Encore Post: In Holy Baptism we are made God’s child. This is perhaps the greatest and most wonderful vocation into which we are placed. Let’s call Baptism ground zero for vocations. Moving from ground zero there are other vocations that are built into the kingdom of God. The vocation or calling of a pastor comes to mind.
In the Old Testament God commanded the men of the tribe of Levi to serve in his tabernacle and later temple as priests and the specific men who would do the bulk of the public preaching and teaching concerning the Lord and his wonderful works of salvation, like the Exodus events of the Passover Lamb and Red Sea.
Encore Post: Lutherans cherish absolution as a way that the forgiveness of sins won by Jesus on the cross is applied to Christians when they confess their sins. It is a form of the preaching of the Gospel, which takes what God has promised to all who believe in him and announces it to specific individuals. All Christians may assure their brothers and sisters that their sins are forgiven, but ordinarily it is pastors who hear the confession of sins and pronounce the forgiveness of sins to specific individuals or congregations. This is done for the sake of good order and for the assurance of troubled souls that their sins are really forgiven. Pastors are men that God calls through a local congregation to preach the Gospel and administer the sacraments on their behalf and as a instrument of their Lord Jesus.
The form that Lutheran pastors use to absolve sins sounds odd to many Protestants and even offensive to some. Yet they do so at the command of Jesus, who instituted absolution and gave the church the power to forgive sins or retain them. (Matthew 18:18-20, John 20:21-23, 2 Corinthians 5:19-21) This power Jesus gives is called by theologians the Office of the Keys.
Confession and Absolution comes in two forms: Private Confession and General Confession. Private Confession is available especially when you commit a sin that you cannot shake, that Satan uses to accuse you and that you feel God cannot possibly forgive. When he is ordained, a pastor promises before God that he will never reveal what is confessed to him — even to his wife. This seal of the confessional is absolute, unless the person who confesses the sin releases the pastor of the obligation. When you share the deepest of your sins and the pastor forgives you, you can be at rest. Jesus promised that you can believe this as if he himself spoke these words — because it is Jesus who is speaking through your pastor. (Luke 10:16)
Encore Post: After the Sacrament of Holy Baptism in Luther’s Small Catechism we find the section on Confession. Pastors get the question from time to time, “Why do we keep confessing our sins? Especially if we are baptized?” Confession is the natural extension of our Baptism because in Confession and Absolution we are brought back to the promises of our Baptism. Think back to the 3rd and 4th parts of Baptism. While we did die with Christ in Baptism, we still live in the body of sinful flesh. Only when we die do we stop sinning.
Sin is a fearful thing. And continuing to sin even after our Baptism can catch up to us. Continuing to sin without sign of contrition/repentance can lead a person to walk away from their Baptismal Identity and lose their faith. Confessing our sins is needed, even after Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and strengthening of our faith.
Encore Post: The data is out there. The trends are known. We know before we go about our duties. We know who is likely to remain in the church. We know who is likely to return to the church. We already know.
Will the married couple remain in the church after their wedding in our building? Will the family bring their baptized child into the Lord’s house regularly? Will the catechumens remain in the church after they’re admitted to the altar? Will the new visitors become a permanent fixture here after transfer or conversion? Will the family newly invigorated by the death of a closely related blessèd saint of the Lord lose their zeal or keep it? Will the children keep coming when the duties, passions, and hormones of adolescence drag them around wildly in their own minds?
Your pastors pray the data is more dire than reality.
In each case, it boils down to habit and patterns.
Newlyweds: what is their family background? A couple from a similar upbringing: LCMS, regularly attended as a child and adolescent, and both parents brought them to church. In the same way that similar ideas about money, number of children, and chiefly if Moms and Dads were married and remain married improve the chances of a successful marriage. Those commonalities also improve the chances that these kids will be and remain in the church.
Your pastor will coach you concerning the difficulties in your future when the odds are not stacked in your favor. Only in extremely rare circumstances will he refuse marriage. He prays that the Lord will deliver you from misfortune and strife, even the foreseeable kind.
Baptized child: what’s the deal with Mom and Dad? If they are or become regular attenders, the kids will likely follow suit. If they are not, their kids will still likely follow suit. Your pastor will often baptize a child, whose future in the church is uncertain. He prays that foreseeable apostasy does not befall your house.
