Daily messages from Pastor Speckhard
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:30
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea. Psalm 46:1-2
No matter how hopeful we try to be, it is hard not to think that spring of 2020 is likely to prove a turning point for the nation. I’m reminded of the famous poem Shine, Perishing Republic, which contains the line, “And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.”
A clever servant, insufferable master. People have adapted that line from the poem to many things, most notably money and technology. They are tools and servants that have a tendency to take charge of our hearts and begin to dominate us. That’s how the first commandment gets messed up. The good gifts God gives us to possess end up possessing us instead. The creation displaces the Creator as the thing we rely on. We end up putting our faith in false gods.
Fear, panic, and despair always result when the false gods (which are often good things in themselves, just in the wrong place in our lives) fail us. The government. The economy. The scientists. The environment. Even our physical bodies—they’re all excellent servants, all terrible masters, and all prone to become the false gods of our lives. When everything goes wrong, God is still God. It is our false gods that have proven themselves incapable of saving us.
The pain of all this upheaval is real and nothing to take lightly. The things God gives us to serve us are all good gifts, and He knows all our needs. Trusting the true God does not mean disdaining good government, or treating people’s economic livelihoods as nothing, or downplaying the importance of good health. It means accepting the good things of creation as gifts, but keeping everything in its place.
We take very seriously the spread of disease, the stability of the economy (which is in unprecedented territory in terms of unemployment numbers), the ramifications of politics and elections, and so forth, without letting such things become gods. These are the mountains of our lives, the things by which we’ve always navigated and assumed would also be there. Now they’re being uprooted and tossed into the sea. Perhaps they’re just being put back in their proper place.
Money is not God. Science is not God. Physical life and health are not God. When people panic, they tend to think that you either have to treat something as the most important thing or else you’re not taking it seriously at all. Christians refuse that choice. We neither deny the goodness of, nor put our faith in, things like science, money, health, or government. We keep everything in its place, knowing that even the mountains are not eternal.
One translation of A Mighty Fortress, Luther’s great hymn on Psalm 46, it this way—“And take they our life, goods, fame, child and wife, though these all be gone, they yet have nothing won. The kingdom ours remaineth.” We shall have no other gods before the Creator. We receive the things of creation—government, technology, finances, health, etc. from His hand as undeserved gifts, as servants, not masters. And when they give way and fail us, we need not fear, for we know that our God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Colossians is only 4 chapters long, so the whole book is very readable in one sitting. And really, the meat of it is chapters 2-3. I encourage you all to read at least those two chapters today. In them, St. Paul writes the words quoted above, about letting the Word of Christ dwell in our hearts in teaching and in song. But he urges them to do that having acknowledged in the previous chapter that he cannot be with them in the body, at least for the time being.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea. Psalm 46:1-2
No matter how hopeful we try to be, it is hard not to think that spring of 2020 is likely to prove a turning point for the nation. I’m reminded of the famous poem Shine, Perishing Republic, which contains the line, “And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.”
A clever servant, insufferable master. People have adapted that line from the poem to many things, most notably money and technology. They are tools and servants that have a tendency to take charge of our hearts and begin to dominate us. That’s how the first commandment gets messed up. The good gifts God gives us to possess end up possessing us instead. The creation displaces the Creator as the thing we rely on. We end up putting our faith in false gods.
Fear, panic, and despair always result when the false gods (which are often good things in themselves, just in the wrong place in our lives) fail us. The government. The economy. The scientists. The environment. Even our physical bodies—they’re all excellent servants, all terrible masters, and all prone to become the false gods of our lives. When everything goes wrong, God is still God. It is our false gods that have proven themselves incapable of saving us.
The pain of all this upheaval is real and nothing to take lightly. The things God gives us to serve us are all good gifts, and He knows all our needs. Trusting the true God does not mean disdaining good government, or treating people’s economic livelihoods as nothing, or downplaying the importance of good health. It means accepting the good things of creation as gifts, but keeping everything in its place.
We take very seriously the spread of disease, the stability of the economy (which is in unprecedented territory in terms of unemployment numbers), the ramifications of politics and elections, and so forth, without letting such things become gods. These are the mountains of our lives, the things by which we’ve always navigated and assumed would also be there. Now they’re being uprooted and tossed into the sea. Perhaps they’re just being put back in their proper place.
Money is not God. Science is not God. Physical life and health are not God. When people panic, they tend to think that you either have to treat something as the most important thing or else you’re not taking it seriously at all. Christians refuse that choice. We neither deny the goodness of, nor put our faith in, things like science, money, health, or government. We keep everything in its place, knowing that even the mountains are not eternal.
One translation of A Mighty Fortress, Luther’s great hymn on Psalm 46, it this way—“And take they our life, goods, fame, child and wife, though these all be gone, they yet have nothing won. The kingdom ours remaineth.” We shall have no other gods before the Creator. We receive the things of creation—government, technology, finances, health, etc. from His hand as undeserved gifts, as servants, not masters. And when they give way and fail us, we need not fear, for we know that our God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Colossians is only 4 chapters long, so the whole book is very readable in one sitting. And really, the meat of it is chapters 2-3. I encourage you all to read at least those two chapters today. In them, St. Paul writes the words quoted above, about letting the Word of Christ dwell in our hearts in teaching and in song. But he urges them to do that having acknowledged in the previous chapter that he cannot be with them in the body, at least for the time being.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 31, 2020
The ongoing pandemic brings three things together that might not have much in common as topics-- new technology, prayer, and every Christian’s sense of being a stranger in a strange land. I want to share with you some of the good things going on here at church today that show how those three things interrelate.
First, new technology. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on our recorded church services, along with many good suggestions on how to improve them. Today we recorded a school chapel service for tomorrow morning. We used a new camera and recording system that looks extremely promising. Tomorrow morning we’ll be recording the Lenten service, and we will know how to do it with better sound and more versatile and interesting viewing.
For me, this was encouraging. I found it amazing how much potential this new system offers in terms of remote services and teaching. As I’ve aged, I’ve become less and less inclined to keep up with all the new technological innovations; we all tend to get comfortable in a groove with what is familiar. But this time of separation forced us to look at new ways of doing things, and some of those improvements will outlast the virus and the time of separation. Being forced to learn what I wouldn’t be otherwise inclined to learn has been humbling, to be sure, but also exciting. It takes away some of the helpless feeling we might get when it seems like the world is passing us by.
Which brings me to the topic of prayer. Technology certainly does amaze, but it has its limits. While it is a tempting mistake to just let the world of technological innovation pass you by, it is an even bigger temptation, and even more disastrous mistake, to look to technology and science for answers to the human condition in the long term. This is where prayer comes in. It became fashionable in recent years for people in the media to mock prayer as a do-nothing approach to our problems. That mockery, I’ve noticed, is gone. When a disaster strikes, people realize our essential helplessness. Yes, we look to scientists and technology for vaccines and cures for this virus. But dealing with the problem forces everyone to realize that there is no vaccine or cure for death itself.
Too often even Christians fall into the habit of thinking of prayer as a last resort, something to do when all else fails. It is really the first course of action given to us. I suspect and hope that this time of isolation has cause many members of St. Paul’s to refocus on prayer even as we focus more on technology. Whether we had to be forced into it or not, the fact remains that a Christian congregation filled with people active in prayer is a tremendously good and powerful thing. And I think we are one such congregation now even more than we were before this all hit. If nothing else, just that improvement can illustrate how God brings good out of evil.
The feeling of helplessness that inspires even the disinclined to learn new technology, and drives even those who don’t normally pray much to a healthier, more active prayer life, also strengthens every Christian’s yearning for home. No one will keep up with rapid changes of the world indefinitely. Everyone will at some point be able to sing “change and decay in all around I see.” And with an active prayer life, they can then sing the next line with confidence—“O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”
You are a pilgrim in this world. The pageantry of history—pandemics, terror attacks, recessions, wars, elections, dangers and victories—continues to unfold in all of lives, no matter when we’re born and die. But we know this world and the whole story of it as centered in Christ and as something we pass through on our way to an eternal city. So we serve the Lord today, we take up our cross, but we always do so secure in the knowledge nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
The ongoing pandemic brings three things together that might not have much in common as topics-- new technology, prayer, and every Christian’s sense of being a stranger in a strange land. I want to share with you some of the good things going on here at church today that show how those three things interrelate.
First, new technology. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on our recorded church services, along with many good suggestions on how to improve them. Today we recorded a school chapel service for tomorrow morning. We used a new camera and recording system that looks extremely promising. Tomorrow morning we’ll be recording the Lenten service, and we will know how to do it with better sound and more versatile and interesting viewing.
For me, this was encouraging. I found it amazing how much potential this new system offers in terms of remote services and teaching. As I’ve aged, I’ve become less and less inclined to keep up with all the new technological innovations; we all tend to get comfortable in a groove with what is familiar. But this time of separation forced us to look at new ways of doing things, and some of those improvements will outlast the virus and the time of separation. Being forced to learn what I wouldn’t be otherwise inclined to learn has been humbling, to be sure, but also exciting. It takes away some of the helpless feeling we might get when it seems like the world is passing us by.
Which brings me to the topic of prayer. Technology certainly does amaze, but it has its limits. While it is a tempting mistake to just let the world of technological innovation pass you by, it is an even bigger temptation, and even more disastrous mistake, to look to technology and science for answers to the human condition in the long term. This is where prayer comes in. It became fashionable in recent years for people in the media to mock prayer as a do-nothing approach to our problems. That mockery, I’ve noticed, is gone. When a disaster strikes, people realize our essential helplessness. Yes, we look to scientists and technology for vaccines and cures for this virus. But dealing with the problem forces everyone to realize that there is no vaccine or cure for death itself.
Too often even Christians fall into the habit of thinking of prayer as a last resort, something to do when all else fails. It is really the first course of action given to us. I suspect and hope that this time of isolation has cause many members of St. Paul’s to refocus on prayer even as we focus more on technology. Whether we had to be forced into it or not, the fact remains that a Christian congregation filled with people active in prayer is a tremendously good and powerful thing. And I think we are one such congregation now even more than we were before this all hit. If nothing else, just that improvement can illustrate how God brings good out of evil.
The feeling of helplessness that inspires even the disinclined to learn new technology, and drives even those who don’t normally pray much to a healthier, more active prayer life, also strengthens every Christian’s yearning for home. No one will keep up with rapid changes of the world indefinitely. Everyone will at some point be able to sing “change and decay in all around I see.” And with an active prayer life, they can then sing the next line with confidence—“O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”
You are a pilgrim in this world. The pageantry of history—pandemics, terror attacks, recessions, wars, elections, dangers and victories—continues to unfold in all of lives, no matter when we’re born and die. But we know this world and the whole story of it as centered in Christ and as something we pass through on our way to an eternal city. So we serve the Lord today, we take up our cross, but we always do so secure in the knowledge nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 30, 2020
“April is the cruelest month…”
That’s the first line of T. S. Eliot’s poem called The Waste Land. It seems appropriate for today as we approach the end of March with the news that things are going to be shut down through the month of April while this virus tries to lay us to waste and we seek to resist the spread of it. That means we will have to do everything differently for the very biggest church celebrations of the year; nothing will be normal. Cruel indeed.
But one thing that will seem very odd, but which is actually just things going back to normal, is the idea of Christian teaching taking place in the home. The first line of Luther’s catechism, which we have used for five centuries to teach the faith to the next generation, is “As the head of the family should teach in a simple way to his household…” In Luther’s eyes, ongoing, daily learning in the home was normal. By contrast, the ways we in the modern world have compartmentalized our lives in separate, unrelated spheres—church, home, school, work, sports, social life, etc. would be abnormal to him. My guess is that he would see what we consider to be normal as somewhat spiritually debilitating.
One advantage, among the many disadvantages, of teaching the catechism remotely online, is that it lets us take at least one step toward better reintegrating church, school, and family. To be clear, such integration is always one of our goals at St. Paul’s, even in “normal” times. But increasingly, modern life militates against that goal. Integration of faith into all the spheres of life is easy to have as a goal, but seemingly harder and harder for many people to have as a reality.
The Reformation itself disrupted the world’s routine in the name of getting things back to normal, to the way they should have been. The reformers saw that the way everyone was leading their Christian lives had taken a bad turn. One of those bad turns might be familiar to us—compartmentalization. Monasteries were communities of worship (meaning Scripture teaching and learning, prayer, and praise) and service of the community and the wider world. The Church had begun to teach that people who lived in such communities were earning righteousness, were on a higher spiritual plane than regular people. The reformers would know—many of them, including Luther, lived in such communities.
Luther demolished the idea of earning forgiveness with good works, no matter how good those works might be. But when he left the monastery, his point was not that the things they did were bad. The point was that those things ought to happen in the Christian home. We don’t need to flee “worldly” callings to pursue spiritual calling. We need to integrate them. We need to make the Christian home the hub of all the facets of Christian life.
Basically, your house is a monastery. I know it probably feels like that more than ever these days. But seriously, your house is nothing other than a community of worship and service (and this is true even if you live alone). Everyone in the house wakes up with a calling from God not only to be strengthened in faith via the Word, and pray, but also to serve the household and the wider world according to each person’s role within it. The idea of strict compartmentalization—church for churchy stuff, school for facts, work for earning money, home for rest and amusement—insults the dignity of the home.
Today we begin a walk through the basic teachings of Christianity via video link. I’m no tv star, but I will be posting a 5-15 minute video each day, or most days, that go through the catechism bit by bit through the month of April. The confirmands are assigned to watch them, but I hope the whole congregation will join in. But here is the key. Watch them together with anyone else who lives in your house. Don’t take turns, or watch with headphones, or sit in separate rooms. Make it something you do for a few minutes together. Doing so will bring together, that is, integrate, church, home, and school at least partially in your Christian life. You should be able to link to today’s video below, or from the website soon.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
“April is the cruelest month…”
That’s the first line of T. S. Eliot’s poem called The Waste Land. It seems appropriate for today as we approach the end of March with the news that things are going to be shut down through the month of April while this virus tries to lay us to waste and we seek to resist the spread of it. That means we will have to do everything differently for the very biggest church celebrations of the year; nothing will be normal. Cruel indeed.
But one thing that will seem very odd, but which is actually just things going back to normal, is the idea of Christian teaching taking place in the home. The first line of Luther’s catechism, which we have used for five centuries to teach the faith to the next generation, is “As the head of the family should teach in a simple way to his household…” In Luther’s eyes, ongoing, daily learning in the home was normal. By contrast, the ways we in the modern world have compartmentalized our lives in separate, unrelated spheres—church, home, school, work, sports, social life, etc. would be abnormal to him. My guess is that he would see what we consider to be normal as somewhat spiritually debilitating.
One advantage, among the many disadvantages, of teaching the catechism remotely online, is that it lets us take at least one step toward better reintegrating church, school, and family. To be clear, such integration is always one of our goals at St. Paul’s, even in “normal” times. But increasingly, modern life militates against that goal. Integration of faith into all the spheres of life is easy to have as a goal, but seemingly harder and harder for many people to have as a reality.
The Reformation itself disrupted the world’s routine in the name of getting things back to normal, to the way they should have been. The reformers saw that the way everyone was leading their Christian lives had taken a bad turn. One of those bad turns might be familiar to us—compartmentalization. Monasteries were communities of worship (meaning Scripture teaching and learning, prayer, and praise) and service of the community and the wider world. The Church had begun to teach that people who lived in such communities were earning righteousness, were on a higher spiritual plane than regular people. The reformers would know—many of them, including Luther, lived in such communities.
Luther demolished the idea of earning forgiveness with good works, no matter how good those works might be. But when he left the monastery, his point was not that the things they did were bad. The point was that those things ought to happen in the Christian home. We don’t need to flee “worldly” callings to pursue spiritual calling. We need to integrate them. We need to make the Christian home the hub of all the facets of Christian life.
Basically, your house is a monastery. I know it probably feels like that more than ever these days. But seriously, your house is nothing other than a community of worship and service (and this is true even if you live alone). Everyone in the house wakes up with a calling from God not only to be strengthened in faith via the Word, and pray, but also to serve the household and the wider world according to each person’s role within it. The idea of strict compartmentalization—church for churchy stuff, school for facts, work for earning money, home for rest and amusement—insults the dignity of the home.
Today we begin a walk through the basic teachings of Christianity via video link. I’m no tv star, but I will be posting a 5-15 minute video each day, or most days, that go through the catechism bit by bit through the month of April. The confirmands are assigned to watch them, but I hope the whole congregation will join in. But here is the key. Watch them together with anyone else who lives in your house. Don’t take turns, or watch with headphones, or sit in separate rooms. Make it something you do for a few minutes together. Doing so will bring together, that is, integrate, church, home, and school at least partially in your Christian life. You should be able to link to today’s video below, or from the website soon.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 29, 2020
Disorienting. That’s what today feels like to me. It is hard to get your bearings when the landmarks aren’t there. By landmarks, of course, I don’t refer to the things that mark the physical landscape. I mean the things that give shape to time, the habits and rituals by which we all live.
God invented time along with everything else in Genesis 1, and He gave shape to it, a seven day pattern that has continued unbroken since the beginning of the world. Even we Christians, who are not bound by Old Testament Sabbath laws, still typically worship once every seven days, the day after Jesus’ Sabbath rest in the tomb. Church doesn’t have to take place on Sunday, but it always has. It is disorienting (especially but by no means exclusively for pastors) to get up on Sunday morning and think, “So…. What should I do today?”
I read the following in an online article last night:
JERUSALEM - Adeeb Joudeh, standing in front of the now-locked Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City, had a pretty specific answer when asked when the church last closed to the public like this:
"It was the year 1349, at the time of the Black Plague," he said, holding the key that had shut things down a day earlier and back in the 14th century as well.
A little over a year ago I was there at that church with some of others of our St. Paul’s family. Its huge, ancient dome encloses the traditional locations of the cross and the empty tomb. It seemed like if there were any constants in the world, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was one. It has closed for brief periods a few times in history for this or that reason, but the last time is was ordered closed for an indefinite period was 671 years ago. Wow. One comforting thing, one silver lining in that fact, is that I feel better about suspending worship at St. Paul’s, something I never thought I’d do and about which I still have mixed feelings. But hey, if they’ve closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I guess we can be closed, too. But it is still disorienting.
But anything that is disorienting demands a reorienting. You have to get your bearings. In the Milwaukee airport there is a great sign that read “Recombobulation Area.” I love that word, recombobulation, referring to what comes after the discombobulation of going through the arcane process of airport security. When you get lost, confused, or thrown off your game, you reorient.
The Gospel disoriented its first hearers. Jews and Gentiles mixing? Righteousness not by works? God becoming a man, and that man dying? And then rising? How could that be? All the old ways seemed to be collapsing. All the old assumptions, all the patterns, all the givens were thrown out the window. And yet to those with ears to hear, it was Good News.
Pastor Speckhard's thought continued
Disorienting. That’s what today feels like to me. It is hard to get your bearings when the landmarks aren’t there. By landmarks, of course, I don’t refer to the things that mark the physical landscape. I mean the things that give shape to time, the habits and rituals by which we all live.
God invented time along with everything else in Genesis 1, and He gave shape to it, a seven day pattern that has continued unbroken since the beginning of the world. Even we Christians, who are not bound by Old Testament Sabbath laws, still typically worship once every seven days, the day after Jesus’ Sabbath rest in the tomb. Church doesn’t have to take place on Sunday, but it always has. It is disorienting (especially but by no means exclusively for pastors) to get up on Sunday morning and think, “So…. What should I do today?”
I read the following in an online article last night:
JERUSALEM - Adeeb Joudeh, standing in front of the now-locked Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City, had a pretty specific answer when asked when the church last closed to the public like this:
"It was the year 1349, at the time of the Black Plague," he said, holding the key that had shut things down a day earlier and back in the 14th century as well.
A little over a year ago I was there at that church with some of others of our St. Paul’s family. Its huge, ancient dome encloses the traditional locations of the cross and the empty tomb. It seemed like if there were any constants in the world, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was one. It has closed for brief periods a few times in history for this or that reason, but the last time is was ordered closed for an indefinite period was 671 years ago. Wow. One comforting thing, one silver lining in that fact, is that I feel better about suspending worship at St. Paul’s, something I never thought I’d do and about which I still have mixed feelings. But hey, if they’ve closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I guess we can be closed, too. But it is still disorienting.
But anything that is disorienting demands a reorienting. You have to get your bearings. In the Milwaukee airport there is a great sign that read “Recombobulation Area.” I love that word, recombobulation, referring to what comes after the discombobulation of going through the arcane process of airport security. When you get lost, confused, or thrown off your game, you reorient.
The Gospel disoriented its first hearers. Jews and Gentiles mixing? Righteousness not by works? God becoming a man, and that man dying? And then rising? How could that be? All the old ways seemed to be collapsing. All the old assumptions, all the patterns, all the givens were thrown out the window. And yet to those with ears to hear, it was Good News.
Pastor Speckhard's thought continued
March 28, 2020
Dear St. Paul’s family,
By heart. That’s an evocative term. When we know something by heart, we keep it in our heart and it is there even when we’re not aware of it. We can call on it at a moment’s notice. Typically, what we mean when we say we know something by heart is that we know it word-for-word. Even after some time has gone by since we last said it, we can recall it with some prompting, or at least recognize it as deeply familiar.
The best way, really the only way, to know something by heart is repetition. Any instrumentalist has a long repertoire of pieces they can play almost automatically, because they’ve practiced them so often. That’s repetition. Athletes also need to know things by heart, and their practice is called “reps,” that it, repetitions.
Businesses know this. They run commercials over and over because they know you won’t really know what they want you to know unless they drive it into your head with repetition. That’s why they tell you their phone number four times. And they sing it to little jingles; melody and rhythm help the memory, and also drive the information deeper into the mind.
One of the more poignant scenes you’ll ever see is a dying person being sung to, especially songs they knew in their youth. Such singing has the power to cut through the fog of illness and anesthesia and go directly to the heart. Every Christian should be so blessed as to have a heart full of the Church’s sung Scripture to sustain them on the threshold of death.
Because we cannot offer communion to the congregation gathered in worship, our online service this week follow the service of Matins. Many generations of Christians have known this service by heart, including here at St. Paul’s. It connects the present to the past generation and the whole history of God’s people. It also has the power to connect people from many places. All over our church body, in any state, there are people who can sing along with Matins.
The beauty of liturgical worship is that it not only makes you know the Scriptures, but it puts those Scriptures into the context of worship. Rather than having a head only full commercial jingles, someone who sings the Scriptures week after week, in a congregation and wider church that sings the same things the same way, drives the words, the context, and the community of believers into our hearts.
Sunday will feel very strange for me not going to church, as I’m sure it will be for many of you. Please worship via our online service, either from the link in the email or via the website. Even as we are all apart in this time of quarantine and cannot go to church, it can be all the more meaningful to join in with “O come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation…”
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
Dear St. Paul’s family,
By heart. That’s an evocative term. When we know something by heart, we keep it in our heart and it is there even when we’re not aware of it. We can call on it at a moment’s notice. Typically, what we mean when we say we know something by heart is that we know it word-for-word. Even after some time has gone by since we last said it, we can recall it with some prompting, or at least recognize it as deeply familiar.
The best way, really the only way, to know something by heart is repetition. Any instrumentalist has a long repertoire of pieces they can play almost automatically, because they’ve practiced them so often. That’s repetition. Athletes also need to know things by heart, and their practice is called “reps,” that it, repetitions.
Businesses know this. They run commercials over and over because they know you won’t really know what they want you to know unless they drive it into your head with repetition. That’s why they tell you their phone number four times. And they sing it to little jingles; melody and rhythm help the memory, and also drive the information deeper into the mind.
One of the more poignant scenes you’ll ever see is a dying person being sung to, especially songs they knew in their youth. Such singing has the power to cut through the fog of illness and anesthesia and go directly to the heart. Every Christian should be so blessed as to have a heart full of the Church’s sung Scripture to sustain them on the threshold of death.
Because we cannot offer communion to the congregation gathered in worship, our online service this week follow the service of Matins. Many generations of Christians have known this service by heart, including here at St. Paul’s. It connects the present to the past generation and the whole history of God’s people. It also has the power to connect people from many places. All over our church body, in any state, there are people who can sing along with Matins.
The beauty of liturgical worship is that it not only makes you know the Scriptures, but it puts those Scriptures into the context of worship. Rather than having a head only full commercial jingles, someone who sings the Scriptures week after week, in a congregation and wider church that sings the same things the same way, drives the words, the context, and the community of believers into our hearts.
Sunday will feel very strange for me not going to church, as I’m sure it will be for many of you. Please worship via our online service, either from the link in the email or via the website. Even as we are all apart in this time of quarantine and cannot go to church, it can be all the more meaningful to join in with “O come, let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation…”
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 27, 2020
This is the day the Lord has made!
First thing most mornings I use a little prayer book by John Baillie called A Diary of Private Prayer, which has a prayer for every morning and every evening the month. I’d like to share a portion of the prayer for the 27th day of the month (slightly edited, since Baillie uses archaic, King James language). After giving thanks for the work of Christ, the prayer continues as follows by giving thanks for what we have received from all those who have gone before us and asking God to incorporate us into that ongoing, glorious history:
For the power of His cross in the history of the world since He came; For all who have taken up their own crosses and followed Him; For the noble army of martyrs and for all who are willing to die that others may live; For all the suffering freely chosen for noble ends, for pain bravely endured, for temporal sorrows that have been used for the building up of eternal joys; I praise and bless You holy Name.
O Lord my God, You dwell in pure and blessed serenity beyond the reach of mortal pain, yet look down in unspeakable love and tenderness upon the sorrows of the earth. Give me grace, I beg you, to understand the meaning of such afflictions and disappointments as I myself am called upon to endure. Deliver me from fretfulness. Let me be wise to draw from every dispensation of Your providence the lesson You would have me learn. Give me a stout heart to bear my own burdens. Give me a willing heart to bear the burdens of others. Give me a believing heart to cast all my burdens on You.
During this very strangest of spring breaks, one of the blessings I’ve experienced is God forcing me to adapt, which I’m not naturally inclined to do. But I think St. Paul’s will be a better congregation next year and year after because of some of the ways we’re adapting now. We’ll be more focused on what is important, and more able to communicate and serve people in different circumstances.
Spring break ends this weekend and school starts again Monday via remote learning. Our teachers have been hustling and scrambling to learn new technology, prepare different lessons, and make it possible to keep teaching despite the circumstances. I’m going to do the same thing (lest those energetic darn teachers make me look bad!) with various Bible studies starting next week. You’ll need either Zoom or Facebook Live to participate in real time. Not ideal, but better than nothing. And I think even after this craziness ends, we’re still benefit from some of the changes we’re being forced to make today.
Keep an eye on your email Monday for instructions on how to participate in Bible study next week.
This weekend’s church service will be matins from LSB, and should be available for viewing by Saturday evening. We hope to begin live-streaming services next week.
Peace be with you!
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
This is the day the Lord has made!
First thing most mornings I use a little prayer book by John Baillie called A Diary of Private Prayer, which has a prayer for every morning and every evening the month. I’d like to share a portion of the prayer for the 27th day of the month (slightly edited, since Baillie uses archaic, King James language). After giving thanks for the work of Christ, the prayer continues as follows by giving thanks for what we have received from all those who have gone before us and asking God to incorporate us into that ongoing, glorious history:
For the power of His cross in the history of the world since He came; For all who have taken up their own crosses and followed Him; For the noble army of martyrs and for all who are willing to die that others may live; For all the suffering freely chosen for noble ends, for pain bravely endured, for temporal sorrows that have been used for the building up of eternal joys; I praise and bless You holy Name.
O Lord my God, You dwell in pure and blessed serenity beyond the reach of mortal pain, yet look down in unspeakable love and tenderness upon the sorrows of the earth. Give me grace, I beg you, to understand the meaning of such afflictions and disappointments as I myself am called upon to endure. Deliver me from fretfulness. Let me be wise to draw from every dispensation of Your providence the lesson You would have me learn. Give me a stout heart to bear my own burdens. Give me a willing heart to bear the burdens of others. Give me a believing heart to cast all my burdens on You.
During this very strangest of spring breaks, one of the blessings I’ve experienced is God forcing me to adapt, which I’m not naturally inclined to do. But I think St. Paul’s will be a better congregation next year and year after because of some of the ways we’re adapting now. We’ll be more focused on what is important, and more able to communicate and serve people in different circumstances.
Spring break ends this weekend and school starts again Monday via remote learning. Our teachers have been hustling and scrambling to learn new technology, prepare different lessons, and make it possible to keep teaching despite the circumstances. I’m going to do the same thing (lest those energetic darn teachers make me look bad!) with various Bible studies starting next week. You’ll need either Zoom or Facebook Live to participate in real time. Not ideal, but better than nothing. And I think even after this craziness ends, we’re still benefit from some of the changes we’re being forced to make today.
Keep an eye on your email Monday for instructions on how to participate in Bible study next week.
This weekend’s church service will be matins from LSB, and should be available for viewing by Saturday evening. We hope to begin live-streaming services next week.
Peace be with you!
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 26, 2020
Dear St. Paul’s family,
I hope you were able to participate in the Service of Prayer and Preaching for our Lenten service last night. There were a few unexpected delays, and we understand that we need to change how we do the sound, but every first effort is a learning experience. We hope to be able to live-stream starting next week, and also make recordings of the services available on the website. Thanks for your patience as we all figure this out together. More on patience below!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Gal. 5:22-23
Times like these put everything to the test, but also provide plenty of opportunity for the fruit of the Spirit to shine like a beacon in a storm. There can be laws about all kind of things. There can be good laws and bad laws, annoying laws and critically necessary laws. But it is impossible for anyone to mandate that you be hateful, joyless, angry, impatient, mean, immoral, faithless, harsh, or irresponsible. How we respond to tough times is up to us, and by pointing us to Christ and building us up in faith, the Holy Spirit enables and empowers to respond with the fruit of the Spirit.
