Just A Layman? Yep.

In his monthly column in the Lutheran Witness this month President Jerry Kieschnick writes;

“When I am “out and about” and meet someone new, it is not unusual for that person to tell me his or her name and then say, “I’m just a layman (or laywomen).” When I hear those words, I reply with an affirmation of that person as a redeemed child of God, a faithful member of a congregation, and a man or women called by God to a life of service in his or her chosen vocation”

I applaud President Kieschnick in this proper response of holding up vocation as how we serve one another through the gifts and talents given by God. He goes on to talk about people who use these gifts and talents to continue to help those who have suffered because of recent tsunamis, hurricanes, and floods. It’s all good so far, right? Yep.

Now, if President Kieschnick asked me to tell him a little about myself, I would tell him my name, I explain to him that I’m a metrologist and what that is and is not (no, I’m not a TV weather guy; that’s a meteorologist), and then I would say that I’m a simple layman, a plain and simple layman.

There’s no doubt that President Kieschnick would give me a similar talk as the one he laid out in this month’s column. I would however restate that I really feel that I’m just a simple layman and that’s it. Now, if my history with giving this answer would hold true, President Kieschnick would start to get a bit of a puzzled look.

I would have to explain that because I hold such a high view of the Office of the Holy Ministry, I can say nothing else but “I’m only a layman”. Allow me to elaborate;

In a time when a deaconess who feels that her confession of what the Office of Holy Ministry means differs so much that she must resign her position to go an ELCA seminary and then be told by her district president that if she changes her mind she can come back to her old position no questions asked…

In a time when congregations can tell their pastor that he needs to take the first call that he receives or his employment will be terminated and upon bringing this to his district president he’s told that’s just the way things work…

In a time when congregations promoted as what the future church should look like state publicly that there is no difference between the pastor and the lay elders…

In a time when a pastor at his district convocation can publicly state that he has his elders read his sermons because that’s just not something he’s good at without anyone batting an eye…

In a time when laypersons have such a low view of the Office of Holy Ministry that they can call their pastor by his last name only without being corrected by anyone around them…

In a time when laypersons who chair mission boards talk of “hiring a pastor for six months or so” as if they were hiring someone to clean up the yard or sweep the floors with not a word of admonition from the ten ordained clergy sitting around the table…

In a time when so many laymen and laywomen express such a low view of the Office of Holy Ministry, I go out of my way to make sure to say that “I’m only a layman.” What I see in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is an unwillingness to defend what the Office is. What should be done is a proper catechesis, that is teaching, of the fact that the Office of Holy Ministry was instituted by Christ himself for the preaching of His Gospel and the administering of His Sacraments. Don’t believe me? Read about the Office of Holy Ministry here in John 20:22-23, Matt 16:19, Matt 28:18-20 or here in the Small Catechism.

In addition, there is an unwillingness to properly instruct laymen and laywomen on the doctrine of vocation. Instead, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has fallen headfirst into the Americanized Christianity’s trap that everyone’s a minister.

The end result of this mistake is not the elevation of a laypersons God given gifts used to take care his brothers and sisters in his or her vocation but rather a tearing down of the Office of the Holy Ministry. None of the examples I listed occurred in a vacuum but did and do occur precisely because of a lack of a willingness to properly teach what the Office and vocation are and what that means for both pastors and laypersons.

In the middle ages there were parents who would promise their children to monastic orders to insure that they would earn their place in heaven. That’s not really all that surprising when you consider the low view of the common layperson that was held back then by church officials.

Today we have something of an opposite situation where folks are held up for praise not based on purity of doctrine that they are willing to give a defense for; but rather how many people they talked to about Jesus, how many website hits they recorded and publicly logged, and how much money they raised which is outside the arena of duties covered by the Office of the Holy Ministry. The pendulum has now swung back and hit us all squarely on the head. If you feel that you have Jesus in your heart and are willing to do something worthy enough for a mention in a circuit, district, or synodical newsletter, to be sure you’ll be awarded the title of ministry of something or other; guaranteed.

Yes, we need to minister to our brothers and sisters, our neighbors, everyone including our enemies, but we are not all ministers. Without a proper call from a congregation, you know what I am? I’m a metrologist and a darned good one at that, but I’m only a layman. And at the end of the day, being just a layman, well, that’s good enough for me.

Have All The Fires Been Put Out?

If you’re a new visitor here at Putting Out The Fire, welcome! I’ve noticed a number of hits over the last month or so due to folks looking for posts on everybody’s favorite evangelism progr…uh, movement; Ablaze!.

I haven’t had a whole lot to say about Ablaze! in a while because the focus of your beloved synod has shifted, as expected, to one of raising funds through programs like Fanning the Flames and others. To be honest, the slick Madison Avenue style marketing campaign which finds that every verse of the Bible speaks of raising monies simply doesn’t interest me all that much.

So does this mean that all the fires have been put out and the official Ablaze! Firefighter™© is without a job? Absolutely not. The theology that led us to count “critical events” instead of baptisms for church growth is alive and well. The theology that says the church needs to change how she delivers her message to ensure her relevancy shows no sign of going away anytime soon. As long as your beloved church body continues to act like a corporation and chases after fads deemed important by the longevity of books on the New York Times best sellers list, I’m gonna have plenty to write about.

If you are new here and wish to understand why I have problems with Ablaze! I wrote a seven part series entitled What’s Wrong With Ablaze! where I answered an email that challenged me to defend my position from a Confessional and Scriptural perspective. I would hope that you give the series a glance and hold it up against not only what is said publicly by elected and appointed officials but also what is practiced in the LCMS today.

Thank You, Again!

A big thank you to the good folks over at Issues, Etc. for that second high honor. Yes, Pastor Wilken, that was a real video and not some folks just trying to be funny.

Also, thank you Steadfast Lutherans for the link this morning.

Steadfast Lutherans has quickly become one of my favorite daily reads with great columns by Pastors Rossow, Preus, Wilken (also of Issues, Etc. fame) and the awesome Mollie Z. Hemingway.

For what it’s worth, Issues, Etc. and the Brothers of John the Steadfast are two great organizations that I hope all the readers of Putting Out The Fire would support. I don’t say this because of any accolades that I may have received but rather it is because of their mission to defend and promote the orthodox and historic Christian faith. There’s no quid pro quo here Clarice, none at all.

Remember, every time we snap our fingers, another bureaucrat goes to hell because he’s been listening to a Madison Avenue style marketing campaign and hasn’t heard the Gospel.

I Didn’t Stumble, I Fell

Here’s how the conversation went down:

No, no you didn’t fall, you only stumbled!

Uh no, you’re wrong, I was an atheist and that means I was without faith, and without faith that’s no stumble that’s a fall and a fatal one at that.

A fall means you couldn’t get up, you did get up and that means you only stumbled.

But I was an atheist. I was without faith. Without faith there’s only hell and death.

You didn’t fall though, you got back up.

Atheists don’t have faith and without faith they are condemned to Hell, that’s a fall!

You didn’t fall, you only stumbled.

No I didn’t, I committed the one unforgivable sin and that is unbelief. Unbelief in Christ condemned me to Hell. I rejected Christ and for that I was fallen. For crying out loud, Satan had more faith than I did but like Satan I rejected God’s Word and he fell, like me.

But you didn’t fall.

Yes I did! I was an atheist, that’s fallen, plain and simple. Hey look…if I’m not declared righteous by faith in Christ, which is only a gift by grace by the Holy Spirit, God’s Law declares me fallen that is to say dead. Failing to live up to God’s good and righteous Law, which I couldn’t do only condemns me. And since we can’t live up what God expects we need Christ to fulfill God’s law in our stead. And without faith in Christ we fall short of keeping God’s Law, we fall, and when we fall; it’s deadly, it’s fatal.

You didn’t fall.

I don’t care what the theological tradition is, whether it be Calvinist, reformed or Lutheran, it just bewildering that some folks will not call the decision to declare oneself an atheist a fall but rather a stumble. And to make the matter even more perplexing is the fact that the former atheist now Lutheran has to defend that he was fallen and without faith to his Christian friend who says otherwise.

