Saint Matthew's

It is hard for me to admit that my grammar has reeked lately. I’ve been a writer all my life and for me to publicly admit that my grammar has been poor is not easy.

In high school, my senior English teacher would tell us that they best way to practice writing is to just write. To practice good grammar meant to write grammatically well. She encouraged us to keep a journal and to write something everyday. To her, in order to write well, we had to write. Of course, that meant following basic grammatical rules, not writing like a slob.

Sad to say, I’ve gotten away from keeping my eye on the grammatical ball. While blogging has pushed me to write, it has lead me away from “doing it well.” Internet writing, sadly to say, is not professionalized enough for writers to keep up their skill levels. On the internet, it is a place to throw up ideas and thoughts without giving much thought to how it is written.

I’ve fallen into the anti-grammar trap.

I need to crawl my way out.

Effectively, that means more writing, practicing and studying proper and useful grammar. This will require better use of my time so my writing can become stronger, again. Proper writing and good grammar were once stalwarts of my life; they’ve become a distant memory. It is time to fix it.

Admittedly, this all sounds a little “goofy.” For me to complain that my grammar is shot does sound a little off-kilter. Yet, this is important to me. I need to get back on the horse and become a better writer … again.

A Congressman wants to make 2010 the Year of the Bible. As you would guess, this quasi-law has raised the ire of the non-Bible supporting crowd (the atheists) and the governmental secularists (just about everyone else). Says the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Paul Broun (R-Georgia):

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Christianity,” he said in an interview with POLITICO. Rather, he says, it seeks to recognize that the Bible played an integral role in the building of the United States, including providing the basis for our freedom of religion that allows Muslims, Hindus and even atheists to vocalize their own beliefs.

The Congressman is correct. The Bible played an historic and critical role in building of this nation. Just read our Founders -  they used the hopes and freedoms espoused in that book as  a basis of our laws. This, of course, doesn’t make our nation a “Christian” nation, but it doesn’t mean we ignore the fact that our Founders used God as a basis for the establishment of our United States.

Of course, the anti-religion crowd is hooting and hollering, claiming the law is dumb and discriminatory.

“Does that mean 2009 is not the year of the Bible?” mocked Rep. Barney Frank ­(D-Mass.), who is Jewish. “What is 2012 the year of? The Quran?”

“That’s an endorsement of religion by the federal government, and we shouldn’t be doing that,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), even though he has introduced his own legislation dealing with religion.

“Republican lawmakers with apparently too much time on their hands and no solutions to offer the country are pushing a resolution that will not address the nation’s problems or advance prosperity or even untangle their previous governing mistakes,” blogged the Progressive Puppy.

To me, I don’t completely understand why there is a need for this bill. To a Christian, the Bible is the book of the year every year, regardless of who is president or whether or not the Yankees win the World Series. The Bible is the Word of God and it is our book of the year, month, week, and every day. Do we really need this little reminder? No.

But for all the complaining from the left wing of the Democrat party – please! They make it sound like they’ve never supported meaningless resolutions before. How many honorariums do they pass without reading them? Heck, earlier this year they adopted a stimulus bill where they never read a word. And they throw a fit over a meaningless paper resolution?

Please.

Yes, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for a couple of weeks now and my blogging has suffered. Not that I didn’t want to sit down and write — it was just that I had sooooooo much to get done, something had to give. Blogging gave.

I’m trying to ease back off the throttle a bit, hence my ability to get back online and write.

Saint Matthew’s Board of Christian Education meets at church tonight beginning at 7:00pm.

I’ve been on an organization kick for several months now.

The one area that hasn’t seen my whirlwind of organization is the bookcase in my church office.

Until this afternoon, that is.

I am moving everything around, throwing out a lot of junk, and re-ordering the limited numbers of books and binders that have in the church office. This is taking longer than I anticipated. It will get done.

Today.

Wow.

The past three days have been busy. Really busy. Today has been OK, though I will not get my to-do list completed today. We have church tonight at 7 followed by our bible class on Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans. If I’m feeling peppy, then I will make coffee for tonight.

Join us on Center Street at 7.

