There is always hope.

A great passage from a book I'm reading for class:

The gospel of Jesus is not, finally, about how we or anyone else behaves. Is it?

Nor is it about the "correctness" of our beliefs.

It isn't about our "little sins," or our "big sins," or how convincingly we repent when we sin.

The gospel of Jesus isn't about sin at all! Its about what our sin bought us, (sin's "wages" if you will): estrangement from God in our daily lives, and worst of all, estrangement from God in our inevitable deaths. The gospel is about what God alone can do. And God can do it all. In Christ, God has already done it. The gospel is about Hope, with a capitol H.

Crossing the Bar: Home By Another Way pg. 82

by James G. Johnson

Vibrant Congregations

Over j-term I was able to get to know two professors that I really enjoyed, Rolf Jacobson and Craig Koester. Jacobson is my Hebrew prof. and Koester taught the Genesis to Revelation Bible class. Through forming these connections I was asked to be the student representative on a committee studying the Bible in congregations with these two professors along with Prof. Kathryn Shifferdecker. This is a part million dollar grant through the Lilly Endowment to look at what practices and values make a church a vibrant or thriving congregation. So needless to say I was extremely honored to be a small part of this project! (Although 1 million dollars sounds like a lot, its relatively small compared to many of the research grants Lilly donates)

Last week we had our first meeting with the congregations that will be participating in the Bible portion of the study. We are working with 11 congregations that are located all over the US including Arizona, Georgia, North Dakota, Illinois, and Wisconsin as well as congregations located in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. It was very exciting to meet the pastors and lay leaders that will be a part of this research. They are all already doing great work in their congregations with the Bible, so it will be exciting to see the developments that result from them learning from some of these research experiments and from forming connections with each other.

The congregations will begin by taking a survey and conducting interviews about their experiences with the Bible. The data will then be compiled and analyzed. The team will meet with the congregations individually to suggest some experiments that could be implemented to meet the needs of the congregation. The whole process is designed around discerning God's Spirit in the midst of these congregations and trying new practices that could help in faith formation. So it should be an exciting journey to walk alongside these congregations in this process! Please keep these congregations in your prayers.

Good article by Rob Bell entitled: My Faith: Suffering my way to a new tomorrow.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/13/my-faith-suffering-my-way-to-a-new-tomorrow/

New Semester!

Well my second semester is off and running at Luther Seminary. I have a full load of new classes that are keeping me busy. Classes I am taking this semester are: Hebrew, Confessional Writings of the Lutheran Church, History of the Reformation of the Church, Pentateuch, and Biblical and Theological Foundations for the Missional Church. Wow, some classes have really long names!

So far its just been exciting to be back on campus. I have a new room that I am staying in in Bockman Hall. I have been here since j-term. It's great to be in Bockman because it is full of students. The visitors dorm that I was staying in before only had three other people on the floor, so this is a nice change. I will be on campus Tuesday-Thursday this semester. I've begun to form some close relationships with my classmates. I'm even staying next to a few women who share my ridiculous love for the TV show The Bachelor! So all in all, life is good. :)

I lift my eyes up to the mountains-

Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the LORD,

Maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 121

Merry Christmas!

Here is a link to the sermon I gave at Trinity on Sunday for those interested in reading it.

http://www.trinity-ec.org/sermons.htm

Have a blessed holiday!

Semester 1 Done!

Well I survived my finals week! I felt it went pretty well. Overall I took one essay test covering 1400 years of Church history and wrote over 25 pages of papers. I still have to finish up my online Greek class, but that is not due until Monday. So overall, I am finished with the semester!

Its quite exciting. I will be home for over two weeks now. It will be great to hang out with Chad and spend time with family over Christmas. I will get to rest and take some time for reflection.

Onto Christmas now! Katie and I are working on a present for our parents. We are recording a CD (mostly for my mom). :) It will be fun. We are doing it at a semi-professional studio in Tomah.

I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas and holiday season.

Immanuel

After finishing classes this week, I am amazed by all the work that is left to do for finals next week. But I am also amazed that the semester is nearly over! It seems to have flown by. We are already in our second week of Advent, preparing for the celebration of Christ’s birth. Along with this preparation and finals, I am also preparing a sermon for the 4^th Sunday in Advent that I will be giving at Trinity for our 10:30 service.

The text for that Sunday is the birth story of Jesus from Matthew’s gospel. As you may know only two of the four gospels have a birth story for Jesus. Matthew and Luke. Matthew’s account follows the perspective of Joseph, while Luke’s account follows the story of Mary and the shepherds. In my sermon I am highlighting the story of Joseph and his role in the birth of Jesus. This story often gets pushed to the side in our Christmas celebrations. But it is a very interesting perspective.

God speaks to Joseph in a dream telling him he should not divorce Mary as he had intended. Rather, he should marry her and care for the baby, because the baby is of the Holy Spirit. Joseph demonstrates an amazing act of faith in God, choosing radical obedience over skepticism or doubt. Joseph is entrusted with the name that they shall call the baby boy. We know the name of course is Jesus. The name’s literal meaning is “God saves.” So in this text we have two names for this child of promise: Immanuel “God with us” and Jesus “God saves.”

In preparing for Christmas this year, Katie and I decorated our house with our tree and Christmas decorations. We made cookies and sang Christmas songs. And now I am also trying to remember that amidst these wonderful Christmas traditions, it all stems back to the joy of Christmas, which is Immanuel, God with us.