Of course we fail. That’s why forgiveness is at the heart and soul of what makes us God’s family. But we never stop trying to be what God called us to be in Holy Baptism, children of God worthy of His Name. Today provides you with a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities to let your light shine. Don’t read it today as condemnation or let it remind you of your failures; that’s for another time. Today, remember Christ’s forgiveness, and use that list simply as encouragement—God is with you, and this is what He is helping you to be.
Pastor's thoughts continued
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
Dear St. Paul’s family,
I hope you were able to participate in the Service of Prayer and Preaching for our Lenten service last night. There were a few unexpected delays, and we understand that we need to change how we do the sound, but every first effort is a learning experience. We hope to be able to live-stream starting next week, and also make recordings of the services available on the website. Thanks for your patience as we all figure this out together. More on patience below!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Gal. 5:22-23
Times like these put everything to the test, but also provide plenty of opportunity for the fruit of the Spirit to shine like a beacon in a storm. There can be laws about all kind of things. There can be good laws and bad laws, annoying laws and critically necessary laws. But it is impossible for anyone to mandate that you be hateful, joyless, angry, impatient, mean, immoral, faithless, harsh, or irresponsible. How we respond to tough times is up to us, and by pointing us to Christ and building us up in faith, the Holy Spirit enables and empowers to respond with the fruit of the Spirit.
Of course we fail. That’s why forgiveness is at the heart and soul of what makes us God’s family. But we never stop trying to be what God called us to be in Holy Baptism, children of God worthy of His Name. Today provides you with a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities to let your light shine. Don’t read it today as condemnation or let it remind you of your failures; that’s for another time. Today, remember Christ’s forgiveness, and use that list simply as encouragement—God is with you, and this is what He is helping you to be.
Pastor's thoughts continued
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 25, 2020
Lenten greetings to the St. Paul’s family,
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14
[Jesus said] “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” John 6:51
We should thank God for the technology that allows us to stay connected somewhat during a time a separation. As we temporarily try to worship together without being together “in the flesh”, so to speak, we rejoice at the gift of electronic communication. But I want to highlight the importance of the physical and some of the pitfalls of online worship, so that we all get the most out of the opportunity to worship remotely without falling into any spiritual snare.
Most obviously, watching worship is not the same thing as worshiping. Please don’t tune in to our services the same way you would to a tv show. This will be harder than it seems. Speak the words of the creed, don’t just listen to them. Pray, don’t just listen to the prayers. Sing the hymns and liturgical parts aloud, don’t just have them in the background like a radio. (Again, make sure you have a hymnal in your home—you can check one out from church.) It will seem strange doing this out loud in your house, especially with other people sitting on the couch or across the room. But so be it. Unlike watching a movie, in worship, you are a participant, not an observer. In fact, making a point of this will help us all even when we can be back in church, because we all have a tendency to lapse back into the role of observer even when we’re sitting in the pews.
More importantly, doing things remotely can give us the mistaken impression that the Church is an abstraction, a mere idea, rather than a concrete reality. If we mistakenly believe that worshiping remotely is the same thing, basically, as worshiping in person, then we’re missing out on one of the great mysteries and gifts of Christianity. In the Church, you, that is, your flesh and blood, are being incorporated (note the root of that word!) into the Body of Christ and therefore God.
Consider God for a moment. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We confess, “I believe that God has made me…” How? Did he just imagine an idea of you? No. He made you a flesh and blood thing, and used physical means. Spoiler alert for any young children who may be reading this, but there was icky, physical contact and biology involved in God’s work. Babies are not abstractions, nor are they begotten in the abstract. Yet we confess that the making of every human being is/was a holy act of the Creator with eternal, spiritual ramifications.
And consider Jesus. He came in the flesh. That is of crucial (literally) importance for the faith. There is no Jesus apart from flesh and blood. God became a Man. We don’t put our trust in the abstract idea of God being nice and loving and merciful. We put our faith in the concrete, fleshly manifestation of the Truth. Countless ancient heretics have tried to get around the Incarnation, the enfleshment of God, but to no avail. There is no Christianity or Church without it.
Pastor's thoughts continued
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
Lenten greetings to the St. Paul’s family,
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. John 1:14
[Jesus said] “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” John 6:51
We should thank God for the technology that allows us to stay connected somewhat during a time a separation. As we temporarily try to worship together without being together “in the flesh”, so to speak, we rejoice at the gift of electronic communication. But I want to highlight the importance of the physical and some of the pitfalls of online worship, so that we all get the most out of the opportunity to worship remotely without falling into any spiritual snare.
Most obviously, watching worship is not the same thing as worshiping. Please don’t tune in to our services the same way you would to a tv show. This will be harder than it seems. Speak the words of the creed, don’t just listen to them. Pray, don’t just listen to the prayers. Sing the hymns and liturgical parts aloud, don’t just have them in the background like a radio. (Again, make sure you have a hymnal in your home—you can check one out from church.) It will seem strange doing this out loud in your house, especially with other people sitting on the couch or across the room. But so be it. Unlike watching a movie, in worship, you are a participant, not an observer. In fact, making a point of this will help us all even when we can be back in church, because we all have a tendency to lapse back into the role of observer even when we’re sitting in the pews.
More importantly, doing things remotely can give us the mistaken impression that the Church is an abstraction, a mere idea, rather than a concrete reality. If we mistakenly believe that worshiping remotely is the same thing, basically, as worshiping in person, then we’re missing out on one of the great mysteries and gifts of Christianity. In the Church, you, that is, your flesh and blood, are being incorporated (note the root of that word!) into the Body of Christ and therefore God.
Consider God for a moment. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We confess, “I believe that God has made me…” How? Did he just imagine an idea of you? No. He made you a flesh and blood thing, and used physical means. Spoiler alert for any young children who may be reading this, but there was icky, physical contact and biology involved in God’s work. Babies are not abstractions, nor are they begotten in the abstract. Yet we confess that the making of every human being is/was a holy act of the Creator with eternal, spiritual ramifications.
And consider Jesus. He came in the flesh. That is of crucial (literally) importance for the faith. There is no Jesus apart from flesh and blood. God became a Man. We don’t put our trust in the abstract idea of God being nice and loving and merciful. We put our faith in the concrete, fleshly manifestation of the Truth. Countless ancient heretics have tried to get around the Incarnation, the enfleshment of God, but to no avail. There is no Christianity or Church without it.
Pastor's thoughts continued
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 24, 2020
Dear St. Paul's Family,
In consultation with the Board of Deacons and Pastor Stock, I have decided to suspend our worship services, both Wednesday and Sunday, for at least the next two weeks. Instead, we will make services available via our website, with instructions for accessing them to follow in the coming days. We will then re-evaluate, and hopefully be able to have at least Holy Week and Easter services.
Please know we do not make this change lightly, but we do make it voluntarily. No secular law can prevent us from offering Word and Sacrament ministry. But in weighing the many pros and cons of any course of action and what ultimately has the best chance of keeping the flock fed and unified without distraction, I think this is our best option for the time being. I’m sorry to those who disagree, and reiterate that the pastors will bring communion to people in this time by request. We will be constantly re-assessing as events unfold.
We will continue to provide daily updates, links to other services and Bible study resources, and will work toward doing as much preaching and teaching as we can via the website. As usual, please help those who do not have access to the website or the daily emails. In some cases, helping them might mean printing off copies and delivering them to your friends’ mailboxes. We want our church family staying connected. One silver lining in all this disruption is that it will ensure that we have good contact information.
Considering the possibility of going even a short period without gathering for worship is a difficult prospect for Christians. I offer the following thoughts on communion and separation in the hope that it helps us all reflect on what is truly important.
C.S. Lewis wrote a science fiction story called The Great Divorce, which opens in a place where everyone lives in their dream house but everyone also lives alone, and further and further apart, so as not to have their dream bothered or interrupted by someone else’s. “I won’t be a bit player in someone else’s dream; they must be bit players in my dream.” So everyone is the center of their own little universe, all alone. That place turns out to be hell. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously expressed this approach to life when he said, “Hell is other people.” Other people impose on us. Our interactions with them must be voluntary, and cut off whenever they cease to be enjoyable.
Christians know better than that. We don’t live for ourselves, or at least we aren’t supposed to. But sometimes our lifestyles conform to the world’s ways without our even realizing it. Sometimes the patterns of our lives reflect the world’s assumptions and priorities more than is befitting followers of Christ. It is then that we need our loving Father’s correction.
Sometimes God’s toughest discipline involves letting people have what they want. He “gives us over” to our rebellious ways, forsaking the artificial punishments that might have corrected us, and instead lets us see what life is like when our choices go unchecked. Thus, in the Old Testament, God warned the people about wanting a king, but the people demanded one anyway. And God, knowing they would regret it, let the people have a king, and even let them choose make the foolish choice of King Saul. And they did regret it. But God didn’t give up on them. Ultimately, He incorporated even their foolishness and rebellion into His gracious plan by making Jesus, descended from King David, the final King of Kings.
We know the phrase “Have it your way” as a promise, which might be fine when applied strictly to hamburgers. The problem is that we don’t apply it strictly to hamburgers. We demand that the same concept be applied to everything. But in the mouth of God, “Have it your way,” means harsh discipline is coming. He knows that His way, not our fallen, sinful way, is the only way that gives us life and true freedom. The book of Proverbs constantly extols the benefits of a well- timed rebuke and wise correction, and constantly warns that folly ends up being its own punishment in the end.
Even prior to this outbreak, our society has long been walking very deliberately toward realizing Lewis’s vision of hell, mistaking it for heaven. It isn’t just the physical things, like smaller and smaller families in bigger and bigger houses, further and further apart, as though hell were other people. It’s also our private schedules and demand for more and more options. Not even 100 channels is enough. Isolation and loneliness have become among the chief problems facing people who get what they want. Not wanting to be bound by anything or imposed upon, we have for many generations been relaxing, chaffing at, and cutting all the ties that bind, seeing them as curses rather than blessings. And then we find ourselves adrift.