Catechumens: Again, what’s the deal with Mom and Dad? Here, there’s more data readily available. Did y’all attend regularly before confirmation was on the horizon? If not, there’s a mighty high chance the catechumens will peter out quickly following confirmation.
Your pastors will desperately attempt to instill new habits in the kids. He’ll impose strict attendance standards or require seemingly endless piles of sermon reports. He’s seen parents drop children off for required church attendance, while driving off themselves. He’s grieved to know the child may be lost already. He prays he’s wrong, keeps up with his efforts, and prays the Holy Spirit defeats those odds. Rarely would he withhold confirmation.
Transfers/Converts/Those motivated by a close death: Where were you before? Are you returning to lifelong patters of attendance to the Lord’s house? Or are these attempts to develop a new pattern? Those who attended before are more likely to attend again. Those who did not, are not.
Adolescents: This group gets the most attention, the most ink spilt over them, and even individualistic ministerial attention. How often have you heard of a church with a minister of newlywed Christianization, baptismal life, catechetical instruction, or newly returned Christian life instruction? Prob’ly never. But, we’ve all seen churches with a youth minster or a youth ministry team.
Sadly, that’s also an example of the poor return on those efforts. Again, data indicates that strong youth programs don’t predict strong Christian adults from within them. Worse, when those programs look distinctively different than the churches from which they spring, they serve as an offramp directly out of the church.
Can’t we beat the odds? Yes, we can. Your pastor prays that you do. He preaches, teaches, and conducts himself towards you assuming the data is wrong in your case.
As a body of believers, we have data to help direct our efforts. Children follow the patterns established by their fathers regarding church. As we discussed before, the data is stark in this regard. If we want baptized babies in church, children in church following along and learning, catechumens attending to the Lord’s house, youth who remain in or return to church, newlyweds who attend regularly and bring their babies to the font, we must have fathers to build those patterns into their children.
Your pastors already know. We pray every day that the data is wrong in your case.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX
Encore Post: 214 years ago, Wilhelm Löhe was the pastor of a small, rural parish in Neuendettelsau, Bavaria. He was a leader in Germany’s then new Confessionalist movement. Because of this role, he always had a strained relationship with the leaders of his church body and so was kept out of the way — or so they thought.
Löhe was a man of boundless energy, persuasive when advocating a cause and highly skilled at marshaling talent and funds to accomplish a goal. In 1842, he read Friedrich Wyneken‘s appeals for the spiritual need of German Lutherans on the American frontier and his stirring plea for pastors. Löhe published his own appeal. He arranged to meet Wyneken to publish a polished version of the missionary’s appeal, titled Die Noth der deutschen Lutheraner in Nordamerika (The Need of the German Lutherans in North America) These appeals caused donations to flow in and soon second career men to volunteer to meet the need.
But Löhe was just getting started. with his friend Johann Friedrich Wucherer, he provided a basic education to second career men who volunteered to go to America. Soon they founded a mission society, raised funds, wrote manuals, instructions and churchly books. He at first send these men and donations to the Ohio Synod’s seminary in Columbus, Ohio. When cultural and theological differences made that no longer possible, he worked with Wilhelm Sihler, pastor at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Fort Wayne, Indiana to found a “practical seminary” — an institution focused on providing pastors for the church as quickly as possible. In October 1846, this institution opened in his parsonage. This institution is now known as Concordia Theological Seminary — but that is another story!
Wilhelm Löhe, his friends and his small parish were just getting started, though. Seeing the suffering of the poor, the ill, the widowed and orphaned, he revived the office of Deaconess. He also sent men and material to the Wartburg Seminary and its church body, the Iowa Synod (now a part of the ELCA), to Australia, the German colonists of Russia and other places. In an effort to provide a Christian witness to native Americans, he organized and founded Frankenmuth and neighboring communities. His liturgies and worship books became the foundation of the Missouri Synod’s liturgy.
At the age of 63, Wilhelm Löhe died still serving as the pastor of his rural parish on January 2, 1872. He is buried where he served. His institutions still continue to this day, serving God and his church world-wide.
