Saint Matthew's

I know – it’s Labor Day weekend.

But where are you on Sunday morning?

I know I didn’t see you here last night. So where are you this morning?

God doesn’t take the weekend off.

He wants you to join Him at His house.

So where are you?

This evening, I upgraded from DirecTV’s “Plus HD/DVR” package to their “Premier” offering. Basically, with my former television package, I received nearly every channel they offered, minus ‘premiums’ like HBO, Showtime, and other movie channels. With this upgrade, I receive every channel DirecTV offers — every movie, sports, and specialty channel. Of course, the individual sports packages like MLB Extra Innings, NHL Center Ice (I receive both of those) and NFL Sunday Ticket (holy cow! It’s $389! And I ain’t paying that much for football), are extra.

But now I have to pay individually for their DVR service and HD access. Can’t complain — they bundled the service in my old package, so I was paying it anyway. Overall, DirecTV has provided wonderful service. During the past year, they’ve vastly increased their HD offerings and, according to the message boards, will continue to increase the channels they offer (oh, please, Fox News HD).

The one complaint about DirecTV that people who have cable always make about satellite TV is that sometimes you lose service.

I’ve lost service only during severe thunderstorms, and for only a couple minutes. Otherwise, the picture has been perfect.

And DirecTV has more HD than cable.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

I think he selected her for one reason:

Governor Palin is a hockey fan!!

Yes!!

When did it become OK to let the American flag touch the ground? I was yelled at as a kid if I did this because I was showing disrespect for our country. Look at the feet of Democrat Vice Presidential nominee Senator Joe Biden.

This is wrong. Don’t read into my politics. To let the American flag touch the ground is not right.

The Associated Press photograph is taken from page 5 of today’s New York Daily News.

I just absolutely love this new Alan Jackson song, “If Jesus Walked the World Today.” It gives me a chuckle, in a non-theological sense.

Gotta get this album.

Or get it here.

The corrected lyrics are after the jump (via the wonderful website, A-Z Lyrics Universe)

(more…)

After last night’s stomach churning example of sports hideousness, if any New York Yankees fan out there is holding on to some miracle comeback, then they clearly need a test to see if their brain is working properly.

The Yankees’ season is over. In fact, it has been over for a while.

The only reason to go to the Stadium in September is to say, “Goodbye” to the ol’ ballpark rebuilt in the mid-1970s and is now facing its younger sibling ready to house the team for the coming decades.

This is a bad team. Its pitching is so bad, it makes me sick. And for me to say that it makes me sick, it has to be really, really bad. I mean, we’re in the middle of a pennant race and they have Darryl Rasner and Sidney Ponson as anchors of their pitching staff? Please.

But their offense. All year it has just stunk, minus that short period when they actually hit the ball in early July. They do not get timely hits. How many times have they left runners on base, in scoring position, with their supposed power hitters NOT scoring the runners? Two nights ago, A-Rod couldn’t get hit by a pitch in a clutch situation much less hit the baseball. He grounded into a double play against a rookie Red Sox pitcher. He struck out in the 9th inning to end the game. However, last night, with literally no pressure on the team because even they realize that their season is done, A-Rod gets a timely hit.

The man doesn’t need Madonna or kabballa. A-Rod needs a shrink.

I just hope that Brian Cashman can do something with the pitching staff in the off-season. And please, let Jason Giambi go. I am tired of the mustasche, no-mustasche, thong-wearing semi-power hitter who plays first base like he’s never seen it before.

There. I feel better.

Yes, the Yankees are stinking up the joint. They looked terrible, terrible, terrible last night, thanks to bad pitching, lack of timely hitting (hello, Mr. $27 Million Man), and just a case of the blahs that has plaqued this team from spring training.

Even with all of John Sterling’s screaming, the Yankees are just a not-so-good team. They deserve to sit home in October and watch real teams play in the playoffs.

But yet, I am still a Yankees fan.

That won’t change.

Across town, the Mets, while in first place, aren’t any better than the Yankees. Last night’s Mets failure would make any Mets’ fan vomit. Somehow, the Mets are clinging to first place.

New York baseball — ugh.

No, I am not “down” as in depressed.

I am “down” as in weight.

More over at my weight loss blog.