Take meals, for example. They are necessary for nourishment, of course, but also have always been about fellowship. To break bread together was a meaningful act, not just a matter of convenience. Two years ago when we did the 10 Commandments of Table Meals during Lent, we talked about the recent invention of drive-through meals to illustrate this general drive toward isolation and away from fellowship. It is not a good direction, but we follow the same path in some many areas of life.
We’ve farmed out to institutions the rearing of the young, care for the elderly, helping the poor, and anything else that might be considered a burden on our individualistic lifestyles. We’ve refused to be formed by the Church, but have insisted instead that the church conform to our schedules and tastes. We barely even know our neighbors anymore, living as we do in our cars and behind our garages, and if we love them at all, we do so purely in the abstract by supporting whatever faceless program is supposed to be taking care of them, not in any concrete action that makes demands on our time. Sad.
This quarantine just gives us more of what we’ve demanding. The restaurants are all drive-through, no sit down. All home-theater, no real theater. All virtual classroom, no real classroom. And now, for a time, even church must follow suit. We’ve struggled mightily never to be inconvenienced, to make sure we can do whatever we want without having to leave our own bedroom. And now we see it all realized and think, “Wait a minute; where is the community, the human contact, the sense the belonging? Have we simply been preparing a place for ourselves in our own, isolated hell where everything revolves around our own convenience and nobody else ever comes?”
Perhaps this time of forced separation can prove to be a cautionary tale. God might be using this to show us the folly of the road we’ve been walking, perhaps as individuals but certainly as a society for a long time by giving us a glimpse of where that path leads. Maybe being forced not to visit with our neighbors will make us question why we always avoided visiting with our neighbor in the first place. Maybe all the days we sat dreaming of the chance just to stay in bed and watch Netflix were not visions of heaven after all.
Jesus promised that He was going to prepare a place for us. He never promises to let us go and prepare a place for ourselves in the Father’s house. It will be perfect, but only because He prepared it for us rather than letting us do it the way we really want. And it will be in the Father’s house, a place of community, of love and togetherness, of singing together, of a common table and feasting. Pray that this unexpected and difficult time of dealing with separation will make us yearn ever more strongly for the gift of weekly worship together in communion with heaven and all the Saints.
Pray that it opens our eyes to any wrong roads our lives might have been taking and gives us the chance to change course. May we emerge from this temporary crisis with renewed faith and an even stronger congregation due to God’s gracious guidance and discipline. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
Dear St. Paul's Family,
In consultation with the Board of Deacons and Pastor Stock, I have decided to suspend our worship services, both Wednesday and Sunday, for at least the next two weeks. Instead, we will make services available via our website, with instructions for accessing them to follow in the coming days. We will then re-evaluate, and hopefully be able to have at least Holy Week and Easter services.
Please know we do not make this change lightly, but we do make it voluntarily. No secular law can prevent us from offering Word and Sacrament ministry. But in weighing the many pros and cons of any course of action and what ultimately has the best chance of keeping the flock fed and unified without distraction, I think this is our best option for the time being. I’m sorry to those who disagree, and reiterate that the pastors will bring communion to people in this time by request. We will be constantly re-assessing as events unfold.
We will continue to provide daily updates, links to other services and Bible study resources, and will work toward doing as much preaching and teaching as we can via the website. As usual, please help those who do not have access to the website or the daily emails. In some cases, helping them might mean printing off copies and delivering them to your friends’ mailboxes. We want our church family staying connected. One silver lining in all this disruption is that it will ensure that we have good contact information.
Considering the possibility of going even a short period without gathering for worship is a difficult prospect for Christians. I offer the following thoughts on communion and separation in the hope that it helps us all reflect on what is truly important.
C.S. Lewis wrote a science fiction story called The Great Divorce, which opens in a place where everyone lives in their dream house but everyone also lives alone, and further and further apart, so as not to have their dream bothered or interrupted by someone else’s. “I won’t be a bit player in someone else’s dream; they must be bit players in my dream.” So everyone is the center of their own little universe, all alone. That place turns out to be hell. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously expressed this approach to life when he said, “Hell is other people.” Other people impose on us. Our interactions with them must be voluntary, and cut off whenever they cease to be enjoyable.
Christians know better than that. We don’t live for ourselves, or at least we aren’t supposed to. But sometimes our lifestyles conform to the world’s ways without our even realizing it. Sometimes the patterns of our lives reflect the world’s assumptions and priorities more than is befitting followers of Christ. It is then that we need our loving Father’s correction.
Sometimes God’s toughest discipline involves letting people have what they want. He “gives us over” to our rebellious ways, forsaking the artificial punishments that might have corrected us, and instead lets us see what life is like when our choices go unchecked. Thus, in the Old Testament, God warned the people about wanting a king, but the people demanded one anyway. And God, knowing they would regret it, let the people have a king, and even let them choose make the foolish choice of King Saul. And they did regret it. But God didn’t give up on them. Ultimately, He incorporated even their foolishness and rebellion into His gracious plan by making Jesus, descended from King David, the final King of Kings.
We know the phrase “Have it your way” as a promise, which might be fine when applied strictly to hamburgers. The problem is that we don’t apply it strictly to hamburgers. We demand that the same concept be applied to everything. But in the mouth of God, “Have it your way,” means harsh discipline is coming. He knows that His way, not our fallen, sinful way, is the only way that gives us life and true freedom. The book of Proverbs constantly extols the benefits of a well- timed rebuke and wise correction, and constantly warns that folly ends up being its own punishment in the end.
Even prior to this outbreak, our society has long been walking very deliberately toward realizing Lewis’s vision of hell, mistaking it for heaven. It isn’t just the physical things, like smaller and smaller families in bigger and bigger houses, further and further apart, as though hell were other people. It’s also our private schedules and demand for more and more options. Not even 100 channels is enough. Isolation and loneliness have become among the chief problems facing people who get what they want. Not wanting to be bound by anything or imposed upon, we have for many generations been relaxing, chaffing at, and cutting all the ties that bind, seeing them as curses rather than blessings. And then we find ourselves adrift.
Take meals, for example. They are necessary for nourishment, of course, but also have always been about fellowship. To break bread together was a meaningful act, not just a matter of convenience. Two years ago when we did the 10 Commandments of Table Meals during Lent, we talked about the recent invention of drive-through meals to illustrate this general drive toward isolation and away from fellowship. It is not a good direction, but we follow the same path in some many areas of life.
We’ve farmed out to institutions the rearing of the young, care for the elderly, helping the poor, and anything else that might be considered a burden on our individualistic lifestyles. We’ve refused to be formed by the Church, but have insisted instead that the church conform to our schedules and tastes. We barely even know our neighbors anymore, living as we do in our cars and behind our garages, and if we love them at all, we do so purely in the abstract by supporting whatever faceless program is supposed to be taking care of them, not in any concrete action that makes demands on our time. Sad.
This quarantine just gives us more of what we’ve demanding. The restaurants are all drive-through, no sit down. All home-theater, no real theater. All virtual classroom, no real classroom. And now, for a time, even church must follow suit. We’ve struggled mightily never to be inconvenienced, to make sure we can do whatever we want without having to leave our own bedroom. And now we see it all realized and think, “Wait a minute; where is the community, the human contact, the sense the belonging? Have we simply been preparing a place for ourselves in our own, isolated hell where everything revolves around our own convenience and nobody else ever comes?”
Perhaps this time of forced separation can prove to be a cautionary tale. God might be using this to show us the folly of the road we’ve been walking, perhaps as individuals but certainly as a society for a long time by giving us a glimpse of where that path leads. Maybe being forced not to visit with our neighbors will make us question why we always avoided visiting with our neighbor in the first place. Maybe all the days we sat dreaming of the chance just to stay in bed and watch Netflix were not visions of heaven after all.
Jesus promised that He was going to prepare a place for us. He never promises to let us go and prepare a place for ourselves in the Father’s house. It will be perfect, but only because He prepared it for us rather than letting us do it the way we really want. And it will be in the Father’s house, a place of community, of love and togetherness, of singing together, of a common table and feasting. Pray that this unexpected and difficult time of dealing with separation will make us yearn ever more strongly for the gift of weekly worship together in communion with heaven and all the Saints.
Pray that it opens our eyes to any wrong roads our lives might have been taking and gives us the chance to change course. May we emerge from this temporary crisis with renewed faith and an even stronger congregation due to God’s gracious guidance and discipline. In Christ, Pastor Speckhard
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 23, 2020
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Questions about why God allows natural disasters to happen are as perennial as the disasters themselves, and those question invariably lead to the question of punishment. If Christ bore God’s wrath for the sin of the world on the cross, why is there any punishment left over in the form of plagues and disasters? If specific people or particular sins bring down God’s wrath, why do innocent people also suffer? And if God really is God, why doesn’t He do anything to stop all this?
The disciples in yesterday’s reading who asked Jesus why the man was born blind weren’t interested in blindness in general or its relationship to the Fall of mankind into sin. They were interested in what, specifically, this particular blind man did, or maybe his parents did, that resulted in God making him blind. Jesus, by contrast, simply points to what God was accomplishing by making the man born blind. As Pastor Stock pointed out in his sermon, when we see by the light of the cross, we see things truly.
By the light of the cross we see ourselves truly as children of God. Hebrews 12:7 tells us, “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons [and daughters].” So how might we look at our current circumstance in light of the cross? How might God be making this work out for your good? In Christ we know God isn’t refusing to forgive us, or just mad at us, or wanting the worst for us. His love for us is secure. If you want to know whether God is disciplining you, assume that He is and that He is doing so because He is your loving Father. How it might these circumstances draw you closer to Him and make you more like Him?
Every deprivation calls us to repentance for ingratitude. Only spoiled kids (and adults) feel entitled to and ungrateful for all the good things they have. For one small example, having to search for toilet paper can potentially make you grateful, perhaps truly for the first time, to have toilet paper. Maybe for the first time you’re becoming grateful for the work of people whose jobs you always took for granted before. Children of God, who know that everything is an undeserved gift, should lead lives marked chiefly by constant, overwhelming gratitude. If nothing else, we can emerge from this time of quarantine with renewed gratitude for our routines, our freedoms, our health, and normal human contact.
