Status Updates From A Formula for Parish Practi...

"There is no such thing as a perfect, Christian (read: scriptural) ceremony. We Lutherans can wait for such things in heaven. In the meantime, we simply respect good order and decorum, build up the congregation, and take special care for the truly weak ones in our midst. Start forcing us to give up practices under false or coercive pretenses, however, and remember what those Berliners did!" (they rioted!)

The question, 'Pastor, does God still love me?' is on more lips and in more hearts than we may at first imagine. ...Pastoral problems ... involve deep spiritual crises. The grieving child, the abused spouse or the anxious parent can hear from Christians alone the comforting news of God in the flesh, suffering with us and for us."

The two promise, "Here I am," and "for you," gives comfort and assurance that Christ does not abandon us but gathers the entire congregation together and distributes with the elements, to each of us individually, his forgiveness. It is one of the clearest testimonies of justification by grace through faith on account of Christ.

"We are surrounded daily by the reality of sin, death, and evil. Outside the proclamation of the gospel (God's free forgiveness, life, and salvation in Christ), human beings can only try to master the law or ... be crushed by it."

"The new life of faith itself changes who we are because it changes whose we are. We do not avoid sin to earn salvation. Instead, faith does not live in the old way, because we have died and were raised in baptism, and we die and rise daily with Christ by faith alone. Works come into a Christian life not as a cause for earning salvation but rather as a result of good trees bearing good fruit."

"Some think of the sermon as a time to tell funny jokes and poignant stories. ... However, the sermon is where God gets the job done, speaks the actual word of forgiveness, reconciliation, and resurrection to the weak and broken and dying. The sermon...does God to us... it delivers a word that pronounces us righteous in God's sight because of Christ alone."

"What few Lutherans realize is that among all the Christian churches in North America, Lutherans, when judged from their theology, are most likely to be the Holy Spirit church. For without the Holy Spirit we are deader than doornails, insistent on resisting God at every turn."

Such a great book!