “children’s sermon” - sometimes euphemistically called the “children’s message.”

I received the following email - from a colleague whom I respect - in response to my Not See blogpost. It’s a bit long, but I think it important to share it here unedited (except to change a particular person’s name to his initials):

This is not your grandfather’s “contemporary worship”: hippie boomers with acoustic guitars singing the cringe Chicago Folk Service, or the “praise band” performing the emetic “Shine, Jesus, Shine.” Nor are they even like the terrible mashups of the Beatles and U2.

The Left has a hackneyed, but apparently still-effective strategy to bully conservatives and traditionalists: name-calling. It doesn’t matter if the accusations are true, of course. Nearly all of the time, they aren’t.

“Let us then return from the [Communion] table like lions breathing fire, having become terrible to the devil…”

I don’t know the attorney on this billboard - which is a few blocks from my house, as is his rather large law office. But I have heard good things about him, and he gets high ratings online. I’m not typically a fan of attorney billboards, but I like this one.

The conventional wisdom is that Jesus mainly spoke Aramaic, and that the New Testament was only written in Greek in order for the Gospel’s spread among the Gentiles.

What is the worship at our seven Concordia University campuses like? Here is a survey from what the universities post online: