Twenty years before I was born the publishing house of my church body published a book called The Daily Office. It was a daily devotional, structured and rooted in the ancient liturgical traditions of the church. It fell out of use, as devotional texts do, but I was on the hunt for a copy for …
Tag: faith
Weary of All Trumpeting…
I am the kind of pastor that doesn’t shy away from picking hymns that are, by any reasonable standard, hard to sing. This coming Sunday will feature my favorite Reformation hymn “O God, O Lord, of Heaven and Earth.” If you know, you know. If you don’t, go listen to it. Hard to sing is …
People
The congregation I serve is about a mile from a naval air station. A fairly decent portion of the people who commune with me on a Sunday have connections to that naval base either because they are or were active duty there, engage in or retired from contract work there, or have a friend or …
Today is a day…
I suppose there is no end to the number of emotions people are experiencing this morning. Some are celebrating, they are glad and joyous because the candidate they supported has won. Others are mourning, they are sad and fearful because the candidate they supported has lost. Me? I’m neither celebrating nor in mourning, neither happy …
An Expression of Joy and Humility
The following was part of my morning devotions. It is in The Daily Office (St. Louis: CPH, 1965), 254–6. An Expression of Joy and Humility Let us praise God in gladness and humility for all great and simple joys and for the weak things of the earth which have confounded the strong. For the gift …
No Half Measures
On this day in 1976, the day the church was singing how glad one can be when going to the house of the Lord, Martin Franzmann fell asleep in Christ. As this March 28th coincides not with Laetare Sunday but with Holy Thursday, I offer up a sermon Franzmann composed on a little line from …
A Word in Our Pockets
It has been just over 8 months since we came home to find someone we didn't recognize. Yesterday that saga drew to what is hoped to be its final breath, the man who was on our property that day has been found guilty and sentenced. To be honest, neither my wife nor I wanted to …
Take they our life…
Last Wednesday my wife, son, and I pulled up to our house to find a car in the driveway we did not recognize. I told them to wait in the car and walked up to the front door and found it still locked. It was then that I heard a sound on the side of …
we are…
For the first time, I am spending a couple of days away from my wife and 3 month old son. It wasn't an expected thing but, as circumstances would have it, I am reverting to my bachelor self for a brief moment. That means, above all, that I am wasting as much time as possible …
gift giving and heretic hitting…
Today seems like as good of a day as any to begin again. It has been almost two months since I last posted and quite a bit has happened. Classes finished rapidly, ending with the best gpa I have had at CSL, and my wife and I were whisked away to the east coast to …
an occasional theologian 