Rev. Robert E. Smith Concordia Theological Seminary Fort Wayne, Indiana
The event, which recently wrapped-up at Asbury University, is called an outbreak by folks in those revivalist circles. “A student praying in the chapel broke out into”, “a prayer meeting the dormitory spilled out onto the streets and became”, or “a student’s testimony broke into a revival lasting [a number of] days.” That’s how the Asbury College website describes their own history of great revivals in 1905, 1908, 1921, 1950, 1958, 1970, and 2023. No mention is made of the lesser revivals that didn’t breakout adequately.
Who are these Asbury University folks?
They identify themselves as a nondenominational Christian college turned university. Nondenominational is a disingenuous category. There’s always a denominational precedent leaving its mark on the organization into the future. Typically that nondenominational root is Baptist. Not so for Asbury, they are product of the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement. The movement comes from a 19th Century mingling of Methodism, Quakerism, Anabaptism, and Restorationism.
The Holiness Churches reject infant baptism, infant faith, and the view that God creates faith in us (monergism). Instead, these churches teach a synergistic view that we generate faith within ourselves as an act of our will. This runs contrary to the clear teaching of Scriptures like “For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing; It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) And, “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; You made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” (Psalm 22:9-10)
The Holiness crowd also places a strong emphasis on the “Second Work of Grace.” Namely, after coming to faith, a Christian is completely free from sin’s grip. In the future, Christian perfection is an achievable goal. This goal must be the aim of a Christian, and must be attained. Falling back into sin is a gross error within Holiness communities. When a regenerate Christian “backslides” into sin, they must repent, revive themselves, recommit, and often be rebaptized. This is where the revival aspect took root.
Charles Grandison Finney
Finney’s new measures centered upon revival meetings. His theology rejected the songs and liturgy of the church in favor of new musical styles and a different structure. This structure reversed the direction of corporate worship. Christian worship prior to Finney revolved around God’s gifts for His people and our receiving them.
The revivalist style and its substance revolve entirely upon the emotional excitement of the people gathered. Ramping that into a heightened fury is their evidence of the Holy Spirit at work. Apart from these events, the revivalists find no comfort or certainty in their faith, conversion, working of God in their lives, or even their salvation. The moment and surety of the their salvation, as they understand it, has a date and time concurrent with a revival event experience.
Is that a problem?
Yes, it is. Christianity revolves around a God, who promises Himself to us through means, in which He promised to deliver His gifts. In Baptism, God forgives sins and delivers faith. In the hearing of the Word, we receive faith. In the Lord’s Supper, we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. The absence of our doing in the faith is a feature not a bug. The absence of our emotional proof of God’s work is a feature not a bug.
Revivalism rejects God’s work for us, replacing it with our work. The event earns God’s attention and His favor. The event is all about us and our doing. Our work and our feeling of the event are proof of God. This is the opposite of what the scriptures teach us.
God the Father sent His son Jesus to die for our sin. He delivers this to us extra nos, (outside of our selves). Looking inside, just reveals the sin that remains. Gathering to hear and receive from outside of ourselves in the Lord’s house is His work for us. He’s never been apart from His work for us. He’s always been in exactly the same place for you. There’s certainty here.even
Here is how Martin Luther Describes it:
The third article of the Apostles’ Creed – Sanctification.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
What does this mean?
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the last day He will raise up me and all the dead and will give eternal life to me and to all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true. (Luther’s Small Catechism 2:3, emphasis mine)
The Bottom line
The Holy Spirit isn’t in my emotions, which rise and fall, grow and fade. He is at work in His Word and sacraments. He’s in the same places He promised to be. The Holy Spirit was ceaselessly at work in His church for 1800 years before Finney discovered the “real” way and evidence of the Spirit.
Beware of innovators, God doesn’t change.
Rev. Jason M. Kaspar Sole Pastor Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church & Preschool La Grange, TX and Mission planting pastoral team Epiphany Lutheran Church Bastrop, TX
Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
When you confess your faith in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and when you confess that the Word of Scripture is God’s Word, do you realize you also then must confess the fact that Satan exists? That Hell and Evil exist?
They most assuredly do, otherwise why would have the Father sent the Son? Surely, the Son was sent for the purpose of saving you from the clutches of Satan, his evil devices, and Hell itself. That is what Scripture says after all. But do you really believe it, or are you one of those people like many people in American Christianity that speak of hell and Satan as imaginary. Or if its real, Hell is empty. It is much easier these days to talk about the presence of evil. But the source of that evil?