Just because I have faith now doesn’t mean that I’ve always had faith that somehow or maybe wasn’t properly kindled. I was an atheist for over fifteen years and for that time I was as fallen as I could possibly be. Without faith in Christ I could not stand before God. Without being able to stand before God as righteous on my own merits the only place left for me was the grave as I was dead to sin. And believe you me, the dead don’t gently lie down in the grave; they fall and they fall hard. I didn’t just stumble into that grave, I fell.

Too often we wind up looking at the terminal cancer as if it were the flu. When we do this, a fatal fall appears to be a mere stumble which of course it is not. Unbelief is a fatal sin and terminal fall I could not recover from through any works of my own.

I thank God daily for sending the Holy Spirit to give me the faith to confess Christ as Lord. I just wish He would give me the words to explain to those around me the difference between the stumbling that I do daily and the fall that Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross erased.

The Renewed Mind Is Not The Key, Nor Is The Dancing

Just in case you missed this over at Esgetology…

The problem with watching such videos is that once you watch them you can never unwatch them. Oh, even the finest single malt scotch (or Absinthe for the glowing worms out on the west coast) can’t make the choreographed praise song just go away once viewed. It…just…won’t…go…away…

HTTP Status Code 400

This is appropriate… did anyone out there know that the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) status code 400 means “The request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled.”

Appropriate considering the slack jawed yokel who writes this stuff can’t type.

Source: Wikipedia of course.

Off The Grid...

I’ve been off the grid the last few days due to work and I’m finally back on line. A few things…

If you live in Camarillo California and visited Putting Out The Fire around 7:30ish pm, send me an email as I think you won an unannounced prize!

Speaking of being off the grid; football season has started and to be honest I could care less. That doesn’t mean that football won’t be played for eight hours straight in my house on Sunday afternoons because it certainly will. My missus is a football fanatic and she who must be obeyed has declared that there will be as much football on the TV as is allowed by the FCC. When my missus watches sports she, (uh, how do put the best possible construction on this?)... gets very animated and very, very loud. There have even been nasty phone calls during Packers games with people complaining who were attending home games that they didn’t care to hear how Jake Delhomme was doing in Charlotte as she was yelling loud enough to be heard five states away. I’ve tried to break out an atlas and point out the distances between the various stadiums as well as explain the physics of why sound can’t travel five or six hundred miles to my missus but she just smiles and tells me that I haven’t a clue. When you hear what sounds like a Texan yelling “get ‘em, get ‘em” and it’s not matching up with your locally broadcast games and it’s not your next door neighbor; that’s probably my missus cheering on her teams.

FYI, she cheers for both the St. Louis Rams and the Carolina Panthers. Personally, I cheer for no team whatsoever. If I did cheer for any team I’d have to root for, what else, the Raiders for obvious reasons if you’re a regular reader of this blog. In addition, when I need a football fix, I go to the football themed blog Necessary Roughness, Dan’s game is a little more my style.

Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine…Too

The embedded video is a song called Jesus is a friend of mine by “Sonseed” I thought I would post it just for that special person that was chatting with me last night about contemporary music issues.

Once I tried to run
I tried to run and hide
But Jesus came and found me
And He touched me down inside

He is like a Mounty
He always gets His man
And He’ll zap you any way he can.
Zap!

The LCMS Mauve El Camino

It took me a while to find; but I did it! The successor to the LCMS Studebaker was the LCMS El Camino. Already by 1979 you see the road that LCMS, Inc. is headed down; a mauve gimmick to reach the unchurched.

Originally, I wasn’t going to put this embarrassing outreach tool up. However, with both Preacherboy and The Rebellious Pastor’s Wife complaining that the LCMS Studebaker looked a little too much like their grandfathers outreach car and with Elephant’s Child yelling that there must be more mauve; I felt I had no choice but to put this not so proud moment in Madison Avenue marketing picture in a post.

What’s oddly missing is the LCMS cross that does not. I couldn’t find any evangelism tools with a cross of any sort out there at all. Isn’t that weird? Does anybody know when the current design was approved by a synodical convocation or convention?

