Saint Matthew's

I don’t have jury duty tomorrow.

My juror number is 0044; thus I fall within the allotted range and do not have to report.

I will be in the office at 8:30am on Tuesday.

For a reason only known to the Lord Almighty, I woke up at 2:30 this morning following a weird dream. My brain was racing after I woke up and nothing I tried put me back to sleep. Instead, I got up, turned on the TV, and watched an episode of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” one of my favorite television shows.

Since I was awake around 4:30, I started making plans for today. It is my day off and I haven’t done a lot of “day off” things lately. Something about yesterday’s church picnic in the backyard got to me — I decided to set up my table outside (for the first time this summer) to read and relax this morning. I set up my satellite radio and pulled the bistro table out (it really needs a good cleaning) and yanked out a chair to sit in.

But I had to do a couple of things before sitting down:

1. I needed to go for a walk and purchase the newspaper (a Monday tradition to go out and buy the Post; today I picked up both the Post and the Daily News), and

2. Morning Prayer needed to be conducted.

I had this idea as I was walking back to church — maybe during the summer, we can hold Morning Prayer outside in the backyard of the parsonage? Not that we get a large crowd; but it can be a little different during the summer – sun rising in the east; it will be slightly cooler outside than inside the church at times; and after yesterday’s outdoor worship service, I just enjoyed it a lot.

This is something I will have to think about.

After Morning Prayer, I got a can of Coke Zero (I already had a couple of cups of coffee; so I am coffee’d out), dragged the newspaper outside, and started to read. It was very calming, especially as I watched three rabbits chasing one another all around the backyard, crawling under the fence and back; very cute.

Today is also a big day for the church — our Summer Camp kicks off at 8:30am. This week, we have a good “ease into the summer” schedule for the kids and the staff; it should be a fun day here at Saint Matthew’s.

I write about the Yankees over at my personal blog. In a nutshell, not feeling all that good about the team from the Bronx.

As I sat in my office getting ready for our Midweek Divine Service and bible study last night, I realized something: I was tired.

Not just tired — really, really tired. There is a difference. I can get through a bible class if I am tired, but when I am really bushed, my life becomes much harder. So there I was last night, being really, really tired, and in a bible class.

I just hope that next week I will be a little more lively.

I was at the Garden Cafe here in New Milford this afternoon when it hit me — today, June 25th, is the anniversary of my ordination into the Holy Ministry. Plus, today is a big day for us Lutherans: it is the day we remember the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession (though, if you have a Concordia Theological Seminary 2009 calendar, you’d never know it).

Four years ago this day I entered the ministry of word and sacrament. When I was going through it, I never fully appreciated what was happening that day. It really hit me the first time I stood before Saint Matthew’s congregation and celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Then it whacked me between the eyes that I was serving God and His people.

Sadly, I forgot about it today. Don’t know why or how, but I went through my typical visit-filled morning without a clue that today was my ordination anniversary. Thankfully, it hit me while I was waiting for my lunch.

Now on to year 5!

(re-blogged from reviovine.com)

This weekend, summer officially begins and for churches all across this great nation of ours it means only one thing:

Lower Attendance.

Churches far and wide gird for the coming months of July and August as congregants head out on vacation. Consequently, church budgets get whacked during the summer, some churches hurting more than others. Here at Saint Matthew’s, the coming two months aren’t ones we look forward to financially. Our books will really get hit. Thankfully, by December our budget evens out a bit.

But these coming months hurt.

We do our best here to reduce our expenses, especially on our electricity bills that grow in the summer, and our office expenses, that can always be pared back a bit. Yet even with these attempts at reductions, the finances of Saint Matthew’s will look ugly during the coming months.

In an attempt to help reduce our summer time deficit, we will begin to collect an offering during our Morning Prayer time and our Midweek Services. Historically, these services have been without collected offerings. This isn’t an easy decision, especially when it comes to Morning Prayer. It is a ten-fifteen minute Word and Prayer service; I’ve always felt bad in asking for any kind of donation. Maybe we can set a daily $1 donation limit for our Morning Prayer service.

