Category Archives: For Pastors Only
Ministerial Health
There’s an oxymoron for you: “Ministerial Health.” According to some researcher somewhere the “average” minister puts in 55 hours a week. He vicariously experiences divorce, death, and disease more times a year then he would like to remember. And … Continue reading
Falling Flat on Your Face
Nobody likes to fall flat on their face. It means embarrassment, humiliation, and defeat. I doubt there’s a pastor alive who has not had that dream where he fell flat on his face while giving a sermon: his notes … Continue reading
Amen to that!
I was celebrating the Lord’s Supper one Sunday about 4 years ago. I said the dismissal, “Now may this Body and Blood strengthen and preserve you in the true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.” As I said, “Amen,” I heard … Continue reading
On Receptionism and Touching the Ground
I was raised in the era when the Flag touching the ground was an unforgivable sin. My time in the Army reinforced this. When I flew the Flag from the flagpole outside our church the Sunday after 9/11, I was … Continue reading
A Tale of Two Jackasses
One of my favorite apocryphal stories about Jesus goes like this: Jesus, Mother Mary, and Joseph are fleeing the wrath of King Herod heading for Egypt. They are all riding on the back of a donkey. Joseph becomes impatient … Continue reading
Almost a Christian
In the movie 300, Leonidas is leaving with his small band of men to fight the invading million man army of the Persians. He bids his wife goodbye. As he marches away to certain death she calls out to … Continue reading
A Happy Christmas
Driving from Texas to Michigan in December 1977 John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas” seemed to be on all the radio stations. At that time in my twenty-year-old life Lennon’s melancholy lyrics particularly the line “so this is Christmas, and what … Continue reading
Bart Simpson is Right
Bart Simpson cleared it all up for me. I’m not a regular watcher of the goggled-eyed little guy but I happened to catch a re-run of a Christmas episode. Dad, Homer, had only received 13 dollars for a part-time job … Continue reading
You Need Strongs Legs to Stand up Under Good Times
That’s a proverb Luther quotes. He says what is to be feared is not the trying, difficult, despairing times, but the good times. The Church has always believed this. From this sort of theology comes the oft quoted remark, … Continue reading
An Answer to Pastor David Rohde’s “Why Stay?”
When I learned that a paper on why to stay in the LCMS was being given at a free conference in Brenham, Texas, I told one of my members he should go and hear it. He is contemplating going to … Continue reading