Tomorrow I want to explore the importance of that last one—human contact, and what an important gift it really is, and how we so often throw it away because it makes demands on us. But for today, make a list of things you failed to be thankful for until this quarantine made you scramble to find them or do without them. Then you’ll see at least one way this time of upheaval can bring you closer to God.
In-home exercise for today: recite Luther’s explanation of the First article of the creed from memory, or read it aloud ten times. I won’t print it here, because the other part of the exercise is to make sure you have a copy of the catechism somewhere in your house. Please don’t google it or use an online version, because translations vary and we want the whole church family working on the same version. Tip: the whole catechism is on pp. 321-330 of the hymnal for those who checked on out of church for in-home use during the quarantine.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
Questions about why God allows natural disasters to happen are as perennial as the disasters themselves, and those question invariably lead to the question of punishment. If Christ bore God’s wrath for the sin of the world on the cross, why is there any punishment left over in the form of plagues and disasters? If specific people or particular sins bring down God’s wrath, why do innocent people also suffer? And if God really is God, why doesn’t He do anything to stop all this?
The disciples in yesterday’s reading who asked Jesus why the man was born blind weren’t interested in blindness in general or its relationship to the Fall of mankind into sin. They were interested in what, specifically, this particular blind man did, or maybe his parents did, that resulted in God making him blind. Jesus, by contrast, simply points to what God was accomplishing by making the man born blind. As Pastor Stock pointed out in his sermon, when we see by the light of the cross, we see things truly.
By the light of the cross we see ourselves truly as children of God. Hebrews 12:7 tells us, “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons [and daughters].” So how might we look at our current circumstance in light of the cross? How might God be making this work out for your good? In Christ we know God isn’t refusing to forgive us, or just mad at us, or wanting the worst for us. His love for us is secure. If you want to know whether God is disciplining you, assume that He is and that He is doing so because He is your loving Father. How it might these circumstances draw you closer to Him and make you more like Him?
Every deprivation calls us to repentance for ingratitude. Only spoiled kids (and adults) feel entitled to and ungrateful for all the good things they have. For one small example, having to search for toilet paper can potentially make you grateful, perhaps truly for the first time, to have toilet paper. Maybe for the first time you’re becoming grateful for the work of people whose jobs you always took for granted before. Children of God, who know that everything is an undeserved gift, should lead lives marked chiefly by constant, overwhelming gratitude. If nothing else, we can emerge from this time of quarantine with renewed gratitude for our routines, our freedoms, our health, and normal human contact.
Tomorrow I want to explore the importance of that last one—human contact, and what an important gift it really is, and how we so often throw it away because it makes demands on us. But for today, make a list of things you failed to be thankful for until this quarantine made you scramble to find them or do without them. Then you’ll see at least one way this time of upheaval can bring you closer to God.
In-home exercise for today: recite Luther’s explanation of the First article of the creed from memory, or read it aloud ten times. I won’t print it here, because the other part of the exercise is to make sure you have a copy of the catechism somewhere in your house. Please don’t google it or use an online version, because translations vary and we want the whole church family working on the same version. Tip: the whole catechism is on pp. 321-330 of the hymnal for those who checked on out of church for in-home use during the quarantine.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 20, 2020
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promises, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Right then, just the promise of spiritual food becomes food for the hungry soul. In the longer terms, Jesus knows that He is volunteering to be the righteousness that satisfies. After His death and resurrection for all people, he gives Himself to feed their spiritual hunger. First the promise, then the fulfillment feed the soul.
Hunger is a sign of health. A person with no appetite has some bodily problem. Even if the next meal has to wait, the fact that the patient is impatient for it (no pun intended) is a good sign of health. And what is true of the physical body is also true, in a way, of emotional things. In quarantine, you might truly miss someone you love. The separation might not end right away, but the fact that you miss them while separated is a sign that you have a strong relationship. If someone asked you, “Did you miss me?” and you say, “Not really,” you probably have an unhealthy relationship that is about to take a turn for the worse.
As we continue to monitor the situation and strive to keep offering Word and Sacrament ministry to everyone at St. Paul’s, we know that our services tomorrow and Sunday will not be able to serve everybody. Many people will not be there for a variety of good reasons, and we will try to flexible and accommodate everyone however we can in the coming weeks. If you cannot be attend church, even the fact that you wish you could is a sign of a healthy spiritual life.
But there is one reason not to attend that is a bad sign. If you do not come because you have no hunger to be fed with the righteousness of Christ in Word and Sacrament, that lack of a spiritual appetite is a sign of poor spiritual health. As always, Luther’s Catechism has a good prescription:
Q: But what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?
A: To such a person no better advice can be given than this: first, he should touch his body and see if he still has flesh and blood. Then he should believe what the Scriptures say of it in Galatians 5 and Romans 7. Second, he should look around and see if he is still in the world, and remember that there will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say in John 15-16 and in I John 2 and 5. Third, he will certainly have the devil also around him, who with his lying and murdering day and night will let him have no peace, within or without, as the Scriptures picture him in John 8 and 16, I Peter 5, Ephesians 6, and II Timothy 2.
Whether you are healthy or ill in body, mind, or spirit, the Great Physician always has what you need. If possible, we hope to see you in church this weekend, and promise to follow every precaution for times of pandemic. But if we don’t see you this weekend, we hope that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that you are feeding your hunger for the sacrament by focusing on your need and Christ’s promise of fulfillment.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promises, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Right then, just the promise of spiritual food becomes food for the hungry soul. In the longer terms, Jesus knows that He is volunteering to be the righteousness that satisfies. After His death and resurrection for all people, he gives Himself to feed their spiritual hunger. First the promise, then the fulfillment feed the soul.
Hunger is a sign of health. A person with no appetite has some bodily problem. Even if the next meal has to wait, the fact that the patient is impatient for it (no pun intended) is a good sign of health. And what is true of the physical body is also true, in a way, of emotional things. In quarantine, you might truly miss someone you love. The separation might not end right away, but the fact that you miss them while separated is a sign that you have a strong relationship. If someone asked you, “Did you miss me?” and you say, “Not really,” you probably have an unhealthy relationship that is about to take a turn for the worse.
As we continue to monitor the situation and strive to keep offering Word and Sacrament ministry to everyone at St. Paul’s, we know that our services tomorrow and Sunday will not be able to serve everybody. Many people will not be there for a variety of good reasons, and we will try to flexible and accommodate everyone however we can in the coming weeks. If you cannot be attend church, even the fact that you wish you could is a sign of a healthy spiritual life.
But there is one reason not to attend that is a bad sign. If you do not come because you have no hunger to be fed with the righteousness of Christ in Word and Sacrament, that lack of a spiritual appetite is a sign of poor spiritual health. As always, Luther’s Catechism has a good prescription:
Q: But what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?
A: To such a person no better advice can be given than this: first, he should touch his body and see if he still has flesh and blood. Then he should believe what the Scriptures say of it in Galatians 5 and Romans 7. Second, he should look around and see if he is still in the world, and remember that there will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say in John 15-16 and in I John 2 and 5. Third, he will certainly have the devil also around him, who with his lying and murdering day and night will let him have no peace, within or without, as the Scriptures picture him in John 8 and 16, I Peter 5, Ephesians 6, and II Timothy 2.
Whether you are healthy or ill in body, mind, or spirit, the Great Physician always has what you need. If possible, we hope to see you in church this weekend, and promise to follow every precaution for times of pandemic. But if we don’t see you this weekend, we hope that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that you are feeding your hunger for the sacrament by focusing on your need and Christ’s promise of fulfillment.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 19, 2020
This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. —Psalm 118:24
War, famine, plague—these things do not interrupt life. They merely provide the setting in which the story of normal human life unfolds. Sometimes these terrors force us to pay attention to them, and other times they are easier to ignore. But the brokenness of creation is a constant in your life, as is the opportunity to rejoice in the Lord. Always.
One cause for rejoicing is that our first attempt at offering church services with communion during this public health crisis went very well yesterday. A total of 64 people came, 34 at 2:30 and 30 at 6:30. Except for the brief moment of reaching out to receive the wafer from my gloved hand, nobody had to come within six feet of anyone else, and nobody ever touched anything that hadn’t been disinfected since the last time anyone touched it. It was very safe, responsible, and (as always) a big blessing to those who could be there. Even those who could not be there could rejoice with the whole church family that it was happening.
With seating in the narthex, we can easily accommodate about 60-70 people per service without pushing the limits of any public health and safety guideline or putting anyone at risk. That means our Saturday 5:30 p.m. service and three Sunday morning services (remember, 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 this week) could serve up to about 250 people without any problem arising if attendance is spread out evenly across the services. But as a CDC official pointed out Tuesday at the daily government press briefing, 10 to a room is a guideline for gatherings. A lot depends on the size of the room and the nature of the interaction going on in it. In our case, there could still be ample distance between people and no shared contact of surfaces even if a few more than ten were in any given section.
Many in our church family are working tirelessly to fight the disease or to keep vital food and medical supply chains open for people. Some have slight signs of illness and should not leave their own rooms. Some may be in lock down, or be especially vulnerable. We know not everyone can or should come to church this week. But if you can come, we plan to have Word and Sacrament available to you. For those who can’t come, we hope to live stream the services, and if we can, we will email out the instructions. Otherwise we will get a recording available on the website as soon as we can afterward.
Today is the only day there is right now. We know God made it. We know his reasons are good, and His love everlasting. It isn’t just a fallen world, it is a redeemed world. It belongs to Christ, who reigns forever. Come what may, today is a day full of opportunity. Rejoice and glad in it.
++++ Announcements--please help people who aren’t getting the daily email. Call the office with good info. Few people signed out hymnals. Please do so and encourage others. It will really help. Confirmation families will be receiving a separate email next week with updates and instructions on how to proceed after spring break.
This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. —Psalm 118:24
War, famine, plague—these things do not interrupt life. They merely provide the setting in which the story of normal human life unfolds. Sometimes these terrors force us to pay attention to them, and other times they are easier to ignore. But the brokenness of creation is a constant in your life, as is the opportunity to rejoice in the Lord. Always.
