Here We Go Again!

So last year, I issued "The Pastor Challenge" to try to raise money for the Assist Pregnancy Center. The challenge was this: I would challenge myself to do a "Metric Century" bike ride (100 kilometers, or 62 miles) in 4 hours, and I challenged folks to donate more money than we've ever raised for the Pregnancy Center. Last year, I am happy to say, we succeeded on both counts!

So this year, I'm doing it again - but bigger than before. My challenge this year is to do a full Century bike ride (100 miles) in 6 hours, and I challenge folks to raise at least $10,000 for the Lutherans for Life team in the Walk-Run-Ride for Life. This one's going to be tough, for me, at least. That's a looooong way! I think I'm in better shape than last year, but we'll see - I'm also a year older! I went out Friday for my first long ride of the year, a 50 miler, and did okay for the first 35 or so miles . . . then it was survival. We'll see how it goes.

And here's an added incentive: we are applying for matching funds from the LCMS, up to $10,000. So (hopefully) all donations up to that amount will be doubled! 

CLICK HERE to go to the Lutherans for Life fundraising page and sponsor Pastor or any other member of the team (when they join). OR sign-up yourself and help us raise even more! Let's do this!

Another Award!

If you know my wife, you already know how great she is. :-)  Yesterday she received an award from The Daisy Foundation, an award given internationally in recognizing nursing excellence. How it works is that patients or their families nominate nurses to the Foundation, and then they select award winners from nominees they have received from around the world. Pretty cool! Here is a picture of her receiving the award yesterday on her unit.

Reading Thought, March 8

A good quote for you today: "The Bible is a much too important book to the devil for him not to read it. How it must annoy this proud spirit that God does not honor him by naming him as the author of the fall into sin, but instead lets Moses speak about the snake as an animal that was more cunning than the other beasts of the field!"

Reading Thoughts, March 3

A couple of thoughts from my reading today . . .

(1.) "How often does Moses, and the Spirit of God through him, find it necessary to repeat this assurance that God created man in His own image, in the image of God, in God's likeness." Never really thought about that before. Repetition so that we believe it. We look around and it sure doesn't look like the image of God around us! Even in the Church. Sinners all around. But God said it, so it is so. It is a matter of faith, not of sight.

(2.) God placed Adam in the Garden to take care of it, and in tending to those trees and God's creation, Adam loved them. Interesting thought. Which would mean, I suppose, that when Adam and Eve saw that the tree they were not supposed to eat from was good (according to satan), they despised the other trees now. Now they didn't love them - they loved that one. The others now paled in comparison. Kind of like a child who loves his toy . . . until he sees another one! Then the toy he had suddenly isn't so great anymore. Hamann makes this comparison several times - to think of these people like children; "the childhood of the human race."

Ash Wednesday

Dust you are, and to dust you will return.

Yes, but as I preached one year: Dust you are, and to life you will return!

Because of Jesus' death and resurrection for you.

For my Lenten discipline this year I have chosen to read J.G. Hamann's London Writings. These are meditations upon Scripture and a critique of the rationalistic thinking of his day. If I read approx. 10 pages per day, I'll get through this book by the end of Lent. That's manageable, giving me time also to not read too quickly and reflect on what he is saying. I'm sure I'll post some thoughts here that he spurs in me. 

I'll also have the daily discipline of updating and sending out prompts for our Lenten Life Calendar. Don't know what that is? Click on the tab below the masthead of this blog and find out!

Books

So, a couple of books I finished reading . . .

I like history. Primarily American history. So I picked up this book at the used book store. It was a good and easy read. I especially liked learning about all the planning, build-up, and training that went into D-Day. I wished the book had continued into the next few days after D-Day and what happened then, but that was beyond the scope of this book. That was very similar to the book 1776 - at the end, I wanted to keep reading about what happened next, in 1777. But again, beyond the scope of that book. My only dislike was that the last quarter of the book also was not as good as the first 3/4. Ambrose stretched it out a bit and didn't end strong. But otherwise, an enjoyable read.

The next book I finished was this one - In the Shadow of the Temple: Jewish Influences on Early Christianity. Lots of interesting stuff in this one, especially regarding the Intertestamental Period and the development of Judaism in that period and then into the time of Jesus. Also, about the interaction of Jews and the early Christians in both primarily Jewish areas and primarily Gentile areas. The author, Oskar Skarsaune, is a good historian. That is his strength. But he is not as good a liturgical scholar. Therein lies the weakness of this book. The last bit of the book, when he tries to examine Christian liturgical documents and Jewish influences, he is out of his lane. Granted, he tries to be brief and gives a lot of references for further reading. But if you are ever of a mind to read this book, stick to the first 3/4 and then skip to the Epilogue.