Pastor Peters: Toward a More Inclusive Christmas

Everyone's favorite blogging pastor, Rev. Larry Peters, has an interesting post titled Toward a More Inclusive Christmas.

Every time I hear that -- "A more inclusive Christmas" -- I have to laugh. What could be more inclusive than the God who came to wear the human flesh and blood of a man, as a man, in order to redeem all men (and women) from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. Christ is the exclusive Savior to the most inclusive faith on earth!

It's been awhile since I featured Pastor Peters, so I want to remind people that even if you don't see an excerpt here on All for Hymn, you can always catch him on his own blog, Pastoral Meanderings.  There is a link to this blog in the side bar.

Peters on Preaching: How NOT to use a Prooftext

Anyone who has had to do a research paper knows you have to prove your point. Cite your sources. Don't forget your footnotes, endnotes, add in that little number at the end of your thought, and document everything.

When I look back on my own papers, it was really easy to string together citations from various resources in an attempt to make my point. They call this "prooftexting" and it is often used in preaching as well.

This will get you an OK grade, but it doesn't make a great paper, and it doesn't make for good preaching, either. Pastor Peters tackled this topic in a recent post.  Here is an excerpt:

When I was in Seminary, one of my homiletical professors told us that every point in your sermon must be supported by a proof text. Suffice it to say that this resulted in either sermons with few points to supported or long sermons that ended up stringing Bible passage after Bible passage. Once, in another homiletics class, I was crunched for time and fudged by turning in a sermon written for this above mentioned professor. The second professor called me aside and said that while there was nothing "wrong" with the sermon, I was to promise him that I would never preach that way in the parish.

I encourage laity and clergy alike to read this post and the excellent comments by Rev. Eric Brown. For clergy, it may help shape your message in a different way. For laity, it may help open you understand to your pastor's style.  For students of any age, it may give you ideas for improving your next term paper.

By the way, if you watch EWTN's Journey Home, you may have heard from a guest or two that Luther practiced prooftexting.  This is NOT the case and Pastor Peters spends a few sentences on Luther's style in his post.

Peters on Prayer II: Speaking of "The King of Love..."

Speaking of "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," Pastor Peters has another excellent post on prayer titled Whose Goodness Faileth Never.  The title comes from the second phrase of the first verse.

The King of love my shepherd is

Whose goodness faileth never.

I nothing lack if I am His

And He is mine forever.

Pastor Peters writes

The purpose of prayer is not to achieve the desired outcome (healing, lengthening of life, material goods and resources, certain feelings, etc.). The purpose of prayer is for me to trust in the goodness of the Lord which never fails and which can never fail me. It is my confidence in this goodness that is the object of my prayer.

And for those of you who know this text to be paired with the tune St. Columba, here is a wonderful setting.

Where streams of living water flow,

My ransomed soul he leadeth

And, where the verdant pastures grow,

With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,

But yet in love he sought me

And on his shoulder gently laid

And home rejoicing brought me.

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill

With thee, dear Lord, beside me,

Thy rod and staff my comfort still,

Thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spredst a table in my sight;

Thine unction grace bestoweth;

And, oh, what transport of delight

From thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days

Thy goodness faileth never.

Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise

Within thy house forever.

Hominem Predicant: They Preach Man

"They preach man..."

This is the beginning of the 27th thesis of Luther's 95 Theses.  The entire thesis reads:

They preach man who say that so soon as the penny jingles into the money-box, the soul flies out.

To put it in a more familiar form, Luther was speaking against Johann Tetzel's slogan, "When a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs."

It was on this day in 1517 that Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door at the Castle Church in Wittenberg.  It sounds kind of radical or odd that someone would nail anything to the door of a church, but this door kind of served as a community bulletin board.  Much like you might see notices for garage sales as you enter your grocery store, the church door served as a place where you could post something of interest.

It wasn't the act of nailing something to the door of a church that set things spinning, but the content of the theses that thrust the Protestant Reformation to the forefront of society.

Luther challenged the sale of indulgences, the church's teaching on justification, and the authority of the pope in these theses.  Many of the issues are still taught by Rome today.