As a reminder, our Morning Prayer service is held here at Saint Matthew’s beginning at 7:15am each Monday through Friday. If you cannot make it, please take advantage of our Morning Prayer service outline here on our website – you can join us by following along at home or at the office.

Here at Saint Matthew’s, we’re holding our annual congregational picnic on Sunday, June 28th after church that will be held outdoors in my backyard (weather permitting). It is an annual event where we as a church celebrate our fellowship around Word and Sacrament by gathering around hot dogs and hamburgers.

In years past, this day would inaugurate our “summer schedule” where our Sunday worship service moves from 10:00am to 9:30am for July and August. However, this year we changed this up a bit when we decided to extend our summer schedule to fit in between Memorial Day and Labor Day, giving us the two holidays as the decided starting and ending points on our calendar.

In shifting our summer schedule up to fit between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we decided to make the start of this new schedule also the end of our Sunday School, cutting off about three weeks from our normal cycle. Overall, I like it. The natural calendar boundaries work, in my eyes. Yes, it will take some getting used to for many here at Saint Matthew’s, but it is only four additional weeks of 9:30am services, nothing to dramatic.

Regarding our picnic, a sign up sheet in the narthex of our church.

(reviovine.com)

After Morning Prayer, I settled on down in my church office ready to write up (or outline) this weekend’s sermon and prayers. There was only one problem:

My brain is zapped.

I tried everything, but nothing could be squeezed from the mush in my head. The sermon I started to outline was quite pathetic. I know, I know, the Holy Spirit helps guide my thoughts and then uses the words to build faith in the hearts of the hearers. But it is like the Holy Spirit took the morning off. Nothing that I wrote made any sense. Each word I wrote was unpreachable (I know, that isn’t a word).

After two hours, I stepped away and came home.

I need to step back for a little while. A change of scenery today, for at least a while, could be helpful.

As you know, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod is undergoing a “personal study” to decide on how it is going to be structured and governed as it goes into the future. There are, of course, a number of questions about the governance of this Synod and its overall structure that need to be asked, but also need to be addressed.

The Synodical President’s Blue Ribbon Task Force has been working on just for the past several years. This year, they are presenting a series of proposals to each district convention to outline proposed changes to the Synod. For example, they are proposing changes to the structure of the Synod’s conventions (limited voters to either 650 to 800), allowing large congregations additional votes at convention, scraping the current structure of district governance (ie., circuits and how they are decided upon), shrinking the number of districts, and overhauling how the Synodical President is elected.

In a nutshell, the proposals sound very good when you hear them presented at convention. They do sound fabulous … until you sit down and actually think about them.

I’ve started a review of these proposals. Today’s entry is just a general “how I feel” post. I write more about this over at my blog.

I don’t complain … a lot, that is.

Taking things in stride is something that I’ve learned over the years, something that I failed to do earlier in my life. Instead of exploding on nearly every subject nowadays, I tend to be more reflective — at times — and I try to see things through the other person’s eyes.

So, when our church received a letter this week from our district office, my newly found “taking in stride” attitude was tested.

More over at my blog.

At one time in my life, I didn’t have or show much tact. Maybe it is the clergy-position I hold now, but I’ve become more tactful in how I deal with others.

Now, if only the business manager of the New Jersey District would learn a little tact …

More over at my personal blog.

(Reprinted from my personal blog – reviovine.com)

It is a rare time when our Bible Class focuses so much on me.

Yes, me.

In our Wednesday night bible class, we are studying Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, a wonderfully systematic letter written by a great follower and disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ. To read Romans to its fullest extent, you have to read it slow, in my opinion, pondering Saint Paul’s sentence and section structure to truly grasp what he is “getting at” in his letter. I know, I am reading a little bit more into studying Scripture than I should, but it actually makes sense and makes our study have a deep-rooted understanding of what it means to be a Christian, but more importantly, what it means to be a Lutheran.

We’ve been slogging through Romans for a couple of months and last night, we finally started Chapter 2. Yes, we took plenty of time to go through Chapter 1, but we also had a couple of weeks off in between.