Last night, I updated the sermon section with last night’s reading and an outline of the homily I preached. To read the homily outline, click here. And yes, it is an outline — I filled in the “blanks” as I went along. The homily was preached and it was much fuller in terms of theological content than what is on this outline.

But you’ll get my drift.

After a lot of consideration, I have decided to keep the sermon blog.

A stunner, I know.

I will also use it to upload the readings for each week and Tuesday evening Divine Service.

Tonight’s reading is up. The homily will go up later.

Why don’t young people come to church?

Why don’t people frequent worship services?

Why is it that when children get confirmed in the Lutheran Church, many of them decide to skip church thereafter?

These are three questions that have perplexed social scientists and church leaders for decades. Every year, church attendance dips. Some churches want to increase their young people attendance and are trying "contemporary worship" styles that include a lax liturgy, more "upbeat" music, and messages that are generic in terms of their "Christ died for you" context. And for a short while, these churches have a slight up tick in attendance.

However, what happens in most of these churches, these additional contemporary worship services end up being populated by people who used to attend the more traditional worship service as the "new people" fall off and spend time at home sleeping.

I have read many of these studies and I have always come away with an empty feeling. They try to scientifically account for why people decide to stay home instead of receiving the gifts of God, and no matter how hard they try, them seem to miss the boat.

And the latest? It seems that the television show, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has something to do with why women are abandoning church.

I have a more simple answer as to why many people don’t come to church: They feel that they don’t have to.

This lack of church attendance is a societal and cultural reaction to the commonly held notion that all religions are equal and that all have their own way to eternal life. As Christians, we say this is bunk. But this is what is being promoted by the media and everyone — not just young people — are being swayed by the notion that we Christians don’t have the only way to get heaven.

Society says that in the end, God will let down his eternal guard and let everyone, except the bad people as determined by society, into his Kingdom. Killers in heaven? Nope, says the world. Mean people sitting across from you in heaven? Oh, not in my version of heaven, our culture promotes.

With this understanding being so pervasive in the world, people decide for themselves that they don’t need God on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis. God is just some nice old man sitting on the commode up in heaven waiting to finish his business before He ends the world and everyone can join Him in heaven. If this is how God is perceived by society, why do you need to go to church?

The challenge of the church is not to try and be something different than what it has always been — it is to remain being different than what the rest of the world preaches!!

We have to make church relevant in the lives of the people again not by watering down our beliefs or our liturgy, but by strengthening it, keeping our doors open, and providing people with a sanctuary from the craziness of the world.

For example, when I started here at Saint Matthew’s, I laid out my mission that our church had to become a 7-day a week church. During these last three years, we’ve worked on making this a reality. We have church services everyday with Morning Prayer on Monday through Friday; a midweek divine service with Bible class following; and a Saturday night divine service each week. That is why we are opening a preschool to say to the community that Christian education is essential to a child’s development. And in the future, we have other ideas that will expand the mission of Saint Matthew’s.

All of this fights the notion of our sinful world that rejects God and Jesus Christ as being just one of many different deities that will lead to eternal life. But most importantly, we need to have the guts to preach Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins as the way to eternal life. We cannot water down our message to make people feel good. We need to preach Christ and His sacrifice for the world — that is what truly makes us feel free.

It’s not Buffy’s fault that women are leaving church. It is the sinful world that is doing it.

I’ve never been a big fan of “American Idol.”  I watched a couple of season finales — the first one with Kelli Clarkson winning, another when Carrie Underwood won — but it has never been a must-see or a show I Tivo’d.

This morning when I found out that Kara DioGuardi has been named as the fourth judge on the show, I kind of smiled and thought that I would have to watch one or two episodes.

I met Kara when I was working on her father’s Congressional race in the early 1990s. I wasn’t out of college, but I had the chance to work a lot for Joe DioGuardi’s run against Nita Lowey. Kara was a year ahead of me in college – she attended Duke (I think, don’t quote me).

She was a very nice girl, very lovely. I joked to my friend, Dominick, who worked for the DioGuardi campaign, and Rick, who was the political consultant on the campaign, that I couldn’t understand how she was  Joe’s daughter. She was nice; he was a classic pain in the butt. Don’t get me wrong – I loved the guy and probably would have cut my right arm off if it meant getting him elected, but he was an aggravating man who drove everyone who worked for him nuts. (No, he lost the election and I still have my arm)

But if you saw both of them together, it was clear — Kara looks like her father. Imagine a bald Kara without makeup; that’s Joe.

