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A picture IS worth a thousand words. . .

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While some who have ditched nearly everything that identifies Lutherans as liturgical or dismissed it all as adiaphora and therefore matters indifferent and unimportant, pictures from the time around and after the Reformation show a very different spirit. The whole thing is available here.  Thanks to T. David Demerest and Matthew Carver for making the work of Helmut Schatz available in English.  You can flip to it here and read and look for yourself.  I have simply made some of the pictures available here.  I think they speak for themselves.  It is hard to dismiss the imagery of chasubles, copes, etc. and the dates that signify this was not simply some stage in a cleansing effort of Lutherans to ditch their catholic identity.  This is who we were, who we are, and, if we have a future, who we will be. So look and think about it all. . . . If Lutherans do not look like this today, what is the reason?
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Not the same. . .

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Being good at preaching and being a good preacher are not the same.  There are many who are exemplary orators and speakers in the pulpit.  I can think of many folks who have the ability to turn a phrase and to deliver a line well.  Nadia Bolz-Weber is certainly good at preaching if that is all preaching is.  She keeps your attention, that is true (partially by being shocking).  She tells a good story; I'll give her that.  But being a good preacher is less about the art than about the content.  Now to be sure, I am NOT suggesting that preachers should be lazy in the pulpit or fail in their pursuit of excellence in the craft.  I am not saying that at all.  But success in the pulpit is less about the art of keeping people's attention, keeping them awake, or leaving them with a catch phrase than it is imparting to them the Word of life, being faithful voices of the Christ who speaks through the pastor by the power of the Holy Spirit. The truth is...
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From which the clergy come. . .

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The future of the Church does and has always depended more upon the faithfulness of those in the pews than most ever realize.  For just as the faithful who come to the Divine Service each week, pray for the work of the Kingdom and those who lead that work, offer tithes and offerings through which this work is supported, and act as agents of the Lord in home, neighborhood, workplace, and nation, so does this faith fostered in families provide the rich soil that grows future pastors. When the parish suffers and families are broken, it is reflected in the numbers of men and women who hear the call and are encouraged in their vocation to full-time church work.  This could very well be one of the reasons why vocations to the ministry have fallen and the numbers of second career men has risen.  I say this not at all to disparage those who come to the ministry later in life but remind the families who are right now bringing their children to church that those same children, rais...
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