Feast of the Booksale

This week, at the Fort Wayne sem., we had the annual Reformation book sale. I'm not sure if this happens in St. Louis, but it's a great time. People from all over donate books to our library, and whatever is not added to the collection is sold to students. Books are $1 for hardback books, $.50 for paperbacks, and there are also several items up for auction. There are always treasures hidden among the rows and rows and tables and tables of books. This year, there was a full set of Luther's Works on auction.

A Word of Law and Gospel: Go To Chapel

I, Josh Schroeder, have a sin to confess: I do not regularly attend daily chapel at the seminary. I make it usually around twice a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. It's not that I'm off campus or can't fit into my schedule. I just neglect it.

Some of us rationalize our less than perfect chapel attendance using family, workload, incompatible schedules or whatever.

So for me it is a reminder from the Law, but also a great blessing from the Lord to have a Synodical President make room in his schedule to attend chapel at the seminary. He was in "civilian dress," that is to say he was not wearing an attire to draw attention to either his elected position or pastoral office, except for what looked like a "keycard" type lanyard. And he sat in the back. It's likely fair to say that he "snuck in." I don't think he was here on any official business.

And so I'm probably violating his unspoken desire to NOT draw attention to himself, but I thought it was worth letting others know that we have a synodical president who is not too busy for the seminary (seminaries - we just happen to be closer to Kirkwood, I guess), and not too busy to hear the Word and to receive the Lord's body and blood in the Sacrament with us.

"I'm Outta Here!"

Spring Quarter has just ended here in Saint Louis, and I just realized a few minutes ago that all three of my professors are leaving the country. One is already in France, another in Germany, and the last one leaves tomorrow for Korea.

Was I that bad of a student?

Call Day Approaches, but...

Today the LCMS Council of Presidents, acting as the Certification and Placement Committee for seminary candidates, will approve the final slotting of first calls to be later announced at Concordia Seminary (Tuesday evening) and Concordia Theological Seminary (Wednesday evening).

Tomorrow, about 20 of my classmates here at Fort Wayne (possibly including myself) will receive a call from the seminary's Director of Placement. They will be told that there is not a call for them at this time. It is not unusual for there to be 20 students from both seminaries combined to not receive calls, but it is out of the ordinary for there to be 20 from one particular seminary.

Please pray for all who will be receiving calls, both this week and in the weeks and months to come. Pray also that more congregations would be open to calling candidates from the seminaries and that students from either seminary would be given as equal treatment as possible by the Certification and Placement Committee.

Institution of Confession and Absolution

This morning in chapel we used the order of Corporate Confession and Absolution on pages 290 and 291 in the Lutheran Service Book. Later in the day, it was pointed out to me that Confession and Absolution was instituted by Christ after His resurrection in John 20:19-23:

Jesus Appears to the Disciples

19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

Stay in the Pulpit

I'm still a year away from taking Homiletics, but I need to get this off my chest:

Since the days that pulpits have been in church buildings, sermons have been preached from them. This has traditionally been the case in the Lutheran church. However, it seems that over the last few decades, many pastors have gotten into the habit of preaching in the midst of the congregation, or at least walked around the chancel during their sermon.

Now I can't point to Scripture or the Lutheran Confessions to say "All preaching must stay within the confines of the pulpit." We're dealing with something which God has neither commanded nor forbidden. But I will say this: Don't leave the pulpit without good reason.

From time to time, I hear a sermon that is not given from the pulpit. And more often than not, I find myself drawing conclusions like "There was no reason for him not to give that sermon from the pulpit," or "His absence from the pulpit had nothing to do with what he said or how he said it."

Like I say, if you're going to give any part of your sermon from the pulpit, at least have a reason that serves the delivery of your sermon. Maybe you want to walk over to a stained glass window and point something out about it (instead of just pointing to the window from the pulpit) or you're preaching on baptism and want to stand at the font to emphasize a point. But don't just stand there in the middle of the chancel or walk around a bit in our midst unless it serves a useful purpose.

Why do guys do this in the first place? Is it just the desire to be different or do something different, to show off that you're preaching from memory without a manuscript, to let people know how relevant you are that you don't allow yourself to be confined to the pulpit when you preach? I don't get it. In my experience of sermons preached outside of the pulpit, nothing was gained by leaving the pulpit and nothing would have been lost by staying in it. And in some cases, people may find it harder to pay attention to the sermon because they're following the preacher as he walks around.

So unless doing otherwise actually serves a useful and obvious purpose, stay in the pulpit when you preach.

Hymnal Catechesis Project

I have recently completed the first draft of a 32 lesson project that teaches the Six Chief Parts of Luther's Small Catechism using both the Bible and Lutheran Service Book. If you would like to see it, please respond to this post and I'll find a way to get it to you.

No Show Today

There will not be a show today because the guys in Fort Wayne are on break and classes resume in Saint Louis tomorrow. We'll be back on the air next week.

Why Lutherans Can't Evangelize

I find much to disagree with in this blog post, but it's worth reading: Why Lutherans Can't Evangelize.

Your thoughts?

The Godless Generation of Heroes?

This is an interesting opinion piece from across the Pond. Here's the first paragraph:

Today's young people are, apparently, uniquely godless. Studies released this week by the Pew Forum have revealed that 25% of young Americans born after 1980 self-define as "atheist", "agnostic" or "nothing in particular", as opposed to 19% of the previous cohort. A similar decline is taking place in Britain, with the British Humanist Association reporting a 10% decline in religious faith among young people in less than 10 years. Across the west, fewer young people than ever are attending church services and other religious ceremonies. This reported lack of formal religious belief chimes with the dominant stereotype of the millennial generation as amoral, directionless and self-obsessed – but my generation is nothing of the kind.