McCain, Palin, And The Sons Of Kobol

With McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for the office of vice president the republicans seem to be more than a bit excited about the upcoming election. I’ve already outlined who is my preference in this post: Roslin / Airlock. But is my preference all that different from the republican ticket?

A Boston Craigslist posting has drawn an interesting comparison:

The parallels continue! McCain is a military man who spent time in a Vietnam prison camp, the character of Col. Tigh is a military man who spent time in a Cylon prison camp. Sarah Palin comes from a family of school teachers, the character of Laura Roslin was school teacher before becoming Secretary of Education (and then later President).

Hmm…

Chronicles Of Narnia, Veggie Tales, And Teaching Children Part 2

In this post I’ll finish answering A.L.’s email question concerning Veggie Tales. A.L. had written me the following email (sorry for taking so long A.L.!):

Frank,

Just out of curiosity - I know you like the "Chronicles of Narnia" SNL skit, but what is your take on the comparing and contrasting of Christ's sacrifice and the life of the Church with the Chronicles? I have an issue with it because I don't want my kids to see a lion in a movie and think "Gee, he's like Jesus!" Same thing with "Veggie Tales" - I don't want them to think a piece of asparagus died on the cross for them. A cartoon/fictional movie should be just that and shouldn't involve elements of our Faith because that's just like the Churches that lower themselves by bending with society for the sake of attracting the unchurched. I'm not a big CS Lewis fan to begin with, but I'd love to hear your opinion. I have relatives who are die-hard Veggie Tales fans and I think it's disgusting - hence my post about people who will try to influence my child's spirituality. These are the same people who have a problem with Harry Potter - although I see that as entertainment as I do Star Wars because it doesn't bring in Christianity at all. Let me know your take –

A.L.

Most folks think I’m completely unqualified to give an opinion as I don’t have any children of mine own. However, I think not having kinder does allow me a certain unbiased perspective.

I think if you want to throw a tape of Veggie Tales in to entertain the little tykes, that’s ok, sort of. I see absolutely nothing wrong with Veggies Tales just as I see nothing wrong with Thomas the Tank Engine. In fact, I can barely see any difference between the two shows for the little ragamuffins. Why would I say that? Allow me to ‘splain myself.

There are just as many mentions of Jesus in Veggie Tales as in Thomas the Tank Engine. A.L., if you are looking to instruct your child(ren) in the Christian faith you would get more mentions of Jesus in either book by Joel Osteen, and believe you me, that ain’t much so I would probably avoid him as well. (I think Osteen mentioned Jesus, what was it, three times in his last book?) The question then becomes this; what does Veggie Tales teach and if Christ is absent, can the Christian faith be properly understood and taught?

Veggie Tales just as with Thomas the Tank Engine teach morality and nothing more. Yes, they have fruit and vegtables acting out Bible stories, but what is the value of any story that doesn’t point to the Crucified Lord’s salvific work that conquered sin, death, and the devil by offering up Himself as the atoning sacrifice on the cross? Let’s look at what Jesus himself says in John 5:37- 47:

And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form. But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. “I do not receive honor from men. But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God? Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

Christ clearly says all the Scriptures point to Him. The Pharisees read and knew their scriptures as well as anyone, but they couldn’t see Jesus in them. What value is the Torah and the prophets if they don’t declare the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? No value at all if you ask me.

Jesus also taught on the road to Emmaus in Luke chapter 24:25-27:

Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

See A.L., the point of Scripture is to point to crucified and risen Jesus and His work. The question I have is why do some parents seem to think that Veggie Tales actually do that? Yes, they do teach kids to be good, nice and moral and not bow down to giant chocolate rabbits but the videos fail to point to Jesus. In this regard, as with all of God’s good and righteous Law we fail on every account, hence the need for Jesus.

