Saint Matthew's

(The following is my article written for our weekly parish notes bulletin insert.)

This past Thursday, the Samaritans of Saint Matthew’s served a dinner at the Walk In Kitchen in Hackensack like they have so many times before. Long hours of planning, cooking, preparing, and serving historically have been the norm, and this week, nothing changed. Thankful hearts at the Kitchen were met with hearty plates of pot roast and the various fixings, and no one was turned away. Even when we were down to the final bits of roast in the pan, we tried earnestly to serve the more than 130 hungry men, women, and children who came for a hot meal.

It continues to amaze me that in the county such as Bergen, where wealth is no object for many residents, we have members of our society who struggle to find food. People come from all around—some by foot, others by bus– just to get any sort of nourishment after a long day. And at the end of each month, when small personal budget dollars cannot be stretched far enough, these numbers swell at the Walk In Kitchen.

On Friday, I spent time thinking about this specific human care ministry of Saint Matthew’s and mentally compared it to evangelism. Human care ministries are less about evangelizing and more about fulfilling the loving words of our Lord Jesus Christ to love and care for our neighbors. It is less about preaching the Gospel and more about showing the Gospel in action. And that is what makes human care ministries different from evangelism programs.

Human care ministries focus on helping the neighbor living in this world. Evangelism focuses on proclaiming the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls. Many times, we can wrongly blend the two specific ministries of the church together, missing the great point of either one. But when we have a deep understanding of human care (showing love for neighbor) and evangelism (showing God’s love through Jesus Christ), you find Christ in action.

That is why the Samaritans, in their work this week, showed what helping your neighbor is all about. Their work was not about accolades or receiving thanks, but about loving our neighbor as God has loved each one us through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just two dates to put on your calendar:

- I will be attending a wedding out in Minnesota on the evening of August 31st. A local New Jersey family who is also attending the wedding has invited me to join them on their private jet to attend the festivities. I will be leaving on the morning of the 31st and returning on the morning of September 1st.

- In September, Saint Matthew’s will be holding their first-ever Town Wide Garage Sale on Saturday, the 25th. It is not the 18th, as it has been printed in the Twin Boro News.

OK – quickly. Yes, parts of the site haven’t been updated in a while. That changes this morning, including this blog.

Yes, we have Divine Service this evening at 7:00pm. You’re invited.

Yes, we will continue our study of the Lutheran Confessions tonight, hopefully finishing up a look at the Creeds of the Church.

Yes, my schedule has been, and will continue to be, a roller coaster over the next couple of days. This morning, working in the home office followed by work in the church office and a visit at midday (brings me to noon). This afternoon, a conference call at 2, a telephone counseling session, and time set aside to prepare for tonight (sermons and studies don’t write themselves).

That’s it for a now – heading into church for Morning Prayer.

Yesterday morning in church, I started what I deem to be an extensive personal study as to the use of Apple’s iPad in our weekend Divine service. Our entire service, including the hymns, were crafted into a file and made available for download to the iPad. My ‘study’ is trying to deem the possibility of using more of these handheld smartphones and tablets as replacements for physical copies of the weekly bulletin, saving paper. I want to take sometime during the coming months to work out the kinks in this process to make is seamless and smooth before  opening it up to the church as a whole.

One of the great benefits of electronic weekly bulletins is that if changes need to be made, they can be made right up to the start of the service. For example, this week, our bulletin was completed and copied and ready to go on Wednesday afternoon. However, with our Choral Eucharist this past Sunday, there were some changes made to some of the music that needed to be incorporated into the bulletin. On Friday morning, I sat in the church office fixing the pages that needed to be fixed, and then spent a considerable time copying, taking the bad sheet out of our completed bulletin, folding the new corrected page, and re-assembling the worship folder.

On the other hand, the changes to the electronic file took all of a minute and was available for download immediately.

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I am going to use my iPad in our worship service this morning. Of course, I have paper backups, just in case something fails. However, I know it will not — Apple doesn’t make junk. If it works, in the coming months we will begin to promote using iPads and smartphones as a replacement for paper bulletins.

Should be interesting

A few general notes to start the week (at least for me) off on the right foot:

1. Yesterday, our church’s new landscaper spent over 12 hours cleaning up and planting all over our church grounds. The most stunning change has occurred in the front of the church as the “mess” that was next to our front door and a further “mess” over in front of Founder’s Rock has been eliminated. The workers pulled out bushes and other growing things (I do not possess enough planting knowledge to know the names of all the “growths” that were yanked out of the ground yesterday), shaped up the remaining bushes from all over the church property, worked on the church’s watering system, and mulched every green plant. Additionally, after yanking out bushes and other green growths, they planted new greens and a new tree near the front door. They did an amazing job — and with today’s rain, all the plants (and the tree) will be naturally watered.

