Today’s post is by Rev. Amy E. Reumann, Director of Advocacy for the ELCA.

The Feast of Pentecost starts with a blast of fast rushing wind. The season itself can seem to go on forever. Entering my first parish call, a colleague warned me about “the dog days of Pentecost.” They theorized that the kind of lethargy that can accompany the heat of summer would affect our worship and ministry, too.

By mid-season, I understood. At the time I was preaching through several weeks of Gospel texts about Jesus as the bread of life. I was running out of things to say about what seemed to be a lectionary stuck on repeat. The organist left for an extended vacation without a substitute, leaving a cassette tape on which she had recorded the service music. Nobody sang along when I pushed the button. On Sundays the church was too hot, worshippers too few, energy was low and the season ahead seemed to stretch on forever.

The long distance run of the Sundays after Pentecost means we may gather to worship even when we don’t always feel like it. We persevere even when enthusiasm is running low and grace may not seem so amazing. It is ordinary time, far from the mountaintop experience of festival days, bringing us down to encounter God in the flow of daily life.

Engaging in advocacy can also require the same, long haul persistence. An advocacy colleague once shared the good news that her organization had helped pass the Dream Act in her state, offering educational opportunities to undocumented students. We were just starting to work on a similar bill and I wanted to know how they had done it, hoping for a magic solution. “It took ten years, you know,” she said. “You have to be committed to keep going, even when there is no end in sight.” Advocacy is slow work. There are more defeats and repetitious labor than wins. It means showing up and persevering during a long season, even when you feel stuck and like you are not going anywhere.

Advocacy’s scriptural foundations tend to rely on Jesus’ concern for the poor, the call of the prophets to justice or the actions of the early church. I think we are missing a vital connection by not looking more to the Festival of Pentecost, too. The Acts of the Apostles account begins with the Holy Spirit descending to loosen tongues of people from all corners of the earth. The presence of the Spirit unleashes testimony to the risen Christ. It reminds us, in our day, that there are many ways to let loose with our own witness to Jesus, including in unexpected ways and places.

Advocacy, too, is an untying of tongues. It is spirit-inspired testimony to the God who justifies, who in turn sets us free to do justice. We advocate with and for our neighbors and the rest of Creation to preserve their dignity and protect their integrity. Faith-rooted advocacy is witness to our faith by proclaiming solidarity with the suffering of Christ’s body in the world and witnessing to God’s resurrection hope for a world transformed. This is evangelism and proclamation of the good news, just as surely as knocking on doors. Only this advocacy may take place at a town council meeting, a school board session or in the halls of the U.S. Capitol.

We don’t often connect advocacy with the worship during these Sundays after Pentecost. But this ordinary time is chock full of texts in which Jesus upends social customs and the social order to eat with outcasts, touch lepers, heal the sick and show compassion to those who are poor.  Ordinary time reveals ordinary ways we can show solidarity with the people with whom Jesus spent most of his earthly ministry. And it brings fresh opportunities to heed God’s call for responding to hunger and injustice with witness to the God of justice. With the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, of course.

How might you practice advocacy as persistence, presence and proclamation in service to the One who sends the Paraclete, the Advocate, to be present with us?

Today’s post is by Omaldo Perez, Director of Music at Zoar Lutheran Church in Perrysburg, Ohio.

Grafting, as a horticultural technique, is defined as the joining of different plant tissues in a manner that makes possible their future growth together. As far as we know, grafting has been used from the times of the Fertile Crescent in Mesopotamia, and it is still widely used in our day. There are always two components in a graft: the rootstock which provides the nourishment, and the scion which bears the fruit.

In many aspects, but especially regarding my professional development, I have become a small scion grafted into the great rootstock of Lutheran worship thanks to the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians (ALCM). I joined ALCM at the behest of my pastor, George Yoder, who in 2002 correctly intuited that I needed mentoring. Fast-forward sixteen years and I can only marvel at the blessings of a journey punctuated with many face-to-face encounters with living practitioners of the craft, people who passionately care about the role of the cantor in the church. On more occasions than I can count, I have been inspired by their gracious examples as teachers and as friends.

Many, if not all the ideas that I hold dear regarding music ministry have had their genesis at an ALCM conference, either from a workshop, a plenary presentation, a choral reading session, or a book recommendation. Sometimes it was an insightful speaker that lit up my imagination. Other times, it was an imaginative and eloquent musical offering that gladdened my spirits. Very often, during our liturgies, it was the brief brush with what the poet Wallace Stevens once called “the holy hush of ancient sacrifice.”

