Admin, Author at Zion Lutheran Church

What Gets in the Way of our Witnessing?

July 26, 2018 by Admin Leave a Comment

Being a witness of Christ Jesus is simply telling others about the great hope that we have in the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus. All of us are witnesses, because what we say or fail to say always says something about Jesus. The question then is whether we are going to be a good or a bad witness.

There are some common things that get in the way of being good witnesses. Of course, because of our sin, we are not perfect witnesses. But there are some misconceptions we’ve all had that make being a good witness harder. Here are three misunderstandings that get in the way of us being good witnesses, and how the truth of God’s Word addresses each of them.

“It’s my fault if someone goes to hell.” Much of American Christianity is influenced by a false teaching called Arminianism that teaches that every person needs to make a decision to believe in Jesus to be saved. If that is true, everyone who is not given the opportunity to make that decision is lost, not by their own fault, but because some other Christian didn’t present them with the decision to follow Jesus. But this isn’t what the Scriptures teach. The Bible teaches that God has chosen from eternity every single person who will be saved (Ephesians 1:4-10). We cannot increase or decrease the population of heaven by a single person. God will save all of his elect, with or without our witnessing. The pressure is off! God is in the business of giving faith and salvation when and where He wills. We can’t thwart his plans by our mistakes and failures. Knowing that helps us to witness with joy, because it isn’t our job to bring people to faith but simply to plant the seed of God’s Word.

“I might say the wrong thing.” This fear is tied to the idea above. We worry that if we don’t speak the Gospel perfectly, [Read more…]

You Are a Witness!

July 3, 2018 by Admin Leave a Comment

You are a witness of Christ Jesus. Have you ever thought about that before? Maybe you’ve thought (as I did for many years) that witnessing is the province of an elite group of Christians: missionaries, pastors, perhaps a few laypeople who have been spiritually gifted for the task. Maybe you’ve thought that as long as these people were sharing the Gospel, witnessing is something you need not personally engage in. But that’s not what the Scripture teach about bearing witness to the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

Speaking to the whole nation of Israel, God spoke through Isaiah: “I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses, declares the LORD, and I am God.” Every Christian, whether pastor or layperson, is a witness. There is a special form of witnessing limited to the pastoral office (we call it “preaching”), but every Christian does bear witness about Jesus Christ in his or her life in a multitude of other ways.

What does it mean for you to be a witness? [Read more…]

What is the Answer?

July 3, 2018 by Admin Leave a Comment

Death has had a lot of press lately. Especially suicide. When two celebrities’ lives are taken away in such short order, it’s not surprising that the world wants to talk about it.

And for good reasons. As much as suicide has been blamed on poverty among minorities, and even bullying, the troubling but stubborn fact is that it’s not that simple. The highest rate of suicide today is among middle-aged white people, but it is growing in other age groups as well. Suicides rates in 2014 were the highest in three decades, where 13 out of every 100,000 people murdered themselves. That’s a 24% increase from 1999. 2006 – 2016 saw a staggering 70% increase in suicide rates among white children. It is a significant problem.

A big media news story about Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade argued that the problem is a lack of funding for psychiatric health at the federal level. In other words, it’s Trump’s fault. But the notion of funding seems shallow when considering two celebrities whose net worth are $16 million and $200 million respectively. It seems we are grasping at straws.

Sociologists point to increasing isolation and weakness in building real and lasting relationships caused by technology and social media. This argument certainly has some merit but fails to answer the question of why we allow technology to do this to us. We are not passive recipients of technology. We choose to replace real, face-to-face human relationships with digital ones. Why?

But let’s shift gears to a different kind of death for a moment. [Read more…]

We Can’t Lose!

May 30, 2018 by Admin Leave a Comment

If success is based on numbers, then the Church is failing. I don’t mean just Zion. It’s more than just the LCMS. The Christian Church in America is getting smaller. Every mainline denomination is facing the same frustrating problem. Each year seems to have fewer people in our pews and on our membership roles than the year before.

This is a complete reversal for us. The Church in America until recently had enjoyed persistent growth for several centuries before our peak around 1973. It makes sense. Many of our American ancestors left Europe and came to America for the free practice of religion, among other things. But now in these last days, everything has changed.

The point of this brief article is not to unpack this change. If you’re interested, you can read the full report from the Journal of Lutheran Mission in their December 2016 edition. It is readily available on the Internet.

