Welcome to Lutheran Grilled Cheese 2.0

For many, many years I have tried to develop my own website.  Some of the sites that I have built in the past have included sites that hosted cartoons that I drew, music that I wrote and  recorded, sermons that I preached ect.  I did very little with the websites because of my lack of knowledge in terms of website building and the lack of money it takes to create a decent looking website.

Well recently, after talking with different pastors and leaders of other small organizations, I have seen the great need for simple web setup and maintenance instruction for churches and small Christian organizations.  This need has been the driving force behind the rekindling desire to dive deeper into the internet and learn all I can about website creation.

So I have taken this dive, and I have started the learning process beginning with my blog.  I made the jump from wordpress.com to wordpress.org and I have given my blog a facelift.  I hope that you enjoy it.

I think that I have gotten my blog to a point where I am okay with letting other people see it however, I continue to make tweeks here and there.  Wordpress is a wonderful platform to use to create a simple interactive website.  I have not added too many new things to my blog at this moment.  But I plan on adding more and more as I go along.

So please, take a look around and let me know what you think, and what type of things you think I should add as I move along in the process of building an awesome website.  The possibilities are endless!

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For more insight check out:

Million Dollar Website: Simple Steps to Help You Compete with the Big Boys - Even on a Small BusinessBudget

Building Findable Websites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond

Confirmation in the Lutheran Church is a two or three-year process where seventh, eight and/or ninth graders spend time in conversation about their beliefs of the Old Testament, New Testament and Luther’s Small Catechism.

Confirmation has become the “rite of passage” for Lutheran fourteen year-olds.  For many is is the most important moment of their young faith life with the emphasis placed on their confirmation vow.  However, at this peak of their faith life many junior high youth consider confirmation their “graduation” from church and many newly confirmed members drift away soon after their vows because they believed they had “completed” their instruction. As a result, Lutheran churches most recently have been trying new and varied approaches to better teach children about Jesus.

In the Confirmation Ministry Task Force Report of the ELCA, Confirmation is defined at

Confirmation ministry is a pastoral and education ministry of the church that helps the baptized through Word and Sacrament to identify more deeply with the Christian community and participate more fully in its mission.

With this  in mind the church on 370 had evaluated and reevaluated our confirmation ministry program.  We first started our discussion about Confirmation Ministry with scripture we see confirmation as “equipping the saints for the works of ministry…” (Ephesians 4:11) We invite families to engage in a two-year program that enables youth to grow in faith, to ask probing questions and to become active members in the life of the church. In addition to addressing the question of content, “What do we (I) believe?”, we also seek to answer such questions as “What do Christians do?”, “How do Christians live?”, “What does it mean to be called a Christian?”, and “What difference does Jesus Christ make in my (our) life?”

There are five major components in our confirmation ministry

1.  The Crucial Role of Parents

Because parents are learning partners with their children, and play a critical role in their child’s faith journey, we therefore:

• Strongly encourage each parent to participate in the faith life of the church
• Encourage parents to discuss daily high’s and low’s with their children
• Invite parents to pray at mealtime and bedtime with their children
• Seek their participation in learner sheets given to the confirmands during the year which are designed for parents and confirmands
• Request that parents attend a mid-year evaluation with their child’s guides
• Ask parents to oversee completion of a sermon outlines each week
• Expect parents to insure that their children arrive on time and prepared for classes with their Bible, folder, small Catechism and pen.

The rest of the confirmation requirements are for the confirmands themselves

2.   Worship

• Regularly attend worship
• Complete sermon outlines as they worship
• Involvement in the worship leadership of the church (usher, lector, acolyte, choir member,  altar guild)
• Visit different faith communities with the class during the year

3.          Devoted to Learning

• Attend Confirmation Preparation time with Pastor (9^th grade)
• Participation in confirmation camp during the summer following 7^th or 8^th grade.
• Study of Luther’s Small Catechism
• Study of key Biblical themes, books and verses, including the following work due on May 1^st of each year:
• 7^th Grade: Outline the Gospel of Luke (Chapters 1-9)
• 8^th Grade: Outline the Gospel of Luke (Chapters 10-24)
• 9^th Grade: Develop personal faith project

4. Fellowship

Events will be planned to help assimilate confirmands into the life of the congregation. These will include such elements as lock-ins, key congregational events, and getting to know other youth through fun, fellowship, and food. The Christian community plays an important role in the formation of its members. For this reason we seek to involve peers, parents, mentors, and guides, as well as the pastor, in the process of confirmation.

4. Mission

Jesus invited his followers to respond to the needs of others in a way that modeled his own behavior. As He said in the Gospel, “In as much as you have done it to the least of these, so you have done it to me.” One basic element of Christian life is that of servanthood. We have been called to mission. Each year we participate in servant events that are designed to help us learn about Christian mission and to participate in that ministry. These events will allow our confirmands to meet people active in Christian mission and support their outreach endeavors with hands-on experience.

• Participate in a minimum of four of the following eight annual servant events:                                          CROP Walk, Volleyball Marathon, Bowl-a-Thon, Vanderkamp Clean-up, Community Dinner, Block Party, Youth Garage Sale, or one that you propose

• Develop a “Pay it forward” activity with members of their 9^th grade confirmation class in conjunction with the Pastor.

