Defense of Marriage Acts

We don’t need a law to defend marriage and family. As Christians, we always seek to defend family and do good. However, this month let’s make an intentional effort to do things that celebrate and support marriage and family. Below are some suggestions:

• When you see a child or children behaving well, compliment them. Better yet, compliment them to their parents.
• When visiting with someone find a way to compliment his/her spouse.
• When visiting with children find a way to compliment their parents.
• We look for ways to support all people who struggle with sin. We do this because we’re sinners, and we know that all people need support in battling sin. If you know of someone struggling with sins that affect family (like pornography or homosexuality), look for ways to develop a healthy relationship with them. Find positive things to do together.
• Give a gift or card to someone who is suffering from a divorce. Better yet, invite them to an activity like a game or a movie.
• Personally, recognize and commend couples who are not living together outside of marriage.
• Recognize and commend single celibate people.
• Give a couple who has suffered from miscarriage or still birth a remembrance of their child(ren). (Maybe a card, flowers, statue, picture)
• Offer free babysitting for a couple with young children.
• Always celebrate expecting mothers.
• Visit or write a note to people who have lost family members, especially to parents who have lost adult children.

Do you have suggestions??? Feel free to share. Also, we hope that you will anonymously share experiences wherein you or someone else defended family with an act of kindness. This is not to pat ourselves on the back. This is so that others might be able to rejoice in the good that was done. Maybe one act of kindness will spur someone else to do another act. You can leave suggestions or the description of what you did at the office, or in the box in the narthex, or in the comments section below.

Worship

I found the following words to be helpful, and commend them to anyone who might read this:

The reason we need the traditional worship forms and weekly Eucharist is because we are sinners. That has not changed since 1530. What has changed is that our culture is even more self-centered (living in a 24-7 entertainment culture) and less influenced by Christian doctrine and practice than in the days of the reformers. The solution is not to compromise either our doctrine or our practice. The solution is the opposite: to be faithful to our doctrine and practice - because our faith is not something that changes with every whim of the culture. We cling to traditional marriage and traditional liturgy - even though hipsters and celebrities tell us both are no longer relevant. 

They only lose their relevance when Christians reject them in order to be popular.

The entire post can be found from the link below:
http://www.gottesdienstonline.blogspot.com/2013/05/in-our-churches-mass-is-celebrated.html

No Midweek

There is no Midweek on Wednesday, March 27th. We will return to Midweek on April 3rd.

We hope you will be able to join us for worship Monday - Thursday at 7 pm; Good Friday at 7: 30 at Zion; Saturday Easter Vigil at 8pm, and Easter Sunday at 8:30 followed by a breakfast.

A blessed Holy Week to you all.

Date Changes for Confirmation

The information below will be sent home with the eighth graders.

Confirmation Sunday is moved to Sunday, May 26^th. The Questioning service will be Wednesday, May 22^nd. My intention is to have a potluck meal and presentation of gifts after the questioning. More details will be forthcoming. We will still use the season of Lent as a time to pray for and bless our catechumens as they prepare for confirmation.

This new schedule will allow more time for confirmands to review their catechism work and interview with me throughout the year. Please feel free to call with any questions.

In Christ,

Pastor Gaunt

452 3685 (church)

452 3605 (home)

Large Catechism

At the orientation meeting last September I handed out Large Catechisms for each family, but didn't really explain the purpose.  Luther wrote the Large Catechism for parents and pastors to expand what he writes in the Small Catechism. As I prepare to teach a portion of the Small Catechism each week, I often study the correlating passages from the Large Catechism. I always learn something new as I read it.

I wanted to provide each family with a copy as a support to parents as they hand the faith on to their children. The ideal scenario would be that parents read the portion of the Large Catechism that corresponds to those portions that we are learning in Midweek. If nothing else I hope it is a helpful resource, and I pray it is a tool that deepens your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Google Docs Are Public

You should now be able to access the documents at the top right. Sorry to those who tried to access them earlier. I'm technologically infirm.

