I planted seeds for my vegetable garden this week. God willing, they will sprout inside the plastic greenhouse sitting in my dining room window and grow a few sets of leaves by the time I need to transplant them to the garden beds in the backyard. I check on the seeds every day – sometimes [...]
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Unless we care about something deeply, we will never be willing to take a risk. St. Paul said that as God’s people we are to be “controlled by the love of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5:14) Is our love for Christ compelling us to find ways to share His Good News with those who do not [...]
by Caren Vogt, NJ District Lutheran Schools Are you excited? The New Jersey District is supporting our school ministries in various ways: They are offering to pay for each school in the district to become a member of the Lutheran Education Association (LEA). All you have to do is apply through the district. LEA membership [...]
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By the Rev. Jim Buckman, NJ District Urban Mission Strategist “Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ”It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of [...]
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This Easter Sunday I have the privilege of preaching at Good Shepherd, Point Pleasant and the text will be Luke 24:1-12: “why do you look for the living One among the dead?” The disciples were to “remember how He told you” that these very things must happen: the Son of Man must be delivered into [...]
God’s people have been entrusted with four kinds of ministry endeavors: (1) evangelistic ministry endeavors, as they evangelize large numbers of non-Christians through their life of witness and Gospel proclamation and bring them, by God’s grace, to faith in Jesus Christ; (2) maturational ministry endeavors, as they grow up into Christ, who is the Head [...]
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A missionary, in a cross-cultural setting and before a cross-cultural target audience, needs to learn to communicate Christ, and the Scriptures, in terms of the hearer’s way of viewing the world (sources must assume the responsibility of encoding messages with the worldview of the respondents in mind)…way of thinking (people in different cultures tend to [...]
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One of the most interesting observations of Carl Braaten in his book THE APOSTOLIC IMPERATIVE is that Lutherans are strong on CANON but weak on OFFICE; this got me thinking and asking: what kinds of “offices” do we need in order to accomplish His ministry and mission in the 21st century. In order to explore [...]
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How did Jesus do evangelism? Jesus went about all the cities and villages…preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom THE HUMAN CONDITION 1: The parable of the wheat and the weeds 2: The parable of what defiles a person — the human heart and its sickness unto death GOD’S RESPONSE TO THE HUMAN CONDITION 3: The doctor to the [...]
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One of my favorite recent movies is NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by the Coen Brothers — it is a great movie in terms of direction, etc. but it is extremely violent in content. But this blog is not about the quality of the movie’s direction and why it deserved to be BEST PICTURE that [...]
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