The question I want to ask is the same Christians have been asking for the last 40 years: What do we do about it? What do we do about the abandonment of the Christian Faith in the heart and soul of our people?

Every Christian Church in America and in the west has struggled with this question. Each denomination, depending on their church tradition, has tried different answers to it.

Some, who think the Church should be completely separate from culture, have tried to double down on their separation.

Others, who think the Church should conform to the culture to be appealing to it, have done so to the point of removing almost all distinctly Christian beliefs. Such churches now look and feel no different than a rock concert with an inspirational speech. [Read more…]

What Happens at a District Convention?

May 30, 2018 by Admin Leave a Comment

“What happens at a district convention?” That was a question I was not even entirely sure I myself had the answer to until recently, since this was the first district convention I have ever attended in any capacity. From April 19-21, delegates representing the 107 LCMS congregations in South Dakota met at the Sanford Premier Center for the 61^st convention of the South Dakota District. According to the LCMS constitution, each parish at the district convention is represented by one lay delegate and one pastoral delegate. I was privileged to serve as Zion’s voting pastoral delegate this year, while Pastor Brown attended in an advisory capacity. This article will serve as a brief report of the convention.

One of the items of business for each convention is to set the triennial “theme.” The theme can be a Bible passage or topic that will serve as a mission or teaching emphasis in the district for the next three years. This year, the theme was chosen, “Behold Your God! What Help! What Hope!” This theme is based on Isaiah 40:9, wherein the prophet Isaiah is instructed to direct the people of Judah to look to their God as their comforter and redeemer in their affliction and tragedy. For the next three years, the district’s focus will be on directing us to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who in Jesus Christ has become our help and hope.

The real work of the convention was to make legislative decisions on a number of items affecting church life and work in our district. Congregations and circuits (local groups of congregations) were permitted to submit “overtures” to the convention. Several committees were appointed before the convention to edit and present some of these overtures as “resolutions,” which were then presented to the convention delegates for a vote. [Read more…]

Mother’s Day

May 4, 2018 by Admin Leave a Comment

On Sunday, May 13, America will celebrate Mother’s Day. It’s a day we set aside every year to honor and give thanks for all mothers.

And truly we should. We thank God for the gift of mothers, for those who gifted us with life. Our mothers carried us, nurtured us, fed us, sacrificed for us, and each in their own way loved every one of us.

But even as we all have a mother we can remember and give thanks to God for, Mother’s Day is not a joyful day for every one of us. There are plenty of godly women among us who are not mothers, and maybe never will be a mother. For various reasons, there are plenty of barren women among us. Either they do not have a husband, or they do, and God has not gifted them with a child. What do we say to these women?

To them we say, “Thank you.” Because although they are painfully aware they have not been given the gift of children, they have been given other gifts. And those faithful women of God gift our church so beautifully as well.

Even as some women are not given the gift of children, they still serve as mothers in the church. They serve as god-mothers, pew mothers, aunts, Sunday school teachers, babysitters, sewing circles, LWML, church organizers, altar guild, VBS bakers, musicians, and more.

We do well to remember that just as children are a gift of God, the vocation of motherhood too is a gift. Mothers have not accomplished some achievement that we need to reward, they have been given a profound and beautiful gift. And yet all of us who are gathered around Word and Sacrament are fellow recipients of the unique gifts of our Lord.

We have, all of us, been given the gift of God’s Word. All of us have been given the gift of salvation won by Christ on the cross and given to us in our baptism. All of us have been given the gift of Christ’s body and blood, given at the altar every Sunday for all of our benefit. And we all thank God for all good gifts He mercifully pours out on us unworthy sinners. Gifts of fellowship, recreation, food, music, and more. The gift of children is just one of many.

Because really, we all celebrate the same mother, for we are all sons and daughters of the Christian Church. In this Christian Church, our “mother,” we were born out of the waters of the font. We were carried sometimes kicking and screaming into Sunday school and confirmation class. We are nurtured in Christ’s Word. We are fed at His altar. We give thanks for the sacrifice of Jesus for us. And, in similar but different ways, we are loved by our Mother the Church. And whatever other gifts we are given by our Lord, she continues to give us all the gift of Jesus.

Pastor Brown

Zion Lutheran Church-LCMS