As far as curriculum we are using Augsburg Fortress Here We Stand curriculum.  I have used it for the past three years and really enjoy how well it is laid out and how flexible it is to use.

Since we use three years of material and only have two years of program we have established a “pre-confimation” program.  I have been really excited about this program.  We have a large number of 5th and 6th graders who are eager to learn about the Bible and learn about their faith in God.  So we are using the 5th and 6th grade years to introduce the Old Testament to the group, to have opportunities to learn about the lighter side of church and to have opportunities to ask questions.  So far this has been very successful.

As we move forward in our confirmation ministry at the church on 370 we hope to create disciples, to build relationships in and among the group and to enable the youth to see their confirmation not as the end of their time in church but the beginning.

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For more insight check out:

Preparation for Confirmation

Purpose-Driven® Youth Ministry

I have been Lutheran my whole life.  Growing up I went to a Lutheran church and a Lutheran Bible Camp.  I attended three years at an ELCA Lutheran College.  Then I worked full time at a Lutheran Bible camp (same camp that I went to as a kid).  I have worked at Lutheran churches as a youth director and I went to a Lutheran seminary and now I am a Lutheran pastor.

Overall, I have been ingrained with Lutheran Theology and that is a major part of who I am….

Sure there have been times that I questioned my beliefs.  My faith journey has not always been easy.  But I must admit that when it comes down too it, I do love Lutheran Theology.  Knowing that  we are saved wholly by God’s grace, through faith is an awesome thing.  I love the fact that we as Lutherans can believe with our hearts as well as think about why we believe what we do with our heads (more about that in another post).

But above all of that, I love how we can poke fun at ourselves. I have heard joke after joke about the traditional stereotype Lutheran and I love it.  I would like to share with you today a list of typical Lutheran type things — a list  that I received in a recent email.  Enjoy!

The following list was compiled by a 20th century Lutheran who, observing other Lutherans, wrote down exactly what he saw or heard:

1. Lutherans believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.

2. Lutherans like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

3. Lutherans believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don’t notify them that they are there.

4. Lutherans usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.

5. Lutherans believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.

6. Lutherans feel that applauding for their children’s choirs would make the kids too proud and conceited.

7. Lutherans think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle.

8. Lutherans drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.

9. Some Lutherans still believe that an ELCA bride and an LCMS groom make for a mixed marriage.

10. Lutherans feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.

11. Lutherans are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church.

12. Lutherans think that Garrison Keillor stories are totally factual.

13. Lutherans still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole adds too much color.

14. Lutherans believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.

15.  You know you’re a Lutheran when you hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can!

16.  When donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.

17.  The communion cabinet is open to all, but the coffee cabinet is locked up tight.

18.  All your relatives graduated from a school named Concordia.

19.  When you watch a “Star Wars” movie and they say, “May the Force be with you,” you respond, “And also with you”.

20.  You actually understand those folks from Lake Wobegon , MN.

21.  And finally….you know you’re a Lutheran when it’s 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.

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For more insight check out:

Principles of Lutheran Theology

Living Lutheran: Renewing Your Congregation (Lutheran Voices)

For the last two years of my life I have been called “Vicar” — No I did not change my name, but I have been put in a position in ministry where I had a title. The church where I am currently serving has had a “Vicar” the last three years.  Not in the capacity of internship but as a senior seminarian that works with the youth of the church. Most people do not have any idea what this means, in fact there were a number of people (youth and adults) who thought it was my first name!  So here are some reflections as to what the title Vicar means in the past and today.

The word vicar comes from the Latin “vicarious” meaning substitute, or one who has authority to act in the place of another.

The Church of England used the term for a clergy-person who serves a parish as its minister. A vicar in the Roman Catholic faith refers to a bishop who is sent to a diocese without a bishop.

In the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America),  the church in which I serve a “vicar” normally refers to a seminarian who has completed the first two years of academics, clinical pastoral education and a year of field education, who is assigned to a congregation as an intern for one year. This typically involves the student working with a senior pastor and a committee of the church to support the development of the seminarian.

Typically at the end of the year of vicarage, the candidate returns to seminary and completes a final year of studies. After being issued a call or assignment, the candidate is ordained as a pastor in the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

Now I am not an intern but the pastor of the church I am working at wanted me to have a title.  I guess Vicar is the most appropriate title for that.  However, I think there needs to be education on what Vicar means and why we use that title.

I am getting use to having a title before my name.  Soon enough I will be “Pastor” – I have not thought about that much until recently and I think that is a very cool thing.  I will see what the culture of the church is before I decide if my first or last name will follow Pastor.  I am sure that everyone will have their own comfort level and I am open to that. I think that what is comfortable for someone I will be okay with that.  As long as they don’t call me late for dinner!  (sorry I could not resist)

For those who are seminarians or pastors or even those in other professions – what is the “proper” way that one should be addressed in the work place? What is the most professional way we should be called, or does it really matter?

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For more insight check out:

Ecumenism: The Vision of the ELCA. English Text with Spanish, German, and French translations.

Living Lutheran: Renewing Your Congregation (Lutheran Voices)