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A family church service

Dale preached at The Lutheran Church of Webster Gardens this morning, the church our kids attend. As it happened, grandson Christian acolyted and Lizzie was a reader.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture I love of Christian sitting with his St. Louis pastor just talking and discussing things. Now a picture I also love of Drew getting hugged by his Maryland pastor after Christmas Eve worship. Two wonderful pastors and the kids are so blessed to have them in their lives.

This is the church you go to if...

This is an interesting Twitter thread in which readers were asked to put up a photo of unusual church architecture and explain what would make you go there. The pictures are interesting. But most of the responses weren't funny as they should have been. Some actually make no sense. However, this entry did make me laugh.

"This is the church you go to if you were a cool Lutheran in the seventies and never got over it."

The Fifth is a tough one

The Lord's Prayer is prayed at every worship service or mass. We communally pray often just by rote, it is so familiar. But recently I've been stopped by the Fifth Petition and have spent a lot of time pondering this. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Or, Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."

When I really think about this I realize this is a very difficult thing to do and the seriousness of what I'm praying either with the rest of the congregation or privately hits me hard.

"Inasmuch as we sin greatly against God every day and yet He forgives it all through grace, we must always forgive our neighbor who does us harm, violence, and injustice [and] bears malice toward us.... If you do not forgive, do not think that God forgives you" (Large Catechism III:94-95)."

"Matt. 6:14-15 If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."

How hard it is to forgive and mean it. How awful it is to realize that by not forgiving, we aren't forgiven.

Reformation Walk

Our church put on a Reformation Walk yesterday afternoon, Reformation Sunday, and it was so well done. Lots of people began the walk with a light lunch in the church basement and then were put in numbered groups to go from one area to another. Each tent had a spokesman talking about one aspect of the reformation or another as well as tents with music playing Luther hymns and food from old Germany. That food was pretzels. Plus a Kruta bakery cake. All in all a unique day.

The church basement was filled for the lunch, and it was the warmest spot.

Martin and Katie Luther showed up.

It began at the welcome gate

Our 3 seminary field workers each had a booth. One was Luther, another Tetzel and the third Prince Frederick the Wise of Saxony.

Pretzel making

There were games

And displays of, sort of, medieval printing and music.

3 of our grandsons came

All in all a very well done, interesting and fun way to ring in the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

My favorite picture of the week

This picture of Pastor Wright helping a little girl tie her shoe pretty much defines our church and pastor these days.

Holy Cross in Collinsville is lending a helping hand to so many people and organizations and our pastor leads by example.

The highest pulpit

Dale preached in Frankenmuth, Michigan this weekend and the belief is, that church has the tallest pulpit in the LCMS. True or not, it is nosebleed high. In the photo you can barely see Dale. This is, however, a beautiful church.

1517 Renaissance Reformation Concert

Last night the students at Holy Cross Lutheran School in Collinsville put on a concert celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. They were dressed in medieval costumes and provided music which included singing, string and band instruments, and handbells. The hallways had medieval games to play.

This game, the name of which I've forgotten, involved rolling a ball of some kind around the pretend village green.

There were castle backdrops and of course, an lifesize Martin Luther.

Two of our grandsons came over to watch and help at the Concordia Publishing House table on which were giveaways and things for sale having to do with the Reformation.

Esther, the church's Comfort Dog was also in attendance.

At the conclusion music director Karen Shimkus was given a bouquet of roses.

And our boys had their picture taken with mom and John Shimkus

A great night and a terrific idea.

Forming a Luther Rose

Yesterday I went over to Holy Cross in Collinsville with two of our seminary students who work part time in the communications department. This department does most of the work involved with publicity in all forms and students are excellent photographers. The school is celebrating Lutheran School Week and as this is also the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, staff wanted to do something which involved everyone. it was decided to attempt to have all the kids form the Luther Seal in the gym. This seal is synonymous with Luther.

All the classes were assigned one color to wear. The seal contains yellow, blue, white, red and black. Then Mrs. Shimkus made a circle on the gym floor in inside of it she placed small pieces of paper with those 5 colors on them so the children would know where to stand. It was then hoped that all the colors would turn that mass of students and teachers into a Luther Rose.

The photograph had to be taken from above to make it work and that was the main issue. At first it was thought bringing the seminary drone over would do the trick but it turns out drones need to be in a GPS area to be able to move up, down, side to side, and it is not available indoors, only outside. Then we learned that Holy Cross actually owns a lift! I mean, seriously? So many of us at the seminary wish we had a lilt because there are many times we really need to get up higher and safer than with a ladder. Anyway, George brought in the lift, one of our sem students got aboard with the church's lift driver and it worked great. Here's a look at how it went.

If you click the pictures they enlarge and you can see the faces really well.

Seminary students Aaron and Mark

Mrs. Shimkus showing the students the seal and explaining what each color meant. to begin all the students were on the bleachers.

These are just a few of the classes waiting to get going.

Pastor Wright participated as well and even wore his Luther Seal socks with Luther's famous words, "Here I stand".

Esther Comfort Dog was part of the picture and she was with her handlers and staff.

Then it was time to get going. The kids were placed on their colored marks and the lift rolled up.

And rose higher and higher

The school audience was amazed

And here we go

Everybody wave!

At the end sem student Mark noticed a few balls which had gotten caught in the ceiling rafters and he began tossing them down to the kids.

Fun way to end an event which worked out better than we hoped. Very cool morning.

The pink candle of joy

There are four Sundays in Advent and each Sunday a candle is lit until all four are burning and Christmas is next. All the candles are white except for the one on the third Sunday in Advent, that candle is pink, representing joy. That Sunday is also Gaudete Sunday, getting its name from the Latin for rejoice.