Saint Matthew's

Today is Ascension Day, the day we Christians remember the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ back to the right hand of the Father. In terms of Christian hope, a great deal of our faith is built and strengthened on this knowledge that our Lord Jesus is awaiting His blessed return.

Join us today as we celebrate Ascension Day as churches in the New Jersey District. This morning, a special chapel service will be held at Zion Lutheran Church in Westwood, NJ in conjunction with their Lutheran school. This service begins at 10:30am at Zion, located at 155 2nd Avenue.

Tonight at 7:45pm, please join us for our Ascension Service to be held at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church in Closter, NJ. Saint Paul’s is located at 177 Closter Dock Road. Afterward, please join us for a fellowship reception as we continue our Christian celebration of Christ’s Ascension!

Yes, in the post below, I mention that our district’s Mission Executive has created a video of his missions presentation to our 2009 convention. But I never realized that our district has a YouTube page.

OK, I admit that the page is lacking for videos right now (two doesn’t really cut it). But heck, the New Jersey District has a YouTube page!

In June the district relaunched its website – njdistrict.org – with a number of “new features,” including blogs for several of our district leaders (right now, only Rev. Steinbronn has activated his). There is a lot of information available about the district and what it is doing — a good thing for those wondering what is happening around this district.

Oh, and if you don’t know what the little logo in this post is all about, it is the New Jersey District logo. There is actually a meaning to it.

(re-posted from reviovine.com)

Rev. Anthony Steinbronn, the Mission Executive with the New Jersey District, has offered his 2009 New Jersey District convention presentation as a YouTube video. Each slide moves by pretty fast, but I think you’ll get his point.

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.

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.

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.

Last month, delegates to our Synodical convention in Houston decided that a special convention will be held in 2009 somewhere in America on some date and time, all to be determined at a later date. The idea is to finally deal with the issues associated with how the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod is governed. While I believe this is a necessary topic that our Synod should discuss, the cost of the convention has me baffled.

The price tag: $2 Million.

Next year, all churches within the LC-MS will be assessed dues for this convention. That means in 2008, not only will we have to pay our dues for our district convention in 2009, but also dues for this special convention. Oh, and don’t forget: Our regularly scheduled tri-annual convention will be held in 2010, and we will be assessed for that convention as well.

For large churches in the Missouri-Synod, this is will not hurt their budgets. However, for smaller churches, getting hit with dues bills three times within a year is going to pinch already tight dollars. And do you want to know something?

There is no guarantee that the special convention will change anything within the Synod.

That’s right – there may be such a dramatic proposed shift in our church body’s governance that no one will feel comfortable with any kind of change. On the other hand, the proposed changes could be so lacking that the Synod in convention could reject it. However, congregations will still be assessed the $2 Million bill.

Changing the governance of a church is a hard process that does not happen overnight. It takes years of discussions and planning. For some reason, our Synod believes it can come up with a package of governance changes for an entire Synod and everyone will be happy. My friends, this is not likely to happen if the Synod talks about this behind closed doors.

What I don’t want to happen is to see our church’s dues flushed down the toilet because we can’t seem to figure out how we want our Synod to be governed. Pastors need to take the lead and publicly talk about how our Synod should be governed. The reason is simple – we are the ones on the front line, dealing with the Synod on a daily basis. We try to understand the bureaucratic mess that the LC-MS and sometimes, we shake our heads. Pastor have to stand up and make their opinions known and discuss the options as to how our Synod should act.

For example, we should ask questions like: Do we eliminate districts to save money? Should we make changes as to who can vote at our national Synodical convention? Are we going to eliminate some of the bureaucratic offices within the Synod? Is there a way to make the Synod more responsive to the needs of individual churches?  Do we continue to move away from a congregationist Synodical structure, one that has been in place since the time of C.F.W. Walther, to an episcopate structure (think: Roman Catholic Church structure with bishops and archbishops who have great control over their diocese), one that is creeping into our Synod?

There are a lot of issues that need to be pondered, studied, and prayed over. We can’t rush something like this. That’s why Pastors have to take the ball and teach.

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For those of you who do not know, the New Jersey District of the LC-MS is facing a deep financial problem: They have had to reduce staffing and hours in our district office because contributions from churches are dropping. Overall, the district has always tried to keep expenses in check; sometimes, however, certain costs for a district office can’t be capped. Facing a gloomy future, the district has decided to reduce staffing and hours.

Of course, the issue of churches and money is something that isn’t new. Here at Saint Matthew’s, we have and will continue to face financial hardships in the years to come.

