What should pastors do with false doctrine?

Should your pastor identify and refute false doctrine or expunge the bad from the good and embrace what's left?

Rev. Klemet Preus proffers a great explanation in this recent Issues, Etc. interview.

Doctrine + Scantron = Doctron

Change...via Rev. Fiene

I came across this great explanation about change on Rev. Fiene's blog, The High Mid Life and thought I'd share it with those who stumble into The Clem: The Blog: The Truth.

"Change then teach" works much better than "teach then change." If you want people to embrace the right practice, institute the right practice, then praise them for doing the right practice when you teach about said practice. If you try to teach them to abandon the bad practice while they're still practicing the bad practice, they won't think the bad practice is bad enough to stop practicing because you're still letting them practice it.

What you win them with, you win them to...

Listen to this great podcast by Rev. Todd Wilken of Issues, Etc. as he interviews Brian Cosby, the author of Giving up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry from an Entertainment Culture. 

 

"A ministry of entertainment gimmicks continues to cater and succumb to those low expectations."

                                                                                                      -Brian Cosby

 

I wish many of our Lutheran pastors, youth directors, elders and teachers possessed this Presbyterian minister's insights on what makes an effective ministry.

Acts 2:42

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

 

Here are more Issues, Etc. interviews on the same subject.

What's on your summer reading list?

"Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end..." - E. B. White "Once More to the Lake" At this time of year, I begin compiling my summer reading and rereading list.  As an English teacher I don't have time during the school year to do as much pleasure reading as I'd like.  So when summer arrives, I have more books than I can possible read...."summer without end."  As a teacher it's another reason why I like the words June, July and August. 

For your summer reading list I recommend Around The Word.  I just received the summer edition and found the articles interesting and insightful.  Why should you add this to your literary to-read list? I'll let the introduction from the Summer 2013 issue, The Conscience, answer that question:


We are Lutheran, that is, we let the Law and the Gospel echo in the full voice with which God speaks it, and we are on the lookout for error because we love to hear the truth, the life-giving voice of Jesus. So we care about their families and their neighbors and the world, both in this life and in the life to come.  We are working to recover the joy and delight of doctrine, of the Gospel.   - Around the World, Volume I, Number 2





Question:  Students and teachers quit learning during summer vacation.
Answer:    False.  We are always learning.

The journal provides solid instruction, is inexpensive, comes in digital or print versions and will help keep you steadfast in God's Word. 

Martin Luther's explanation to the third commandment is another reason why you should add this to your summer reading list:

For let me tell you this, even though you know it perfectly and be already master in all things, still you are daily in the dominion of the devil, who ceases neither day nor night to steal unawares upon you, to kindle in your heart unbelief and wicked thoughts against the foregoing and all the commandments. Therefore you must always have God's Word in your heart, upon your lips, and in your ears.   But where the heart is idle, and the Word does not sound, he breaks in and has done the damage before we are aware. On the other hand, such is the efficacy of the Word, whenever it is seriously contemplated, heard, and used, that it is bound never to be without fruit, but always awakens new understanding, pleasure, and devoutness, and produces a pure heart and pure thoughts. For these words are not inoperative or dead, but creative, living words. LC - 100, 101.

Your Brain on Writing

Reading Buddy Theatre presents...

This year one of my AP Lit. classes teamed with my wife's second grade class at St. Peter, Macomb.  Our goal was to learn more about reading and writing while learning more about each other.  Each month my students journeyed across the field to my wife's class and  shared story ideas, wrote books and illustrated the pages between the words. 

We even took over a girls' basketball game and declared it Reading Buddy Night. The reading buddies sat with each other during the game and competed in various games between quarters. 

Our culminating event was Reading Buddy Theatre.  Students wrote their own plays, made their own puppets and dazzled the patrons with puppeteering skills.

Enjoy the video that recaps our reading experiences.

Higher Things