It's sort of funny, I used to think that church boards were the way they were because they were church boards. However, having spent about 6 months on the board of Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN), a community organization here in Denver, I've come to the conclusion that the way boards operate has nothing to do with the church, but has everything to do with the nature of boards. After all, organizationally speaking, it's really difficult to get any farther from a conservative Lutheran church than CHUN.

And yet, as I sit in a board meeting, if I wasn't paying attention to the issues, I really couldn't tell the difference. The reasoning behind the arguments is the same, there's lots of talk with little action, an general contentment with the status quo, and a desire to squelch change agents.

Now, there are some obvious exceptions and John Carver has devoted his life to developing a model for boards that don't do these things, but for the most part, when left to their own doing, boards will be boards, no matter what the organizational context might be.

With all that in mind, some prayers as I head to a "special board meeting" to deal with an "important personnel issue" would be appreciated.

Since my upcoming thoughts are rooted entirely in my theology of worship, I should start by providing some background on what I believe is going on in worship. Trying to keep it brief, when we gather as a community, we gather so God can act graciously and we can respond.

So, God acts by showing up, we respond. God acts by announcing forgiveness, we respond. God acts by speaking to us in his Word, we respond. God acts by giving us the body and blood, we respond. God acts by blessing us in the benediction (and hopefully we respond in our lives when we leave the church building).

Now, as I've planned various alternative worship of services with this general understanding of worship, I've always leaned towards having a single narrative that was aimed at telling this story of God's action and our response ... although, most of the time, that also demands a pre-story to point out why God has to act. So, when I plan, the music, the Scripture readings, the preaching, and everything else all weave together into a single story, so, when I saw this approach, I freaked a bit, because there is no way for the music to faithfully point into our out of the preaching portion of the worship narrative because they've been divided and the story is now broken up.

However, then I began to think about the traditional Lutheran liturgical setting where this pattern of acting and responding happens repeatedly, or, in the case of this unconventional idea, it could happen twice, once in preaching and once in music. What do you think, given my theology of worship, could that be a functional approach to something like this?

As the TIME Magazine article in response to the Pew report closes with:

The survey's biggest challenge is to the theologians and pastors who will have to reconcile their flocks' acceptance of a new, polyglot heaven with the strict admission criteria to the gated community that preceded it.

Personally, I don't have much of an issue with this, after all, I want people who come from a variety of background approaches and life to gather each week to hear what Jesus has to say. In other words, I don't think the gate to the entry to the church should have been there in the first place.

But in Paul's letter to the 1st Corinthians, he writes, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes" (11:26). When we consider this in light of Paul's broader work, we get the idea that, by "Lord's death", he's referring to the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross. In the language of my last post, he's talking about the second level, stuff that, according to Pew, most of us ignore.

So, that brings up an interesting question. If eating the body and blood of Christ involves a proclamation of the second level, and according to the recent Pew report most who bear the title Christians don't really view it as a second level faith, who should be coming to the table?

I should pause here and say that I belong to a faith tradition that adheres to closed communion, a practice rooted in the traditions of the Early Church where, following the Scripture reading and sermon, those who were not Christian or were preparing for baptism were dismissed, the doors were closed, and the service continued with the Lord's Supper. This is because we believe that, in a way we can't explain, in the bread and wine we physically receive the body and blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, and the strength to live out our Christian life.

Well, in seminary, we were told that the easiest way to determine who should come to the table would be those who profess membership to our denomination (which, dogmatically speaking, is very second level). The idea was that they linked themselves to that body and therefore, in addition to a public linking to a second level confession, they should have been taught that faith as well. However, according to the details in the Pew report, 78% of LCMS Lutherans think multiple religions will bring you to the same destination, which means they aren't holding to a second level confession. (thanks Lutheran Kantor). It seems that somebody simply saying, "I go here." in no way means, "I believe this."

So, how should a pastor respond? Here's my solution, tomorrow, I'm going to do some teaching right before communion. I'm going to talk about the Pew report, the idea of the second level, and invite people to the Lord's Table who wish to "proclaim the Lord's death." I'll also give people permission to stay in their seats if they aren't comfortable making that profession yet. I wonder if anyone will stay seated?

I've been known to be rather hard on Christians for a wide variety of reasons and, while I hold to many of those reasons and think there's many lessons for us to learn if we going to be able to connect with people who aren't just like us, the past few months serving at Christ Lutheran here in Denver have been a wonderful reminder of just how wonderful God's people can be.

There have been cards that show up in my mailbox or on the pastor's desk from a wide range of people, continual words of encouragement and thanks, offers to bring dinners up when Anita had her accident, babysitting, tickets to DU hockey games, and then, this week, the gift of a scooter that a family didn't need anymore, but thought would be perfect for us to use getting around downtown.

But it's not the stuff side of all this that's blowing me away, it the thought that goes into it. Seeing the scooter in the garage and thinking, "Hey, the Burnham's only have one car, they could use this!" or people going out of their way to drop off a card or a meal. It just leaves me in awe of how wonderful God's people can be, and I can't help but think that, if those outside the Church saw this side of the Church, it would go far in changing people's perceptions.

I had an incredible conversation with a friend earlier today.

We were talking about ministry and I made the comment that, in my opinion, the most important ministry a church can do, is men's ministry. This belief stems from the biblical concept of headship, and the ongoing idea that men are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church. My basic argument says that, if congregations equip men to do what God has called men to do, then you're not just doing men's ministry, but, through the trickle down effect, you're also doing women's ministry, family ministry, youth ministry, and children's ministry.

This prompted a side conversation on the whole sin issue and how, in Scripture, outside of Genesis 3, Eve is not the one who is identified as bringing sin into the world. Rather, Adam is given the blame for sin because he failed as a husband at the tree. This sets the stage for the discussion of the New Adam, Christ, who, at his tree (the cross), loved his bride (the Church) fully.

At this point, my friend commented, "And God knew that all this was going to happen from the foundation of the world and yet, he went through with it anyway." As she debated an answer to the why of that question, she suggested that it might be so we would choose God over ourselves. Personally, I don't think this is the right answer, instead, I offered this illustration.

J: When you had your daughter, you were trying to have a child, right?

F: Yes.

J: Before you had her, did you know that she would do things that would hurt you? That there would be times she would reject you? That she very well could not "choose" you but do her own thing?

F: Yes.

J: And yet you had her anyway ... not so that she would choose you and love you, but so that you could choose her and love her no matter what.