If our Voter’s Body had sat on their hands and did not take drastic action, Saint Matthew’s would cease to exist in the coming years. That is the most grim of realities that the members of Saint Matthew’s have – and will continue – to face. We have spoken about stewardship and have started an outreach program, but the hardships of running a church still are in front of us.

Costs spiral upwards while giving remains stagnant or reduces. Large deficits ensue while savings is eroded. Every church – and district – in the LC-MS has faced this reality. The question remains: “What are we to do?”

(more…)

It was in our Parish Announcement section of our bulletin on Sunday, but sometimes we can just miss stuff. Tonight at 6:30pm at Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church in Closter is holding a Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. And with the latest move to push traditional breakfast to the evenings (and move traditional dinner to mornings) in an effort to get people to lose weight, it can’t be bad to have pancakes at night.

I’ll be there at 6:30pm. Hope to see you there.

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Yesterday, our circuit here in the NJ District held our monthly pastor’s gathering. This month, our friends at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Ridgewood hosted us, with Rev. Andy Nelson leading the way. We had a long discussion on the the growing importance of parish nursing in many LC-MS churches. It was a wonderful talk about how nurses can play a central role in the well-being of a church.

We also talked about the Concordia University @ River Forest’s Wind Symphony concert that will be held here at Saint Matthew’s on Tuesday, March 6th beginning at 7:00pm. It is an honor that Saint Matthew’s can host this internationally renowned symphony.

After our meeting, we headed off to Winberie’s for lunch.

When I started here at Saint Matthew’s, Rev. Jack Wangerin (my predecessor) explained that one of the best things about Circuit 1 in the New Jersey District is that no matter what the pastor’s may believe, everyone seemed to get along well. The Circuit supports one another and prays for one another.

In my opinion, this is a terrific circuit. I am truly blessed to be with a great group of brothers in Christ.

A pastor at the New Jersey District convention on very early Saturday morning said to me: “So, you survived your first convention.”

There wasn’t much to “survive.” Everything went as planned. Nothing shocking. I enjoyed the reports from the district’s committees. To be honest, I really didn’t know much about the committees before this convention – and to hear all that they do was a great benefit to me. It got me interested in doing some work with the district with some of the committees.

The convention theme – “Mission Lights” – was a pure delight. The focus of creating congregations that are truly mission and evangelism oriented is wonderful goal. It is what we here at Saint Matthew’s are beginning to do as a congregation.

So, I “survived” my first convention. I will be writing a report on the convention and posting here soon.

Nothing is going out of the expected ordinary. Reports are being presented (even though most of them are in the handbook). Tremendous missions-oriented programs are offered by the district. Resolutions are being adopted. But…

The convention basically rubberstamps these resolutions. They aren’t controversial or questionable. However, when one was offered that went against the general feelings of the district and the convention, they tabled it.

I don’t care if someone disagrees with the resolution’s intent, to block discussion or to even consider it on the floor of the convention is just plain wrong. It is not fair to the congregation who wrote and adopted and passed it on to the convention for floor consideration. The resolution can lose 108-0, it should have been at least placed on the floor.

The resolution in question dealt with the district using only doctrinally-pure hymns and worship services at convention. Three years ago, apparently the worship service was not very sound.

So you know, I voted – with the small minority – to allow the resolution to come to the floor.

Otherwise, things are going well. Right now, our district’s Youth committee is telling us all the things they are planning and doing.

Overall, nothing out of the ordinary. The district re-elected William Klettke as president. Rev. Paul Huenke was elected First Vice President. We OK’d the new by-laws (basically a restructuring to make them conform with the Synod’s new by-law structure). Yes, there are a couple of changes to how the district will run (more power given to the District President in certain areas where one would guess he should have the power).

However, even with these new by-laws, we have to consider one major question: is giving more power to the bishop of the district – the President – going against the historic nature of Lutheranism? We don’t have strong armed bishops and a top-heavy synodical structure, in theory. But over the years, we have created such a Synod and now are doing the same to the districts.

What would CFW Walther say to this? His focus was on the power in the hands of the congregation. Today, the power is in the hands in a district president, a board of directors, and a synod. In my opinion, Walther wouldn’t be too happy.

Tonight, we have a worship service off-site. I’ll report on it when we get back.

I still can’t understand why a buffet costs $35.00.

At lunch time, the food was good. And the cost? Ten bucks. But to charge $35.00 for really “nothing out of the ordinary” special? Please.

Thankfully, there is a Wendy’s directly across the street from the hotel. My dinner cost? Five dollars and twenty-nine cents. And there is a Dunkin Donuts right there as well. That’s breakfast for tomorrow.