I know Joe was never thrilled with her aspirations in the creative arts — he wanted her to become a lawyer. Something tells me, however, with all her success in the music industry, he’s one proud father today.

One day in his study at his former home in Scarsdale, Joe sat behind his desk barking out orders while opening his mail. I stood in the back of the room (I think near the door). When he opened a fundraising letter from Duke, Joe went off, complaining that they only wanted money. He ended up sealing the return envelope with nothing in side and handed it to me to mail. Almost immediately Kara walked in and he started complaining about her money-grubbing school. She walked out.

I have moved my weight loss blog, affectionately known as “Being Fat Stinks,” over to our church’s website. To find the site, click here. Please make a note of it … or just click the link on the right.

I’ve been working on this idea for several months — yes, it has been that long.

Starting in September, our monthly newsletter, “Saint Matthew’s Matters,” will hit your mailboxes for the first time in a long time. Included in the newsletter will be news and information about what is happening at Saint Matthew’s, as well as our monthly calendar, a memo written by me, and other important information about  our New Jersey District and Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.

In this planning, I believed we needed to update our website a bit.

One of the ways in which we will do that is to formally introduce a “Saint Matthew’s Matters” section that will include all the information in our monthly newsletter, as well as downloads of the paper copy of the newsletter and monthly calendar, a continuously updated news and information blog, ways in which you can enrich your understanding of what is to be a Lutheran by taking part in an online bible study dealing with the Lutheran Confessions, and a page entitled “Connections” that provides links to confessional Lutheran websites, journals, and blogs.

Earlier this week, I set up the new section and had a number of people check it out and play around. Overall, they found this initial site a little confusing and hard to maneuver. After getting this input, I worked on changing the site’s look to something a lot cleaner and easier to navigate. Truth be told, changing the theme of the section was rather easy; with a click or two, the section’s theme changed.

Right now, the section is still in its “beta” form since we don’t have a lot up there. A number of changes will be made during the next week, though the look of the section will not change. Additional pages will go live and some of the current pages will be updated with content.

If you click over to this new section, it will always open up the news update blog. Here you will find updated news and information on what is happening at Saint Matthew’s. On the right side of this blog, you will find links to various other pages, which I mentioned above. Again, there isn’t much to these pages right now. And even where there is content, the information is not the most updated (especially on the “Connections” page a number of new blogs have come on line during the past year which are not included in the list … yet).

One of the areas I am most excited about is the new online Bible study on the Lutheran Confessions. I suggest that those who wish to follow along with this study purchase the updated “Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions.” On this page, you will notice that you can purchase this book from Amazon. When you do, Saint Matthew’s will receive a portion of the sale of each book. So if you don’t have one on your shelf, go there now and pick it up. This bible study will begin sometime before the middle of the month. I will have more information as we get closer to a launch date. But get your “Concordia” now!!

There are other ideas that will come online with our church’s website in the near future. For instance, I intend to move my weight loss “Being Fat Stinks” blog from its current web host to our church website very shortly. This blog is catching on with some segment of our church and the community. It has surprised me the number of hits the blog receives each day. Moving it to our church’s website will give us greater control over how it looks.

Also, we will provide a section for our Sunday School and Confirmation classes. This is something I am looking forward to since it will allow for extended learning for our confirmation students. Plus, it will keep them honest to get their studies completed!

We know that our website hasn’t been updated very well during the past year. I take full responsibility for this terrible flaw in our outreach. But in a short while, I hope to have my error corrected.

Check out the beta section, “Saint Matthew’s Matters” and let me know what you think.

An email this afternoon from a reader in Kentucky:

What browser do you prefer?

A different type of question to ask a pastor. Usually, it’s a question over sin and stuff. I never get questions about my browser.

As a Mac guy, of course I say Safari. But to post to this blog and others, I find Safari doesn’t render the posting pages as well. When I want to bold a word, I need to use HTML language instead of just highlighting and hitting the bold “B” button in Firefox.

So to answer the question, I prefer both.