2. During a telephone call this morning, I was asked if there was anything new to report regarding the T-Mobile court case. There is no new news.

3. This weekend, we begin the season of Pentecost as we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples, but also to us. It is a very faith exploring time in the church, so I urge you to not only come to church this weekend, but throughout the coming months as we truly take time to explore our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

4. June 13th is the date of our annual “Choral Eucharist” when our church choir and that of Saint Paul’s in Closter joins together to worship our Lord and sing praise to Him for all the blessings He has given us. Anyone wishing to join our joint choir on the 13th is asked to come to church this Sunday and remain following our worship service for practice.

5. “The Coffee Hour” will be held this weekend after our Sunday morning worship service. Everyone is invited.

6. June 5th and 6th is a busy time here at Saint Matthew’s! On June 5th, our Ladies Aid is hosting their annual Strawberry Luncheon beginning at noon. Tickets are $12 per adult, $5 per child between 6 and 12, and free for children five and under. Tickets for this event are available NOW. Please give a member of our Ladies Aid a call or just buzz me at (201) 338-0049.

The next day, Sunday June 6th, our Vision Team will be hosting a special Pancake Breakfast after our worship service. There is no charge for the breakfast; just come and enjoy. I do hope that everyone who does come to the breakfast will “pay” with their worship — our church service on June 6th begins at 9:30am.

I will eventually post some pictures, but you have to stop by the church and see what an incredible job our new church landscapers have done! From moving and removing cluttered bushes to planting new flowers and trees, they have given the outside of our church a new look.

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!

Last night, our church had its monthly Voters Body meeting where each of our church’s groups and committees report on their work. As the pastor, I report on my pastoral work over the past month, explaining the number of visits, telephone calls, meetings, counseling sessions, and the like I worked on over the past four weeks. I rarely discuss the theological books, magazines, and journals I’ve purchased or read during this period, but eventually I am going to break down and spend twenty minutes yapping about this continuing education part of my pastoral life.

One of the issues we spent time discussing is the best way to take communion attendance each week. This has been something that has plagued us since we started weekly communion. Currently, we provide “communion cards” in the pews and we ask that each week, when a member or visitor is standing to come to receive the Lord’s body and blood, that they fill out a card and hand it to the usher.

These are small cards that ask for a communicant’s name, address, and telephone number, of which a vast majority only fill out their names. Granted, it is not mandatory that anyone fill out these cards, but we ask only for record keeping purposes. These records are kept by our church secretary and myself to gauge the attendance of individual members. For instance, let’s say John Doe hasn’t come to communion for a while — I would make a call to them to see if anything is alright. Otherwise, these communion attendance cards are collected, registered on our church computer, and then thrown out.

Our on-going discussion last night centered around whether we should move to individual communion pew pads or stay with the cards. If a gun was placed to my head and I was forced to make a selection, I would move to communion pads since more than enough people have expressed their opinion to me that they don’t like the cards. Last night, any final decision was pushed off, yet again.

The fact is we’ve been discussing the “card vs. pad” issue for about a year.

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After our church’s Voters’ Meeting, I came home and popped open my Gmail account. Sitting there was a rather lengthy email asking why we sing the hymns we do in church. I could have gone through a lengthy explanation of the music and writers and the deep understanding of the words combined with the music.

But when I thought about it, I figured I could just tell it like it is since it all comes down to one word:

Theology.

We don’t sing “cotton candy” Christian songs. We sing deeply theological heavenly hymns that are centered on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The hymns we sing cling to the cross. We don’t sing popular Christian music because at the heart of these songs is a self-centeredness that cries out “me, me, me.”

Our hymns are theologically centered on Christ.

That is why we sing what we sing in church.

Considering I haven’t posted in a while, I think a quick notes post is appropriate:

- This past week, pastor friends of mine visited our Northern New Jersey hub. We spent time down at the shore (not that anything was open, but took the time to relax and laugh at old seminary stories), in New York City (Hayden Planetarium, Statue of Liberty, and Artie’s), and around our Bergen County area. It was  a fun to reminisce about days in the seminary and talk about issues each of face in the parish. They joined us here at Saint Matthew’s on Wednesday night at our Divine Service. On Friday morning, I drove them to LaGuardia Airport (actually, this is the closest major airport near New Milford) as they returned to their homes in North Dakota and northern Indiana.