I will be working today – for the most part – from the home office. There are a few items I need to prepare for this weekend (finalize a sermon, write the prayers) and it will be just be easier working from home.

However, that doesn’t mean I am sitting chained to the home desk. My Friday schedule includes running out to meet with someone at noon and I may make a supermarket run. But the rest of my day takes place at home.

I’ve been kind, so far this season, to the  New York Yankees and their rather hideous play and mounting injuries (both physical and mental). But I’ve been writing more about hockey – and yesterday, I vented my spleen on Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby … over at my blog.

This morning, the pastors in Circuit 1 will come together to discuss issues and events in our district. Of course, two items are on the agenda:

1. Our Ascension Day service on May 21st.

2. The New Jersey Disrict Convention on June 4-6.

I will report back later on our discussions, if they were fruitful, that is.

Earlier today on my personal blog, I made mention of an issue I was having with Logos Bible Software. In a quick nutshell, Logos is a software program that is an incredible tool for pastors. It makes preparing and studying God’s Word a breeze. To read all about my issue, click here.

My problem, it turns out, was not about the new Mac engine that I purchased and downloaded — it had everything to do with Apple’s Safari 4 beta browser. It was making the Logos program act quirky when trying to render exegetical information. After uninstalling the beta and installing a stable version of the browser, everything now works.

The following is New Jersey District President Rev. William Klettke’s monthly report, as found in “Servant to Servant” for May 2009:

God’s Gifts in the Spring

As people of the Resurrection we live each day in thanksgiving and thankful living for the victory our Lord won for us over sin and death. As a District President I have been privileged to participate in the placement of candidates from our colleges and Seminaries into positions of service for ordained and commissioned ministers. Each Spring usually right after we celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord, the Council of Presidents acting as athe Board of Assignments for the LCMS places the candidates from our two seminaries into their first call.

In recent years the Holy Spirit has called large numbers of men to prepare for the Office of Ministry. Unlike last year, all candidates were placed this year. The Council placement process included the reading of each candidate’s name and location of service by the receiving District President. There is a time of prayer and then a unanimous vote to place the candidates. We have to keep in confidence those placements for several days until the Call Service and then travel to the next seminary for another call service the following night.

The New Jersey District received 5 candidates from the Spring placement last year. This year we had no calling congregations, so I had the opportunity to walk the hallways and gather in the cafeteria for refreshments and just observe the joy, hope and anticipation on the faces of the newly placed candidates, spouses and children. It was truly a joyful moment that brought back pleasant memories. Our Lord continues to raise up good and faithful workers for the harvest field.

In other areas, the Council held election of officers. The results were: Chairman, Larry Stoterau of the Pacific Southwest District; Vice Chair, Jon Diefenthaler of the Southeastern District; Secretary – William Klettke; Committee members Randy Golter of the Rocky Mountain District and Keith Kohlmeier of the Kansas District.

Pastoral vacancy report – with 35 of 35 districts reporting vacancies following Spring Placement:

• 228 calling a sole Pastor
• 41 calling an senior pastor
• 49 calling an associate pastor

A total of 318 pastors are needed to fill these vacancies. In addition, there are 346 permanent non-calling congregations and 160 temporary non-calling congregations, for a grand total of 825 vacancies.

The non-calling congregation statistic was gathered for the first time at the April meeting in two sub-categories. This is to reflect temproarily non-calling congregations being served by an Interim Pastor or long term vacancy pastor. Those congregations are expected to be able to call a sole pastor after a period of time.

More on this year’s Ascension Day service on our updates’ page.

I am still writing about my weight loss fight – not here, but over at my personal blog.

Since I was installed here at Saint Matthew’s back in the summer of 2005, we have been using the English Standard Version translation of the bible in our weekend and Midweek services. In our Morning Prayer service, we use the New International Version for the simple reason is that we have numerous copies of this bible available. But the ESV is our church’s bible translation.

This morning, I was looking on Amazon and came across a free copy of this bible. More over at my personal blog.

Even in periods when we get angry, God does shine His good light. We just have to step back and look for it.

I wrote a little more about my not going away over at “The Blog.” To read it, click.