I’ve heard more than one parent say they use Veggie Tales to supplement what their kids learn at church. With the state of Americanized Christianity being what it is, this is bit disturbing. A majority of churches and a goodly number of Lutheran churches as well, are not teaching even the basics of Christianity. With so many churches becoming seeker sensitive and more closely resembling Dr. Phil’s self help hour in order to find one’s purpose in life, why not sit down and actually teach your kid(s) instead of letting the talking vegetables do it?

I think that if you are just looking for entertainment, Veggie Tales will fit the bill, sort of. If on the other hand, you are looking for teaching that focuses on Christ and His gifts, Veggie Tales falls short of the hitting that mark and ends up smelling like rotten tomatoes.

The Bright Side Of Dating A Pentecostal

An evangelical friend of mine dropped a little bombshell on me last night. Here’s how the conversation went down;

The person, uh, that I’m, uh, dating.... is a little further out there than I am.

What do you mean they’re out there? You mean like Mormon out there, because that’s out there?

No, it’s not that…I..

Please tell me you’re not dating a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon. Your not dating a Mormon are you? By all that's holy, please don’t tell me you’re dating a scientologist, do not do that!

No, no, it’s nothing like that. Well I’m, uh, dating a Pentecostal.

Oh. Really?

Yeah.

Well, at least that snake problem in the back yard should go away...

Yep, leave it to me to find the best possible construction in every situation.

Upon hearing this, my missus just rolled her eyes and said “you ain’t right...”

More LC-MS Walking Together Convolution Sausage

For your reading enjoyment here’s more on the LCMS convocation Walking Together;

Pastor Todd Wilken offers a counterproposal to the centralization of power that the task force has put forward for consideration.

Pastor William Weedon also opines with a good post that asks whether or not the proposal is “honoring the smallest of our parishes as in every respect the equal of our largest parishes”

I’ll answer Pastor Weedon’s question; it doesn’t. Larger congregations have been promoted in our beloved synod as better at “soul winning" based on “visible signs” in the official LCMS newspaper; the Reporter. The church growth model that has been rejected by the largest mega churches in the country as a failed policy that does not produce Christian disciples is still being held on to as the gold standard in the LCMS. The idea that a congregation is worth more representation because they have more members should give everyone pause. Under this line of thought, Jesus should have stopped all teaching and bowed to the will of the Pharisees and Sadducees as they held the majority of the positions of leadership. Instead, Jesus tells us that where ever two or three are gathered, there he is. (Matt 18:20). If we listen to the task force’s proposal, all I hear is their commentary on Matt 18:20 which says; that was Jesus’s church, ours, not so much.

LCMS Church Governance Proposals By Dan Over At Necessary Roughness

Dan over at Necessary Roughness has a great post on the LCMS’s restructuring convocation. I’m too busy with a customer this week to keep track of what’s going on. Dan has graciously allowed me to copy his post in it’s entirety here at POTF. Thanks Dan for this thoughtful post;

The news broke on the Steadfast Lutherans site: the LCMS has published Walking Together — The LCMS Future: Proposals and Possibilities for Consideration and Discussion. It is available on the LCMS web site as a PDF.

Walking Together is a 6-page brainstorm of proposals for the LCMS. The Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synod Structure and Governance has submitted this for consideration and discussion.

It is important to note that once the reader passes the Foundational section of the document at the top of page 2, there is no Biblical or Confessional justification for any of the ideas. In fact, the Book of Concord is completely missing, unless you count “Our confessional basis remains unchanged (LCMS Constitution, Article II).” This is therefore a document of left-hand governance that operates independently from theology. We have to be very careful not to imply that God has given his blessing to any of these ideas.

If you want to put the force of God behind something, you have to back it up specifically with the plain reading of scripture. Otherwise, it’s merely groupthink in God’s name.
I’m not a pastor or an expert in synodical governance, but there are some things that caught my attention.

Page 4:Larger congregations could get more delegates to district conventions. This is a change from equality among congregations.
The term of the Synodical President and other officers could go from 3 years to 6 years.
The Divine Call of the treasurer. Can a layman receive a Divine Call?
Communication with delegates using “secure electronic communication technology.” The LCMS is a public entity. Unless there are legal issues involved, communication should be open.