Thanks to these ALCM experiences, I have been blessed to be a blessing to my community. At Zoar Lutheran Church we are in the process of introducing a teaching bulletin for our congregation, something we have been wanting to do for a long time. Our teaching bulletin is just the latest in a series of tweaks and small improvements. In that sense, we consider the newly designed publication the fruit of our most recent harvest.

This summer, ALCM will offer numerous Hearts, Hands, Voices local workshops for church musicians. I hope by now you have heard of the almost fifty locations nationwide where these one-day events will take place. Hopefully, there will be several workshops within driving distance of where you live and worship. Here in my little corner of Northwest Ohio, church musicians will be able to attend three different events, each offering a variety of resources and presenters. And that is only in the Cleveland-Toledo-Columbus corridor! Therefore, allow me to enthusiastically encourage you to attend and to identify others, who, like me, can benefit from these continuing education events. If a larger event appeals to you, check out the three-day Hearts, Hands and Voices conference at Valparaiso University, July 23-26, 2018.

We cannot overestimate how life-changing a mentorship can be; I am living proof of it. I am reminded of the expression, “passing it on down,” which jazz musicians use to speak of the oral tradition they embody in their playing. We have heard the apostle Paul speaking of running the good race. I would add that ours is a relay race where we learn and “pass it on down” to the next person. Learning is no small part of our vocational journey as church musicians. Fortunately for us, this education happens best not as solitary individuals, but in a community of caring and passionate people, such as the ones you will encounter at any ALCM conference. If you decide to join us for one of these special events, and we hope you do, we trust you will discover new insights into ministry, draw strength from collegial exchanges, and find yourselves, as it has been my experience, refreshed in the bonds of new friendships.

Robert Moore is a rostered pastor in the ELCA serving Global Missions in Leipzig and Wittenberg where he is director of the ELCA Wittenberg Center.

In the summer of 2017 the Protestant Church of Germany (EKD) reached out to the ELCA to collaborate on worship materials in German and English to assist congregations who wish to observe the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr. continues to be an important figure in Germany. In 1964 he preached in both West Berlin and East Berlin (Marienkirche) to enthusiastic crowds. His stance against oppression and his commitment to non-violent resistance deeply impressed the German leaders, especially in East Germany. King had been invited to preach by the famous Nazi resistance leader Heinrich Grüber who was Provost (superintendent) of the church district in East Berlin.

Germany also played a role in the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. who has born and named Michael King. During a visit to Germany the father, Michael King, had become deeply impressed by Martin Luther, the inspired and inspiring leader of the 16^th Century Reformation. It was Luther’s understanding of freedom that motivated the father to change his name from Michael King, Sr. to Martin Luther King, Sr. At the same time he announced to his son that he also had a new name, Martin Luther King, Jr.

As director of the ELCA Wittenberg Center I set out to work with the Office of Worship (Kevin Strickland), and two theologians, Prof. Craig Nessan (Wartburg Seminary) and Dean Kathryn “Kit” Kleinhans (Trinity Seminary) to gather materials that could be posted on ELCA synodical and congregational websites. The Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations (Kathryn Lohre) has also worked with us in this project.

The materials are available at

https://www.ekd.de/ekd_de/ds_doc/Martin-Luther-King-2018.pdf

A service is scheduled for April 23 in the Sophienkirche in Berlin. I will participate in that service.

Today’s post is by the Rev. Anne Edison-Albright, College Pastor at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

My daughter, Sally, is four years old, and very interested in and concerned about Jesus’ death. At her favorite museum there’s a large crucifix and a painting that includes the image of Jesus on the cross. Sally is drawn to this room in the museum, and, on a recent visit there, she pointed to these images and solemnly announced: “Look. God died.”

Photo credit Jane Clare. Luther College prayer chapel crucifix

There’s a big part of me that wanted to rush right in with Easter assurances. OK, let’s be real, I did rush in with those assurances. She put her little hand up to stop me. She wanted to be in that moment, surrounded by artwork that revealed one of the most profound incarnational truths of our faith. She didn’t want to be rushed.

There’s a no-rush approach to understanding how kids handle difficult feelings or ideas called The Train Analogy. The difficult feeling or situation is a tunnel, and the child is a train going through the tunnel. Well-meaning adults often want to pull an emergency switch to get the child out of the tunnel faster, but the tunnel is the length that the tunnel is. The adult’s role is to ride through the tunnel with the child, however long it lasts.