However, last night we only finished 5 verses, and to be honest, 5 verses is being a little generous.

In a nutshell, we were talking about what Saint Paul meant at the end of Chapter 1 into Chapter 2 when talking about righteousness, the Law, and our individual lives, which led us to talk about the topic of judgment and keeping the Law of God.

And yes, I used myself as the example. Several times I raised my faults and failures (my sins) as the example of how I’ve fallen short of God’s glory. But more importantly, how my failures, when staring at the Law, has driven me to true repentance and a full understanding of what my God has done for me.

In a pure Lutheran sense, our study last night was very fulfilling since Luther and his writings were raised several times (by me) and how we can use his Small Catechism as a prayer book.

However, it was my “confession” of various things that made the class. In a quick nutshell, I admitted:

1. I don’t pray as fervently or as often as I should. I fail to pray the Small Catechism on a daily basis. And I fail to truly repent of my sins daily, usually just mouthing the words found in the liturgy without really grasping a hold of them.

2. I still have this “dislike” for several people, including one person who stabbed me in the back a number of years ago. Last night, i believe I used the phrase, to some extent, that if he was cross the street and I was in my car, I would have a deep-seeded impulse to hit the accelerator.

3. I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, I spent time in a maturnity ward in a local hospital with a group of people who were watching over a little premature baby (by the way, the baby is doing very well). It turned out that three of the woman I was standing with and ended up praying with were “actors” in the adult film industry. Now, I didn’t know that they were in that field; a nurse at the hospital mentioned it to me after I walked away from them. My problem – when I ended up seeing these women later on, I couldn’t help but judge them in my mind for their “work.” Oh, and did I judge them!

Of course, there were some other smaller “confessions” that were mentioned by me, but I am not getting into them now.

The focus of my confessions were on the difficulties we righteous Christians have with truly grasping the Law, no matter how much we think we do or that we think we’re better than everyone else because he think we hold onto the Law and “keep it.” It was a fascinating bible class that lasted two hours. I am glad that we were able to have this time together.

OK – that means if you’re not busy, we pick up from where we left off next Wednesday, starting at 7:00pm. Our Midweek Divine Service begins our time together. Please join us at Saint Matthew’s in New Milford, NJ!

This morning, I wrote a little bit about tonight’s Midweek service, including what is considered “rightful reception” of the Lord’s Body and Blood. You can read it over at my personal blog.

I returned from our New Jersey District convention yesterday afternoon. My intention is to write a bit about the convention in our weekly announcements. However, all best laid plans are never usually accomplished.

To read more about my driving home in the heavy rain of Friday, click over to my personal blog.

Otherwise, as a reminder — today between 1 and 5pm, our Saint Matthew’s Summer Camp is holding an “Open House” at church. Everyone is invited to bring their kids along and see what we are planning for the summer.

Plus, if you come later in the day, you can hang out with me at around 5pm. Of course, our “hanging out” will be in church during our Divine Service…see you later!!

(This entry is a re-posting from my personal blog, reviovine.com)

The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod released a statement yesterday concerning the Sunday shooting of an abortion doctor in Wichita, Kansas. Nothing overarching in the statement attributed to our Synodical President, Rev. Jerry Kieshnick.

However, two things got to me — first, the press release “quotes” Kieshnick as using the phrase “Lutheran Christians.”

Ugh.

I just can’t stand that. Being a “Lutheran” means that you’re a Christian. To use “Lutheran” as a modifier for Christian is kind of dopey, in my book. I mean, when is the last time you read “Roman Catholic Christian” or “Presbyterian Christian?” People can figure out that being a Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, or even Lutheran means that one is a Christian. My suggestion is that they just drop the little modifier game. Play it straight.

Second, there is no mention of Jesus Christ anywhere in that press release. Again, some will think I am nitpicking, but let’s be honest — isn’t a press statement a good place to mention our Savior’s name, especially in a release about a senseless murder? We can’t miss these opportunities to proclaim the forgiveness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.