It was not hard for the apostles to speak about all of this. They saw evil up-close and personal. The story of Matthias is not necessarily a happy one. Matthias only becomes an apostle, because of the evil that Judas committed against the Lord Jesus Christ, betraying Him into the hands of sinners.
And Peter, who was restored by the risen Christ, now stands up and speaks of the great evil deed of Judas. “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” Luke adds, “This man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.” This is not a pretty sight at all. Judas was so overcome by the evil that he committed that he had no hope of being forgiven, and he killed himself. Peter goes on interpreting the events in light of the Psalms of David, “May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it”; and “Let another take his office.”
Enter Matthias, a man who had accompanied Jesus and the other apostles during all the time that the Lord went in and out among them, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when He was taken up from them. There was another man also who fit this description, but the lot fell to Matthias. And He was numbered with the 11, making 12 apostles once again.
Satan and evil exist, this we know. And Matthias and the rest of the 11 now are to go out to preach the truth that evil has been overcome in the one Jesus Christ, who died and rose again from the dead, beating Satan at his own game. The apostles are to declare war on the old Satanic foe just like their Lord did when He came into hostile territory, becoming man, and then going out into the wilderness and ultimately all the way to the cross to defeat Satan for all humanity. Now Matthias and the apostles preach the victory of Christ over Satan and Evil. And one little word of Christ crucified makes Satan fall.
Matthias is barely mentioned (if ever) again in any of the books of the New Testament. The extra-biblical materials we have concerning Matthias are few, and what we do have are quite late. But isn’t that the way of many of the pastors placed into office of the Holy Ministry? Matthias was placed into the office not to make a name for himself but to proclaim Christ and Him crucified to the nations. He was placed into the Office to confront the very evil of Satan that he knew well with the triumphant word of Christ Jesus. That Christ Jesus has overcome Satan and thus has made us His own. That our own acts of evil have been forgiven for the sake of Christ Jesus. That Christ holds the keys of death and hades now and forevermore, and He gives eternal life to us.
Pastors now, are also called to confront the evils that are amongst us and even within us. They are called to preach the truth of God’s Word of the realities of hell and Satan, and evil. And they too are to confront evil with the truth of Christ Jesus. They are called to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins, that we be saved from everlasting death.
Jesus when teaching, called many people evil. He even called his disciples evil because of their sinful hearts. We too have sinful hearts. It’s our natural heart’s state, another way to say it is it’s the Old Adam in us. We are by nature sinful and unclean. Jesus confronts evil head on and deals with it in a way only He could. He destroys evil by his death on the cross, whereby He swallows up death, sin, and Satan, the source of evil forever, and rises victorious over it all. And He forgives. All the evil of your own heart, Christ has covered with His Blood.
And while Judas spilled his own guts over his evil and wicked deeds, your Lord pours out his blood for you in love that you might be forgiven and be at peace in the forgiveness of sins. In effect being changed from inside out, your heart of evil removed, and a living heart in its place. A new creation for the sake of Christ.
This is what those men placed into the Office of the Holy Ministry are called to confess and to preach, that you might be saved, and not be overcome by the Evil One. Satan and his evil devices are real as Scripture says, but so is their Conqueror, our Savior Jesus Christ. Trust him in just as Matthias did, that you be numbered in great multitude that no one can number singing the praise of the Lamb forever and ever. Amen.
Rev. Jacob Hercamp St. Peter’s Lutheran Church La Grange, MO
Encore Post: At the beginning of the first century, disciples chose their Rabbis. To a certain extent, we choose our jobs today. The pastoral ministry is different. While a man may seek the office of the Holy Ministry, he is called by God to serve in this way. This is where the term vocation originally comes from. It is based on the Latin word for a calling.
In a sense, this is no different than the way God operated in the Scriptures. He chose every one of the prophets and apostles. The difference in those times is he did so directly. Today pastors are called by God through the congregation the pastor will serve or by a representative they choose. When a congregation calls a man and he becomes convinced after much prayer that the call is from God, he becomes their pastor.