Palm Sunday Sermon

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

1.                   Fear not Christian, behold your king is coming, but you have to receive Him as He comes, no as you want Him to be. The crowds came to see Jesus on the first Palm Sunday because He raised Lazarus from the dead. They were not anticipating Christ riding into Jerusalem as the sacrifice for sin. But that’s the king who comes. He has not come to put a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. He has not come to be an example. He does not come to inspire the people. He comes to do battle with your sin. That is the king you must receive, or you cannot receive Him at all.

2.                   There’s the problem: Sin’s not much of a problem. We’re tired of hearing about it. We’re tired of preaching about it. Do you know the last time you sinned? We’ve got due dates we’re worried about. Celebrations we have to plan for. all sorts of time commitments we struggle to keep straight. But, sin doesn’t cause us much heartburn. We don’t want to be free from sin. We just don’t want to get in trouble for it.

3.                   But Christ was not stripped naked and exposed so that we would have license to sin. He was not scourged 39 times, his flesh ripped from His back, because sin is nothing to worry about. His hands and feet were not bounded through with spikes because what you need is to feel better about yourself.

4.                   Christ has come to do battle with your sin. Therefore, His cross is the intervention god has staged that you might come to see your addiction to sin. The cross is an assault on the life we have wanted for ourselves. The bleeding and dying of His Son is God’s judgment of all the works which we think make us worthwhile. The spectacle of the cross draws us from our inward contemplations. Contemplate the suffering and death of Christ. It’s on the cross you will see how dire your situation is.

5.                   If you are already conscience stricken over your sin, thank God for His mercy. If not, ask that God would have mercy and soften your heart. Then when you are aware of your sin, you must cast it back on Jesus. Let Jesus deal with it, because again, He is the one who has come to battle your sin and rebellion.

6.                   God has not willed that you fight your sin., but that Christ should. Is. 53:6 “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” 1 Peter 2:24 “In His body He has borne our sins on the wood of the cross.” 2 Cor. 5:21 “God mad Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. That we might become  the righteousness of God through Him.”

7.                   If you let sin remain in your conscience it will be too strong for you. If you try to still your conscience with how sorry you feel, or with acts that show your sorrow, you will never have peace. If you try to deal with your sin yourself in your heart it’s over.

8.                   But if Christ deals with your sin in his body, then perfect confidence is yours. Christ is strong enough, and your has no choice but to be killed on christ’s corss and swallowed in His resurrection.

9.                   And so you are made new. You might look and feel the same but you are a completely new creation. And so God puts in you a new mind to deal with temptation. Even that you don’t do alone, and the cross of Christ is the key to the battle. Listen to Luther…

If pain or sickness afflicts you, consider how paltry this is in comparison with the throny crown and tne nails of Christ. If you are obliged to do or to refrain from doing things against your wishes, ponder how Christ was bound and captured and led hither and yon. If you are beset by pride, see how your Lord was mocked and ridiculed along with criminals. If unchastity and luts assail you, remember how ruthlessly Christ's tender flesh was scourged, pierced and beaten. If hatred, enfy, and vindictiveness beset you, recall that Chrsit, who indeed had more reason to avenge himself, interceded with tears and cries for you and for all his enemies. If sadness or any adversity, physical or spiritual, deistresses you, strengthen your hear and say, "Well why should I not be willing to bear a little grief, when agonies and fears caused my Lord to sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane?"

10.                God is judge, but He doesn’t want only to be your judge. He wants to suffer in your place, that you might be free. “Hosannah, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” For He comes to fight your sin and save you.

11.                We are entering into the holies of weeks. The devil, world, and your flesh want you to be too busy to take time to hear the story of Christ’s suffering and death. If you do hear the story, your enemies want you to be too preoccupied to meditate and take it to heart. But what else can we do but ponder these events? Every wound Jesus receives means healing for you. This story of shame is your glory. This display of weakness is your strength. Peer into these mysteries of Christ’s passion, and you are peering into nothing less than the very heart of God.