Prepare Ye

This is An Article From Ananias for the July-Early August issue of the OS/Em Newsletter. It was strange when My Big Guy read the 5th chapter from Ask, Thank, Tell to me. He paused a lot while he was reading. He told me that much of it ‘rang true.’ I’m not sure I understand what that means. This chapter was on “Practicing Biblical Stewardship.” I thought I was going to learn all of the stories in the Bible that talked about stewardship, but instead, it was about the Pastor’s role in leading a church’s stewardship work. Remember, stewardship is being responsible for the gifts God has given you, and using them in a way that honors God and how God wants you to use them. I was surprised that Mr. Lane said that a lot of churches don’t want their pastor to be involved in stewardship, or to talk about money. That surprised me because Jesus talked about money all of the time, so I thought people would want the pastor to talk about what Jesus talked about. There was one line where Mr

  This is my Pastor’s Ponderings article for the July-early August OS/Em Newsletter. I want to share some thoughts about conversations that have occurred around the tables of Council meetings and the Parish Agreement Committee (PAC) to invite you all to think about what an arrangement between Our Savior’s, Nazareth and Emmanuel could and should be. During the first meeting of the Parish Agreement Committee, we discussed one of the topics from the sample Parish Agreement template provided by the Synod. These aren’t their recommendations or suggestions, but simply decisions that need to be discussed and decided upon. One of the topics was worship. The template’s language was EITHER for each church to plan and print its own worship order and bulletin, or for the same order and bulletin to be printed and used by all churches. The Committee took time to discuss the merits of both. In all honesty, it would be less work for our secretaries and me if each church used the sa

  This is an edited version of my sermon from Sunday, July 12, 2016. The Gospel lesson was Luke 10:25-37, the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I was editing and re-writing this during the services, trying to get the wording the way I wanted. It is still not there. I have added the names of the other two slain Dallas police officers that I didn't have on Sunday morning, as well as adding links to where I found the shooting data. I watched four or five people get murdered this week. On Tuesday, I watched the video of Alton Sterling being shot by Baton Rouge police outside of a convenience store. Wednesday night, my Twitter feed starting referencing another incident, this time in St. Paul. I clicked onto a video link to a live stream taken by Diamond Reynolds. She was documenting what happened to her boyfriend, Philando Castle. He was shot by a police officer while reaching for his wallet after the officer told him to show his ID. Thursday night, when I got ho