That being said, even though Rome still sells indulgences, its docrine of justification remains in tact, and the pope still claims to be the "Vicar of Christ on Earth," these issue hardly plagues the Church Universal the way it once did.

What does? Pastor Peters has an excellent post on The New Reformation.

While Johann Tetzel is no longer "preaching man" instead of "preaching Christ crucified," many others are.  These are the voices of the prosperity gospel, new age philosophy, eastern mysticism, popular television hosts, and all those books about how you need a "purpose".  Wherever a person's individual actions are used in lieu of Jesus' saving work, whether inside the church or outside the church, this is where "they preach man."

Peters on Prayer

I am seeing a lot of links out there to Pastor Peters' blog, Pastoral Meanderings.  This blog will be no exception!

Today I am highlighting his post on prayer.  I highlight this because it is an area of my own life that I need to work on.  Resources like the Treasury of Daily Prayer are helpful, yet cumbersome.  Finding a time and a place for meditation is challenging at best.  Satan likes to grab hold of me in this area and, of course, I let him!

Here is a highlight from Pastor Peters post:

We have all been there when someone began to pray and instead of a prayer we got an update on some one's medical condition or a justification for why we were asking this of God or a series of rather pedestrian statements usually beginning with the words "we just..." We have all been there when prayers took on the character of long speeches -- especially prayers following the sermon that are used to review the salient points of the sermon, one more time, this time in the guise of prayer. We have all been there when paragraphs of prayer waxed eloquent but in the end we were not quite sure what it was that we were saying our "Amen" to. The problem is that these are often held up as model prayers that we should aspire to -- when the model prayer is, of course, the Our Father, an economy of words that directs our hearts to voice spiritual needs when we are generally focused upon physical ones.


Spontaneous praying is assisted when we have learned to pray the prayers of others first. Then we learn how to give voice to our own hearts.

All of these things frustrate me in my own prayer life and in the prayer life of the church.   Pastor Peters provides some clarity through all of this.

I particularly like the "collect" form* that is prayed before the readings in the Divine Service.  Lutheran Service Book has a section of prayers starting on page 305 that tackle many topics, and most of them follow the collect form.

Look for future posts on prayer here at All for Hymn.  I confess, posts on prayer are as much for my learning experience as anyone elses.

* "Collect" is pronounced KAH-lekt, with the emphasis on the first syllable.  A future post will talk about this form.

Rev. Larry Peters: Basic Differences

Rev. Larry Peters of Pastoral Meanderings has an interesting post called Basic Differences.

Pastor Peters serves Grace Lutheran Church in Clarksville, TN.  There aren't a lot of Lutheran churches there, much less liturgical ones.  Yet he writes about using the liturgy in a growing church that gets 3-8 visiting families every week.  He tackles issues surrounding the Divine Service and its use with visitors for whom the liturgy is foreign.

He frames this around a discussion centered on worship for "seekers" vs. worship for the baptized.

Here is a sample...

This remains the biggest chasm between those who advocate a service that appeals to people's wants, needs, and culture, and those who insist that worship must conform the historic pattern of Word and Meal (within the framework of the mass form, with is Service of the Word and Service of the Sacrament). The debate is not about the age or youth of the hymns (read that songs). It is not about whether the confession can be here or somewhere else in the order. It is not about the words being "King James" or twitter speak. It is not about the use or lack of technology. It is not about vestments or lack of vestments. It is first and foremost about the basic question: Who can worship?

Check out the rest here.

Modern Lutheran Classics, Part I: "E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come"

Pastor Peters over at Pastoral Meanderings has a post about the Paul Manz choral piece, E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come.

You can head over there and find background information and links to the recordings as well.

This particular piece is wonderful for the coming weeks, as we head into All Saints Day and the Last Sundays of the Church Year.  This is the time of the church year where we focus on the second coming of Jesus.

Our focus as Christians, though, is not on the judgment, but that Christ is returning to take us home.  Christ already suffered our final judgment for us, so we look forward to the second coming with great hope and expectation!  We do not fear this, but long for it.  This second coming will put an end to wars and tribulation, and we will forever be with Jesus.

As the last section of the text states,

E'en so Lord Jesus quickly come
And night shall be no more
They need no light, no lamp, nor sun
For Christ will be their All!