Friday, February 16, 2007

What Church Is Not

What is church? That seems like an easy question doesn’t it? Church as Lutheran’s define it is the place where we go that God’s Word is purely taught, and the Sacraments are rightly administered. Church is the place where we go to receive God’s gifts of grace. This extraordinary task is accomplished through what seem like ordinary means. It is God, through divine means, serving the faithful (yes, it's God doing all the doing). At Church we hear God’s law that we can not even start to keep because we are poor sinful creatures. At Church we hear that Christ has kept the Law perfectly for us in our stead. At Church we hear God’s Word proclaim that Christ has not only kept the law perfectly, but has taken our deserved punishment in our stead. In Church, it’s all about what God has done and continues to do for us. That’s, in a nutshell, what Church is.

What church is not is a place that we go to get therapy. What church is not is this place. Heterodoxy is enough to make me scream!

4 comments:

Rev. Daniel A. Hinton said...

It was bad enough to read the site, then I caught the bottom:

"Epic Church is affiliated with The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a biblically conservative branch of the Lutheran Church.
We stand on the authoritative Word of God and uphold moral values. Visit the LCMS website at www.lcms.org for more details."


Since it was in such an inconspicuous place and in such a small and unimportant font style, I half expected it to continue with,

"Side effects may include temporary or permanent blindness, headache, dizziness, or constipation. May cause elevated blood pressure or mood swings. Consult your doctore before beginning any regimen."

Frank Gillespie said...

Der Bettler, I left the LCMS affiliation out of the post on purpose. I was wondering how quick sombody would notice. Congrats!
I've known about them for several months now. Back in October, they featured a sermon entitled "How to score at work" folllowed by a "how to score with you wife". There was two versions of the latter sermon, an advertised "G" version and an advertised "PG-13" version.
Epic, really out did themselves this time.

RandomDan said...

Frank, Frank, Frank. You are really behind the curve on this one. You missed the whole "Star Wars" sermon series. I've known about them for almost two years now.

http://bunniediehl.worldmagblog.com/bunniediehl/archives/014673.html

Frank Gillespie said...

Oh come on! Dan, cut me some slack here! There are things we just don’t seek out. You can’t just go out and look for…. evil. That would be bad, wouldn’t it? It’s sort of like playing with an Ouija board, sure it may be harmless, but why even play with the temptation.
But in all seriousness, I was promised about an hour ago that I’ll have a screen shot of the “score at work” and “score with your wife” series emailed to me.
Thanks for the link! Wookie suit, heh… heh…the dark side clouds….everything it does.
I miss Bunny Deihl, a lot!