One cause for rejoicing is that our first attempt at offering church services with communion during this public health crisis went very well yesterday. A total of 64 people came, 34 at 2:30 and 30 at 6:30. Except for the brief moment of reaching out to receive the wafer from my gloved hand, nobody had to come within six feet of anyone else, and nobody ever touched anything that hadn’t been disinfected since the last time anyone touched it. It was very safe, responsible, and (as always) a big blessing to those who could be there. Even those who could not be there could rejoice with the whole church family that it was happening.
With seating in the narthex, we can easily accommodate about 60-70 people per service without pushing the limits of any public health and safety guideline or putting anyone at risk. That means our Saturday 5:30 p.m. service and three Sunday morning services (remember, 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 this week) could serve up to about 250 people without any problem arising if attendance is spread out evenly across the services. But as a CDC official pointed out Tuesday at the daily government press briefing, 10 to a room is a guideline for gatherings. A lot depends on the size of the room and the nature of the interaction going on in it. In our case, there could still be ample distance between people and no shared contact of surfaces even if a few more than ten were in any given section.
Many in our church family are working tirelessly to fight the disease or to keep vital food and medical supply chains open for people. Some have slight signs of illness and should not leave their own rooms. Some may be in lock down, or be especially vulnerable. We know not everyone can or should come to church this week. But if you can come, we plan to have Word and Sacrament available to you. For those who can’t come, we hope to live stream the services, and if we can, we will email out the instructions. Otherwise we will get a recording available on the website as soon as we can afterward.
Today is the only day there is right now. We know God made it. We know his reasons are good, and His love everlasting. It isn’t just a fallen world, it is a redeemed world. It belongs to Christ, who reigns forever. Come what may, today is a day full of opportunity. Rejoice and glad in it.
++++ Announcements--please help people who aren’t getting the daily email. Call the office with good info. Few people signed out hymnals. Please do so and encourage others. It will really help. Confirmation families will be receiving a separate email next week with updates and instructions on how to proceed after spring break.
March 18, 2020
[Jesus said] 1“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Matt. 25:1-13
Jesus tells this parable to remind us to be prepared spiritually, for we do not know the day or the hour we will meet Him face to face. While we have good reason to hope and expect that our precautions are helping to defeat this virus, a time of pandemic forces us to consider what is always true, namely, that the day and hour for any of us could be sooner rather than later. That isn’t morbid thinking, it is spiritually alert thinking. The need to be prepared applies to all of us all of time.
Lack of preparation typically shows up too late. We often find out the hard way that the flashlight has no batteries, that the spare tire is also flat, or that the backup sump pump doesn’t work. And when it comes to spiritual things, the consequences are far worse than a flooded basement. We need to take Jesus’ words seriously.
Being prepared spiritually—having oil in your lamp-- means having faith in Christ. It also having that faith fed and nurtured regularly by God’s Word and Christ’s body and blood, before it seems urgent. That way, you are ready for that day and hour no matter when it comes. In quarantine circumstances, we know many people will be unable to attend services. But we don’t want anyone to run out of oil.
The urgent need for in-home devotions might be an area that is catching you unprepared. One of the twelve traits we seek to nurture in every St. Paul’s member is the habit of regular in-home devotions. If this hasn’t been your practice, there is no time like the present to start. It might seem difficult or awkward at first, especially for the one leading. Just do it anyway. It is important, and I’m going to walk you through it now.
You need a Bible, of course. But does your house have Lutheran Service Book (our hymnal) in it? It should. You can check one out here at church after a service or during office hours, or request to have one delivered. We aren’t using them during this crisis anyway, and can collect them back when it is over. You might need two or three depending on the size of your household, assuming people can share. The hymnal will be a big blessing to you, and an important part of our program for leading St. Paul’s through this time of quarantine.
The hymnal has a lot more than hymns in it. It has prayers for every occasion, suggested Scripture readings, Psalms, brief orders of service for devotional use throughout the day (pp.294-300), the whole catechism—it is a treasure trove. You should think about ordering one to have for when the crisis is over anyway.
Other good devotional materials, like the Lenten devotions or Portals of Prayer, can easily be used in conjunction with hymnal-based devotion. Or, if you want to jump in the deep end and have a whole, disciplined program laid for you, I recommend The Treasury of Daily Prayer, available from CPH. It is bulky (and pricy), but worth it, and available in electronic form. It follows the guidelines for in-home devotions suggested by Pr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Life Together book we did last fall. Find whatever works for you. But be careful; there are a lot of bad devotional books on the market. We recommend you use the CPH website. There is something for everybody there, and it is good solid stuff.
So, how do household devotions work? Well, the first step is determining a time when everyone in the house can be together. There is no such time, I know. So the real first step is making that time. One silver lining of this massive disruption of normal schedules is that it offers the perfect time to make needed changes and put first things first again. The hymnal gives templates for morning, noon, early evening, and bedtime. When your schedule returns to normal, don’t let it crowd out the need for these brief times with everyone together. In our house, we do brief devotions twice a day on normal school days, at around 7:05 a.m. and again around 9:00 p.m. or whenever things are settling down. Now that there are no normal school days, we’ve changed it to 8:30 a.m. and somewhat later in the evening.
Our morning devotion follows the basic template from p. 295 of the hymnal. Everyone knows the words, and in a few days this will be the case for you. I lead, and the rest of the family responds with the parts in bold, just like a church bulletin. Note: the head of the household should lead the household devotions. Part of preparedness is getting over the hump of initial awkwardness or hesitance about leading the household spiritually.
Normally, we do a simple reading/prayer in place of all the stuff in the rubrics (printed in red) because in our family’s case our daily schedules include many other times of devotions and religious instruction. Now that school has moved to in-home learning, and Sunday school and many youth activities are on hiatus, we’ll be adding more Scripture and/or catechism to our devotions. You might use Portals of Prayer or some other devotional booklet to fill in the red section on p. 295. Remember, though, that household devotions do not replace personal prayer and Bible study; they are in addition to those things. We always close morning devotions with vs. 2 of hymn #869 (With the Lord Begin Your Task). You might choose a different hymn verse, but I encourage you to sing together as part of devotions. If you can sing the ABC’s or Happy Birthday together, you can sing a hymn verse.
Our evening devotions are even simpler, and after singing vs. 5 of hymn #880 (Now Rest Beneath Night’s Shadow) I make the sign of the cross on each kid’s forehead and say goodnight. It really isn’t hard or complicated once you get in the habit. Neither devotion takes more than a few minutes. As an added bonus, they give some spiritual and family-oriented structure to the day. I can all but guarantee that if you begin this practice and don’t give up in the first few days, you will never regret it, and you won’t stop doing it even when school is back in session, church is back to normal, and nothing seems urgent anymore. With spiritual things, the more regular and habitual they become, the more indispensable and urgent they seem. And they keep you prepared.
St. Paul’s exists to keep oil in your lamp. We will keep doing whatever we can to provide it to you. Helping you develop the 12 traits, like in-home devotion, personal prayer, Biblical literacy, and fluency with the hymnal and catechism have never been more urgent for sake of keeping oil in your lamp. Do not be afraid. God is faithful. Everything you need to be prepared for a day of quarantine or the day you meet the Lord, He has provided for you in His Word, which put oil in your lamp. Jesus says to keep watch, for we do not know the day or the hour. But He gives us the confidence to say, “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!”
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
[Jesus said] 1“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘Since there will not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Matt. 25:1-13
Jesus tells this parable to remind us to be prepared spiritually, for we do not know the day or the hour we will meet Him face to face. While we have good reason to hope and expect that our precautions are helping to defeat this virus, a time of pandemic forces us to consider what is always true, namely, that the day and hour for any of us could be sooner rather than later. That isn’t morbid thinking, it is spiritually alert thinking. The need to be prepared applies to all of us all of time.
Lack of preparation typically shows up too late. We often find out the hard way that the flashlight has no batteries, that the spare tire is also flat, or that the backup sump pump doesn’t work. And when it comes to spiritual things, the consequences are far worse than a flooded basement. We need to take Jesus’ words seriously.
Being prepared spiritually—having oil in your lamp-- means having faith in Christ. It also having that faith fed and nurtured regularly by God’s Word and Christ’s body and blood, before it seems urgent. That way, you are ready for that day and hour no matter when it comes. In quarantine circumstances, we know many people will be unable to attend services. But we don’t want anyone to run out of oil.
The urgent need for in-home devotions might be an area that is catching you unprepared. One of the twelve traits we seek to nurture in every St. Paul’s member is the habit of regular in-home devotions. If this hasn’t been your practice, there is no time like the present to start. It might seem difficult or awkward at first, especially for the one leading. Just do it anyway. It is important, and I’m going to walk you through it now.
You need a Bible, of course. But does your house have Lutheran Service Book (our hymnal) in it? It should. You can check one out here at church after a service or during office hours, or request to have one delivered. We aren’t using them during this crisis anyway, and can collect them back when it is over. You might need two or three depending on the size of your household, assuming people can share. The hymnal will be a big blessing to you, and an important part of our program for leading St. Paul’s through this time of quarantine.
The hymnal has a lot more than hymns in it. It has prayers for every occasion, suggested Scripture readings, Psalms, brief orders of service for devotional use throughout the day (pp.294-300), the whole catechism—it is a treasure trove. You should think about ordering one to have for when the crisis is over anyway.
Other good devotional materials, like the Lenten devotions or Portals of Prayer, can easily be used in conjunction with hymnal-based devotion. Or, if you want to jump in the deep end and have a whole, disciplined program laid for you, I recommend The Treasury of Daily Prayer, available from CPH. It is bulky (and pricy), but worth it, and available in electronic form. It follows the guidelines for in-home devotions suggested by Pr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Life Together book we did last fall. Find whatever works for you. But be careful; there are a lot of bad devotional books on the market. We recommend you use the CPH website. There is something for everybody there, and it is good solid stuff.