Because it is God who calls (Acts 20:28, 1 Corinthians 12:28 ), a pastor is not an employee of his congregation, to be hired and fired at will. Only when a pastor is unfaithful to his call to teach according to God’s word or lives an immoral life may he be removed. At the same token, it is not for him to choose when or who to serve. Only when a congregation is no longer faithful to God’s word, he receives another call from God to summon him to a new place or health makes him unable to serve may he conclude his ministry.
His office is to be the face and hands of God to care for the sheep placed in his fold. He is also their face and hands, to bring the gifts God gives to them and to others. He preaches the good news, baptizes, celebrates the Lord’s Supper and forgives the sins of those who repent. In doing so, he lays down his life, as did Jesus, so that the lost sheep will be found and the whole flock in his care brought safely to eternal life.
Encore Post: “As the father has sent me so I send you,” said Jesus. (John 20:20-23) The Father sent Jesus not to be served but to serve and to give his life for ransom for many.(Mark 10:43-45) He sent his son to seek and to save the lost. (Luke 19:10) Jesus then, in turn, sent his disciples to continue his ministry.
In every generation, Jesus calls men to seek out those who do not have faith in Christ, to offer the forgiveness of sins life and salvation, and to make them a part of God’s Kingdom. These men are his ambassadors, proclaiming the good news of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:19-21) Through this ministry, faith is created and sustained in the lives of God’s people.
The scriptures call these men pastors, preachers, elders, bishops, and many other things. We call this ministry the office of the holy ministry, the office of the public ministry, the pastoral ministry, and other similar things. Because many Christians use the word minister for anyone who serves in the church, Lutheran pastors prefer to be called “pastor,” which means “shepherd.” We also use adjectives with the word ministry to identify it as the office of word and sacrament
209 years ago, on May 13, 1810, Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken was born in what would soon become Kingdom of Hanover. On the 22nd, Fritz’s proud father, Pastor Heinrich Christoph Wyneken baptized youngest son at his parish, St. Andreas of Verden.
The Young Fritz Wyneken was the tenth of eleven children. He joined a family of dedicated and prominent servants of heavenly and earthly kingdoms. When Fritz was five years old, his father died, leaving his mother Louise to raise their eleven children. To accomplish this, she depended on a meager church pension, took in boarders and called on family and friends to make ends meet.
Friedrich attended Gymnasium in his home town of Verden. At age Seventeen, he enrolled at the University of Göttingen, the traditional Wyneken alma mater. After one year in Göttingen, Friedrich enrolled in University of Halle’s Theological Faculty, where he remained until he graduated two and a half years later. At Halle, Friedrich found a mentor in Augustus Tholuck, a leader of 19th Century German Awakening and supporter of the Prussian Union. During Friedrich’s years at Halle, Tholuck taught courses in New Testament, Dogmatics and the History of Doctrine. Through his influence, Wyneken became an “awakened” and “believing” Christian.
Upon graduation, Wyneken served as a private instructor in the home of Consistorial Counselor von Henfstengel at Leesum, a town near Bremen. The area was a stronghold for the Awakening and a place where Friedrich Wyneken would grow both in his faith in Christ and zeal for missions. After four years in Leesum, he briefly served in a few other positions. His education and experience had made him into a strong, convinced pietist.
Wyneken returned to Germany in 1837, fully groomed for a promising career in the Church. He would soon read accounts of the spiritual needs of German Lutherans on the American frontier in the journals of mission societies. Perhaps he read the reports of survey missionaries, sent out by the Pennsylvania Ministerium to measure the need and do what they could to meet it. Perhaps it was the letters ofF. A. Schmidt, pastor in southwest Michigan, who served as a missionary of the Basil Mission Society. In any case, what Wyneken learned in about German Lutherans in America touched off a struggle in the heart of the young man. He came to the conclusion that God was calling him to serve on the American frontier.
At peace with God and sure of his decision, Friedrich Wyneken obtained release from his duties as a tutor. After a memorable candidate’s examination, he was ordained at Stade with fellow candidate, C. W. Wolf. General Superintendent Ruperti, his sister’s father-in-law, conducted the rite at St. Wilhadi Church of Stade on 8 May 1837. With the help of Gottfried Treviranus, the Reformed pastor of St. Martin Church in Bremen, Wyneken and Wolf made the acquaintance of Captain Stuerje, who provided the pair of missionaries free passage to America on his ship, the Brig Apollo.
