May-June

While visiting our ELS churches this past year, I have noticed pictures (altar, stained glass, above the exiting doorway) and statuary of the ascending Lord Jesus. In asking whether this depicts the ascending Lord or the returning Lord, there is often silence. In truth, it can be both. Recall how the disciples were disrupted in staring into the sky … [Read more...] about What Greater Blessings Can There Be?

“I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit…” (Isaiah 57:15) Where IS he?  This is what we say when we’re waiting for someone who is supposed to be present—near us—providing something for us that we can’t provide for ourselves.  It’s what the child says as they wait for the ride from their absent father.  … [Read more...] about Where is Jesus?

Question: In church, we ask God to create in us a clean heart. In Genesis 8:21, it says the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth. There are other passages speaking of evil proceeding from the heart. How does a clean heart with Jesus in it coexist with evil? And are we talking about our actual heart or does it represent something … [Read more...] about Pastor, I Have a Question May-June, 2022

In 1847, The German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and Other States was organized. This synod was re-named to what we know it as today, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, in 1947 (LCMS). In 1853, when our own predecessor synod formed, the “old” Norwegian Synod, Norwegian pastors found confessional agreement with the Missouri Synod. … [Read more...] about The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod 1847-present

Pastor Ulrik Vilhelm Koren (1826-1910) is best known among us as one of the founding fathers of the old Norwegian Synod. Koren arrived in America from Norway in 1853 just a couple months after the synod was officially organized. He was called to a general area in northeast Iowa, where Norwegian immigrants had settled. He traveled in all directions, … [Read more...] about Songs Out of Zion- Ye Lands, to the Lord

The world makes a big deal about racial identity, often seeing ethnic or racial differences as being hopelessly divisive and the primary source of our identity. Terms such as “racism” and “anti-racism” have recently been redefined. As Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride would say, “I do not think that word means what you think it means.” The … [Read more...] about Creation, Fall, Redemption- In Search of Human Unity