Catching Up and A Thought About Communion Practice

Been a bit since I posted. Still basking in the glow of Villanova's victory! :-) Got my National Championship hat in the mail yesterday. Way overpriced, but I wanted to have one.

In other news . . .

+ The Walk-Run-Ride for Life was today, to benefit our local pregnancy center. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and the ride was a great success. Right now, they have raised 88% of their goal, which I'm sure will updated higher at the beginning of the week. That is (I believe) better than they usually do - so good news! It also seemed to me like they had more participation this year, which is also good!

+ Going to Wisconsin next week for a pastoral conference, and really looking forward to it. It is always nice to get away from the usual routine and spend some time with my brothers. Also have the District Board of Directors meeting, which will not be as much fun. Have some tough things to discuss and decisions to be made.

+The Phillies are off to a pretty good start - their record is 5-6 right now, but they have some really good talent on the cusp, so they are trending in the right direction. Last night, however, was abysmal. I got to watch as they played the Washington Nationals and so were on TV here, but they got smoked. Hopefully they'll do better tonight.

And now a thought I've been having . . . regarding Close(d) Communion practice in the Church . . .

It seems to me that not many churches actually practice what is called "open" communion. Oh, I'm sure there are a few that will commune anyone, anywhere, at anytime. But I think the great majority follow some sort of guidelines as to who may commune. So here's what I think the issue REALLY is: Who gets to decide? Is it the individual, or the pastor (in the name of the church/congregation)?

That, I think, is the crux of the issue. Our hyper-self focused, self-identifying, self-actualizing, self-centered, self-exalting culture puts the responsibility for deciding on the individual, while the Scriptures give that responsibility to the church. In our world today the former is acceptable, the latter is not.

To be brief, I'll just mention two Scriptures that speak to the church as having this responsibility. In the Old Testament, it was given to the priests to distinguish between the clean and the unclean, the holy and the profane. They did not announce a general description of what these things were and leave it up to the individual to decide where he or she fell - this was a task give to the priests. And even in Jesus' day, when He healed lepers, Jesus told them to "go show themselves to the priests." This was the church's culture.

Then in the New Testament, it is the apostles (and their successor) who are the stewards of the mysteries of God. They are the ones tasked with the proper distribution of the master's goods, to give them as He wants them given. It, again, is not left to the individual.

So that (I've been thinking lately) is really the crux of the issue - it is a clash of cultures. The world which believes authority lies in the self, and the Church which believes authority lies in God and His Word. Of course they're going to disagree! But what will the Church do?

On the Road Again

Off to my Circuit Pastors Conference in Bound Brook, NJ, not too far outside New York City. I enjoy getting together with my brothers, though the great number of vacancies we have at this time has driven the numbers down. But little by little they are being filled, so in the future we'll have a bigger group. Hopefully the weather will cooperate, too, and the driving will be smooth. :-)

Circuit Meeting, Day 1

I arrived in Emporia Monday around dinner time. We went out to a Carolina BBQ place - all you can eat buffet style. They did have a lot of food - and lots of it fried! I tried a little bit of a lot of different things. The fried chicken was good, as were the fried flounder and hush puppies, but I was not brave enough to try to fried chicken gizzards! :-) Dessert-wise, the apple and peach cobblers were quite good, while the banana pudding was absolutely terrible! Completely tasteless. After dinner we hung out a while and talked, but I turned in kind of early - a long day.

Tuesday was the second half of our LERT training - Lutheran Early Response Team. This is to qualify us to help in times of disaster and to help us get the folks in our congregation ready to help as well. So after this day, we got our picture taken and will be receiving badges that will enable us to have access to our local Emergency Operations Centers and they know we won't be untrained but well-meaning volunteers that will just get in the way, but folks who know what they're doing. We're not first responders - they come in right away. We can come in the second wave to help with recovery and spiritual care.

After that I began my presentation on prayer. I am thinking about this as I will be teaching a sectional at Higher Things on prayer this summer. So we discussed things for about 75 minutes in the afternoon, and today we'll go through some Scriptures and think a bit more - maybe, hopefully, in ways that open some eyes and thinking. We had Private Absolution and the Divine Service last night and then some "fellowship" (let the reader understand) afterward.

All in all, not a bad conference thus far. Good, as always, to see the brothers again. The Holiday Inn we are staying at is nice. For breakfast yesterday, however, the scrambled eggs were the worst I have ever tasted! They tasted like fish! I am usually pretty tolerant and can eat most things, but I took one bite of those and couldn't eat any more. Just horrible. The cinnamon rolls, though, awesome!

Home tonight.

Conference, Day 2

The topic of day 2 of my conference was Disaster preparedness and response. There were many presentations, some good, some too long, but overall not a bad day. I did find out some things I did not know - like, who knew we had "LERTs" (Lutheran Early Response Teams)? We were also told of how we can be certified to be involved in future disasters and needs. But the best thing was that instead of having the scheduled 4:30-5:30 block of reports on synod and district matters, we got an extended break before dinner! We needed it.

Divine Service was after dinner. Unfortunately, we couldn't just use the Divine Service, it had to be made "more meaningful" by changing things up. So, we had to have ten minutes of explanation before we even started about what we were doing and why. Don't you think that's a big red flag that something's off? After that, we used a confession that was four pages long! And I learned that "fear of anything new" was a sin - who knew? Next two readings from Scripture, but the "explanation" of the first was longer than the reading itself! (Again, isn't that a big red flag that something is amiss?) President Harrison preached, and I appreciated his sermon. Sadly, the only liturgy for the Sacrament were the Lord's Words - nothing else! Not even a pax domini or an agnus Dei. Sigh. Can't we just use the service we all know and are familiar with and so feed your pastors who rarely get to sit and be fed?

Today we have President Harrison present on things and I guess have a Q&A. We'll hear about the Health Plan stuff after that, which should be interesting given all the changes to the laws of late. The DP promised those guys who didn't present about their mission trips yet the time to do so, so it will be a full morning. The conference ends at noon, and then off to the airport for the flight home. If all goes well, I think I will be home for dinner.

Cleveland

No, not the president (as in Grover, I know that's what you were thinking, right?) but the city. That's where I am for a Pastoral Conference. Got here Monday night and leaving Thursday. In between they have the days packed completely full with presentations. We leave the hotel for a local church at 7 am and get back sometime after dinner. Yesterday, the first morning session was by development people, so I got some sermon thinking done and some thoughts done on my computer.  :-)  After that, we had two sessions from a pastor who has a new book on demons and spiritual warfare. He was very good and consistent in his theology and the power of the Word of God being our only power and weapon. He was worth listening to. I got to sit down with him during lunch and talk a bit, which was nice. Later in the afternoon got kind of preachy - we had guys presenting about missions trips they were organizing and leading to different countries. Good stuff, but a bit too long and as I said, preachy. Got tiresome.

It is good (always) to reconnect with guys I haven't seen in a while. Have had some nice conversations. I'm not sure how today will be. We'll see, I guess. Perhaps I will get some sermon writing done!