One of the more interesting parts of their trip occurred on our visit to the Hayden Planetarium. We watched “Journey to the Stars,” a video narrated by Whoopi Goldberg that described the scientific understanding of the universe. Whenever a clergyman watches a science-based movie or video, our God-antenna is raised. While God reminds us that the end of the world will come like a thief in the night, the video stated rather emphatically that in 5 Billion years, the sun is basically going to fade away and that life on earth may or may not be different than what it is today. Well, I still keep my eggs in God’s basket.

- There has been some discussion regarding the possible T-Mobile cellular flag pole on our property and what it means to Saint Matthew’s and our status as a tax-exempt organization. When the cellular flag pole is erected, the portion of the property that is used for a “business” purpose would be taxable. That means, the square footage outside and inside of the church where any “business” related equipment would be stationed would fall under taxable status. This doesn’t mean the entire church property would be taxable. It is only that small portion of the property that is being used by a business entity would be taxable.

- Toby Keith’s “American Ride,” Carrie Underwood’s “Play On,” and Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” albums are three of my favorite right now.

- This weekend, we celebrate Good Shepherd weekend. The fruits of Jesus’ cross are highlighted in our readings as the love of God truly shines through.

It may just be a reaction to some of the news of the day, but this Friday has been a real “Thinking Day.”

This morning’s newspapers were chock full of news that deserve theological comment. From the time I fired up my iPad (yes, I have one) to the moment I flipped open the New York Post, news popped off the screen and the printed page that signaled to this pastor that maybe, just maybe, I should speak out more on issues of the day. Need a for instance?

- The WSJ reports on the hideous party life of Britain’s young people.

- They, as well as other newspapers, report about the latest “missing link” skeleton found by a 9-year old in South Africa.

- The Daily News reports about a man who wanted to end a 30-year marriage on the basis of his wife threatening him with a Samurai sword.

- And, of course, there is that endless Tiger Woods saga that I hope will be buried if he wins the Masters this weekend.

While not overtly theological, each of these stories present a wonderful opportunity to present the Gospel in a loving, understandable way.

Last night during our Elder’s Meeting, one of the topics we discussed dealt with why doesn’t the LC-MS attempt to gain media attention when issues directly related to our faith are in the news. This is, of course, a topic destined for a longer discussion, but it really started to reframe in my sometimes fertile mind that maybe I should make these dances with the God-issue more pronounced. Whether here at The Blog or on my private site, maybe it is time for a further extension of theological teaching.

I will eventually figure it out.

In the two weeks leading up to Easter, a pastor’s schedule gets really, really packed at a time when service preparation ramps up. Also escalating is some internalized pressure that builds to a boil as Holy Week commences, a pressure that sings a lovely tune warning that no matter how much you put on a schedule, you’ll never get it all done perfectly.

And in the climax of Easter, the two weeks of stress traditionally come to an end.

But not this year. In fact, I think today, Thursday, is the first day since the middle of March when I can truly pull back on he throttle. I will be working in both the church and home offices today with no set work times in either, yet.

Time for Morning Prayer.

This morning, I was reading the “Manual on the Liturgy” published for the Lutheran Book of Worship (OK, I know — it is not an LCMS approved hymnal; but their liturgy manual is first class), specifically the portion of the book dealing with the Sunday of the Passion, Palm Sunday. They describe the divine service in two parts:

1. The procession of the palms that opens the worship service, and

2. The Holy Communion rite.

I have always been impressed with this manual’s detailed focus on the specific movements of every church service. They give the “whats” but also the “whys.” As a pastor, I am always asked why we do what we do in church. This manual has been a chief source of the answers I present.

As is tradition, this Palm Sunday we will read the Passion of Jesus Christ, this year from Saint Luke’s Gospel. Readers will help out with this process. In the manual, they explain:

“The proclamation of the Passion must always be carefully prepared and rehearsed so that it is done with dignity and solemnity. It is more than a reading; it is a presentation of the drama of salvation.”

That is a powerful reminder of not only the Passion story itself, but also a wonderful description of Holy Week in its entirety. It is a solemn week. Our worship services are conducted with a higher level of dignity and love than the rest of the year simply because as we walk these final steps in Lent, our hearts and eyes look to the cross of Jesus Christ from whence our salvation was won.