Page 5:There seems to be a lot of hurdles to get something discussed. It is desired that a congregation get its overture blessed by district convention and circuit forum before it goes national. That’s a good deal of bureaucracy. A lot of people have to be friendly to an overture.

Two-thirds votes for items of doctrinal significance. This is probably a good thing, but we have to worry about words that change meaning and thus change doctrine without a two-thirds vote.

At the end of Page 5, there is an implication of power that sounds less like a synod and more like a majesterium:

The task force proposal clarifies and affirms that the Synod expects every member congregation of the Synod to respect its resolutions and to consider them of binding force on the assumption that they are in accordance with the Word of God and that they are applicable to the condition of the congregation.

A synod is a group of members or congregations who agree. They are either in agreement or not; they cannot agree with “binding force.” If this is “walking together,” it must look like a three-legged race.

Indeed, let’s consider the proposals, but let’s do it recognizing that while this concerns the church, it concerns primarily the business of the church. We should continue to recognize the efficacy of God’s Word and Sacraments and pursue those activities which maximize preaching, teaching, and confessing.

Also, there are good posts by Rev. Todd Wilken over at Steadfast Lutherans, an uncredited post also over at Steadfast Lutherans, and Pastor Christopher Hall over at This Side of the Pulpit. Good posts all!

Tasmanian Devils Are Evolving?

It is often said that you’re either a man of faith or a man of science. I happen to be both.

I’m a metrologist and that means when carrying out my vocation I get to deal with the measurement of mass and volume. Metrology is considered an exact and precise science. However, there are always uncertainties in measuring mass and it is my job to make uncertainties quantifiable and for the most part recordable. When my customers require it, I am capable of listing for them nearly every variable that will effect their measurements and recording it in a way that will keep their quality control departments confident that required standards are being met. Measurement uncertainty calculations can go on endlessly and are only limited to the amount of money a customer wishes to spend for me to measure and list things that can affect the final readings.

I’ve always been a man of science. I like knowing how and why things work the way they do. I like tangible and concrete realities. I am analytical to a fault and that is probably why I first worked in aviation and then ended up in the metrology field. Absolutes are always good and uncertainties absolutely drive a person like me crazy.

Even during my fifteen year stint as an atheist, I had problems with scientists laying claim to the both the age of the earth and evolution as fact. To my analytical mind, complex life forms evolving from nothing was an uncertainty that couldn’t be quantified. I wasn’t going to say that some god created everything but I certainly wasn’t going to say we had evolved from nothing either. What I always maintained as an atheist was that we were incapable as humans of ever finding out about our origins.

When I was down in Florida earlier this month I listened to a story on the news about a contagious form of cancer killing off the Tasmania Devil. This relatively new disease has researchers thinking that the Tasmanian Devils could be extinct in as few as twenty five years. Sounds pretty bad eh?

As it turns out the Devils have adapted to their impending demise by breeding as many as two years earlier than they had previously been observed in the wild or in captivity. From the AP:

In the past devils would live five to six years, breeding at ages two, three and four, but with the new disease, even females who breed at two may not live long enough to rear their first litter.

Jones, who has been studying the animals' life cycles since before the disease outbreak, noted that there has been a 16-fold increase in breeding at age one.

Says zoologist Menna Jones later in the article:

"We could be seeing evolution occurring before our eyes.”

We’re seeing evolution? Really? If I remember my science courses correctly, evolution takes place over huge periods of time, millennium even. For the current theory of evolution to work, the earth has to be billions of years old so that all the various species have time to adapt or evolve into their current form. Imagine the chaos that the Tasmanian Devil throws into the equation by evolving in a ten year span.

For years people of faith have been told to sit down and shut up when it came time to explain how things came to be. Men of science have told men of faith that the idea of creation was mere superstition refuted by science. Men of science have told men of faith that evolution completely disproves the idea of God creating everything in six days and animals in one.

So I wonder what explanation do the men of science have for the men of faith when evolution occurs within a ten year span? If I were only a man of science, I’d go get some help with my uncertainty budget from those faith people; they might be able to fill in some of the gaps causing havoc and uncertainty with my equations.