So, how do household devotions work? Well, the first step is determining a time when everyone in the house can be together. There is no such time, I know. So the real first step is making that time. One silver lining of this massive disruption of normal schedules is that it offers the perfect time to make needed changes and put first things first again. The hymnal gives templates for morning, noon, early evening, and bedtime. When your schedule returns to normal, don’t let it crowd out the need for these brief times with everyone together. In our house, we do brief devotions twice a day on normal school days, at around 7:05 a.m. and again around 9:00 p.m. or whenever things are settling down. Now that there are no normal school days, we’ve changed it to 8:30 a.m. and somewhat later in the evening.
Our morning devotion follows the basic template from p. 295 of the hymnal. Everyone knows the words, and in a few days this will be the case for you. I lead, and the rest of the family responds with the parts in bold, just like a church bulletin. Note: the head of the household should lead the household devotions. Part of preparedness is getting over the hump of initial awkwardness or hesitance about leading the household spiritually.
Normally, we do a simple reading/prayer in place of all the stuff in the rubrics (printed in red) because in our family’s case our daily schedules include many other times of devotions and religious instruction. Now that school has moved to in-home learning, and Sunday school and many youth activities are on hiatus, we’ll be adding more Scripture and/or catechism to our devotions. You might use Portals of Prayer or some other devotional booklet to fill in the red section on p. 295. Remember, though, that household devotions do not replace personal prayer and Bible study; they are in addition to those things. We always close morning devotions with vs. 2 of hymn #869 (With the Lord Begin Your Task). You might choose a different hymn verse, but I encourage you to sing together as part of devotions. If you can sing the ABC’s or Happy Birthday together, you can sing a hymn verse.
Our evening devotions are even simpler, and after singing vs. 5 of hymn #880 (Now Rest Beneath Night’s Shadow) I make the sign of the cross on each kid’s forehead and say goodnight. It really isn’t hard or complicated once you get in the habit. Neither devotion takes more than a few minutes. As an added bonus, they give some spiritual and family-oriented structure to the day. I can all but guarantee that if you begin this practice and don’t give up in the first few days, you will never regret it, and you won’t stop doing it even when school is back in session, church is back to normal, and nothing seems urgent anymore. With spiritual things, the more regular and habitual they become, the more indispensable and urgent they seem. And they keep you prepared.
St. Paul’s exists to keep oil in your lamp. We will keep doing whatever we can to provide it to you. Helping you develop the 12 traits, like in-home devotion, personal prayer, Biblical literacy, and fluency with the hymnal and catechism have never been more urgent for sake of keeping oil in your lamp. Do not be afraid. God is faithful. Everything you need to be prepared for a day of quarantine or the day you meet the Lord, He has provided for you in His Word, which put oil in your lamp. Jesus says to keep watch, for we do not know the day or the hour. But He gives us the confidence to say, “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!”
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
March 17, 2020
[Jesus said] Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matt. 10:28
It is a tough balancing act, isn’t it? Life, health, and society in this world are all very important things, but not the most important things. We recognize the need to curtail all non-essential services, but we dare not consider groceries essential but Word and Sacrament non-essential, as though man lived on bread alone. We dare not stop offering Holy Communion while pharmacies remain open, as though the medicine of the body mattered more than the medicine of the soul.
By the same token, we must be good stewards of the bodies God has given us, good citizens of the secular world He has given us, and good neighbors to all those around us. Thus, we also dare not ignore a serious public health crisis, government recommendations and restrictions, or the concerns of the vulnerable or frightened. Focusing on the essentials—Christ in Word and Sacrament—means not insisting on any non-essentials like the logistical details of the service, which we can and will change to suit changing conditions.
Jesus defeated the only one who can destroy both body and soul in hell. That is why we put our first priority on remaining connected to Him by faith. As for everything else, well, we have His words: Do not fear. Do not fear this virus. Avoid it, sure. But if you get it, you are still in God’s loving hands. Do not fear your neighbor. Practice separation for the sake of the common good, sure. But do not subtly begin to treat your neighbor as a walking germ factory or contaminant. Neither your neighbor nor any virus can harm your soul. Do not be afraid.
+++
Last night the leadership of St. Paul’s met in a special session to figure out the best way forward for St. Paul’s in this difficult time. The central goal remains to feed the flock with Word and Sacrament ministry, with the trick beyond that being how to ensure everyone’s safety, adhere to public policy recommendations, and offer as much of a sense of calm and normalcy as possible.
We considered the recommendations of our district and synodical leadership as well as our secular officials. We also looked at the various ways other churches similar to St. Paul’s are handling the crisis. St. Paul’s is blessed with excellent lay leadership with deep experience in diverse fields, so our leadership group included people with first-hand knowledge of how this situation is being handled in the corporate, educational, medical, and public safety sectors.
We realize some would prefer to cancel all services, while others would prefer to keep doing them as usual. With input from all sides and without casting judgment on either perspective, we sought compromises that would allow as many people as possible to benefit from Word and Sacrament during this crisis. We realize our decisions must remain tentative. Things are changing rapidly. It is important that you read the update every day.
The following is the course we intend to pursue until further notice:
We will not be cancelling church. But we will be limiting human contact to the very minimum. That means we will be spreading out the crowds over more services and throughout our large sanctuary in order to honor recommended group gathering limits. We will also be extra vigilant in cleaning every hard surface between human contacts.
In order to continue offering Word and Sacrament ministry in this time of crisis, we are making the following changes to our schedule and procedures:
Any balancing act takes practice, and this unprecedented time of contagion, panic, and disruption offers excellent practice. If nothing else, it might give us the opportunity to get our own spiritual house in order. Let’s emerge from this crisis, whenever it relents, with clarified priorities and renewed dedication to the most important things.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard
It is a tough balancing act, isn’t it? Life, health, and society in this world are all very important things, but not the most important things. We recognize the need to curtail all non-essential services, but we dare not consider groceries essential but Word and Sacrament non-essential, as though man lived on bread alone. We dare not stop offering Holy Communion while pharmacies remain open, as though the medicine of the body mattered more than the medicine of the soul.
By the same token, we must be good stewards of the bodies God has given us, good citizens of the secular world He has given us, and good neighbors to all those around us. Thus, we also dare not ignore a serious public health crisis, government recommendations and restrictions, or the concerns of the vulnerable or frightened. Focusing on the essentials—Christ in Word and Sacrament—means not insisting on any non-essentials like the logistical details of the service, which we can and will change to suit changing conditions.
Jesus defeated the only one who can destroy both body and soul in hell. That is why we put our first priority on remaining connected to Him by faith. As for everything else, well, we have His words: Do not fear. Do not fear this virus. Avoid it, sure. But if you get it, you are still in God’s loving hands. Do not fear your neighbor. Practice separation for the sake of the common good, sure. But do not subtly begin to treat your neighbor as a walking germ factory or contaminant. Neither your neighbor nor any virus can harm your soul. Do not be afraid.
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Last night the leadership of St. Paul’s met in a special session to figure out the best way forward for St. Paul’s in this difficult time. The central goal remains to feed the flock with Word and Sacrament ministry, with the trick beyond that being how to ensure everyone’s safety, adhere to public policy recommendations, and offer as much of a sense of calm and normalcy as possible.
We considered the recommendations of our district and synodical leadership as well as our secular officials. We also looked at the various ways other churches similar to St. Paul’s are handling the crisis. St. Paul’s is blessed with excellent lay leadership with deep experience in diverse fields, so our leadership group included people with first-hand knowledge of how this situation is being handled in the corporate, educational, medical, and public safety sectors.
We realize some would prefer to cancel all services, while others would prefer to keep doing them as usual. With input from all sides and without casting judgment on either perspective, we sought compromises that would allow as many people as possible to benefit from Word and Sacrament during this crisis. We realize our decisions must remain tentative. Things are changing rapidly. It is important that you read the update every day.
The following is the course we intend to pursue until further notice:
We will not be cancelling church. But we will be limiting human contact to the very minimum. That means we will be spreading out the crowds over more services and throughout our large sanctuary in order to honor recommended group gathering limits. We will also be extra vigilant in cleaning every hard surface between human contacts.
In order to continue offering Word and Sacrament ministry in this time of crisis, we are making the following changes to our schedule and procedures:
- Sunday school, adult Bible study, and Koinonia are cancelled. Only the very small New Member class will continue to meet during the 9:30 hour. Worship should be the only reason you are here.
- We will hold an additional service during the 9:30 hour. Sunday services will take place at 8:00, 9:30, and 11:00 a.m. in addition to the Saturday 5:30 p.m. service. This will thin out the crowd at any given service. The services will be slightly shorter, to allow the group from one service to leave before the group for the next service arrives.
- The Lenten services on Wednesdays at 2:30 and 6:30 p.m. will include communion. This will further thin the size of gatherings by offering people many options for receiving the Sacrament. The Lenten services will still be different than Sunday services in all other respects for the sake of those who may choose to attend Sunday and Wednesday.
- We will treat our very large sanctuary as five separate rooms, with each main section of pews, including the balcony, accommodating a roughly equal number of people. Please sit in whichever section seems like it has the fewest people in it.
- There will be no acolytes or deacons assisting with services or distribution. Communion will be distributed by only one pastor, who will just have disinfected his hands.
- Communion will be continuous rather than kneeling together at the rail, with appropriate space between each person in line.
- The bread will be placed on the hand of the communicant, and the wine will be limited to individual cups. This very simple distribution process will be explained at the service.
- There will be no hymnals or papers in the pews. Everything will be printed in the bulletin, and the bulletins will be single-use. You may take them home or put them directly into the recycling bin after each service.
- The main church entrance will be the only doors open. All other doors will be locked. Ushers will open the doors to minimize touching of the handles. The door handles will be cleaned on an ongoing basis.
- The pews and hard surfaces, including in the rest rooms, will be disinfected between each service.
- There will be no school choirs, adult choir, or handbells in the services. Any special music will be by soloists or small groups.
Any balancing act takes practice, and this unprecedented time of contagion, panic, and disruption offers excellent practice. If nothing else, it might give us the opportunity to get our own spiritual house in order. Let’s emerge from this crisis, whenever it relents, with clarified priorities and renewed dedication to the most important things.
In Christ,
Pastor Speckhard