The experience of worship on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil is, in many ways, a tunnel we ride through together. It is a shared experience of Jesus’ loving final acts, his death, and his resurrection. The services are designed to be one liturgy, best experienced together, coming back again night after night. It’s an unusual pattern for us—“See you tomorrow night!”—always feels a bit weird and wonderful: when else would we set aside this kind of time for each other as the Body of Christ, for worship, for prayer, for singing and hearing the story of God? Encourage your congregation to ride through Holy Week together. The tunnel is as long as it is—there’s no rush!

Photo credit: Paul Edison-Swift. Pastor Annie and Sally

Today’s post is by Shane R. Brinegar, a PhD candidate at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.

The church is not a building or a complicated bureaucratic structure, but an embodied community gathered around bread, water, wine and word—signs that bear the presence of the crucified and risen Christ for the life of the local assembly in that place and for the life of the world. Much ecumenical worship renewal in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been sparked by the writings of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), particularly as expressed in the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy: “Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations… when the Church prays and sings, for He promised: “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20) (SC 7). We believe that in word and sacrament, Christ is surely present among us.

This gathered body that is broken and has been redeemed is called to be a broken sign of the in- breaking of God’s presence in our midst. All of those gathered in the assembly testify to this presence, but especially those who are on its margins— the disabled and those who experience otherness and alienation of any kind— because the crucified and risen One whom we encounter disrupts the structures of power and greatness in our midst having himself experienced the ultimate alienation on the cross. Just as the Savior appeared under the form of the opposite as a suffering servant, the assembly that bears the mark of his cross is called to reveal his presence in the places we least expect.

What does that real, broken presence of Christ mean for how we welcome all to worship? First, we might continue to think critically about how the construction of our liturgical celebrations invites or dis-invites those who are disabled into “full, active, conscious participation in the liturgy.” For example, what does it mean to say that the whole assembly is a sign of Christ’s presence when those with physical disabilities cannot get to the place of communion distribution because of the way our spaces are constructed? I have experienced this first hand and spent a great deal of my life “on the back pew” because that is how the presider knew who needed communion brought to them instead of them being able to come forward. Congregations that are designing or redesigning worship spaces can be particularly attentive to how their space communicates welcome, but congregations wisely pay careful attention to all the ways in which they are embodying Christ’s presence to worshippers of all abilities.

(For more suggestions of resources on welcome, see the  FAQs, How can our worship services be more welcoming to people with disabilities? and How can we make our worship space accessible?).

Today’s post is by Tim Knauff, Jr., Senior Pastor of Christ Lutheran Church, Valparaiso, Indiana.

By now you’ve probably been asked, half-jokingly, if you will be celebrating Ash Wednesday or Valentine’s Day on the 14^th.  For me it was my 7^th grade Confirmation students who were appalled when I said we would be observing Ash Wednesday. “How can you not preach on love?” they demanded.

When church moments coincide with cultural events (think Superbowl, Mother’s Day) it is an opportunity for reflection on our relationship with contemporary culture. How we think of that relationship matters quite a lot, as H. Richard Niebuhr challenged us almost seventy years ago. Is our mission to be ecclesial blessors of society, faithful resistors, transformative agents, a cloistered remnant, along for the ride? Do “secular” events belong in our worship space – to blend, to bend, to bless, to transform, to mock, to ignore?

In the case of Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday, the differences might seem stark. Candy hearts and pink cards seem a far cry from smudged ashes and the discipline of repentance. Our first instinct might be to keep them separate, to not even acknowledge Valentine’s Day. Or, maybe our first instinct would go the other way, to let Valentine’s Day hijack our observation with a pink bulletin cover and smudging a heart instead of a cross. Are there ways they can inform, interweave, transform, and teach? Or is to ignore or capitulate the only options?

I don’t think my Confirmation student’s argument, that love equals love and “how can you not preach on love?” is a sufficient connection. Perhaps we might explore the ways Ash Wednesday fulfills Valentine’s Day by teaching us how to love. There’s no question that “love” is a compelling topic: according to a National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics survey, this year Americans expect to spend an average of $143.56 each on Valentine’s Day; total spending is expected to reach $19.6 billion. We as the Church might ask – and help our culture to consider – what it means to “love”?

There are obvious textual connections: “Return to me with all your heart,” the Lord implores in Joel. “Where you treasure is, there your heart will be also,” Jesus reminds us. Both texts really answer the question, “How shall we love the Lord with all our hearts?” In Joel it’s through repentance, return, remorse; in Matthew it’s the classic disciplines of almsgiving, fasting, prayer.  Joel and the alternate reading in Isaiah remind us none of this is to manipulate God, just as flowers etc. aren’t (shouldn’t be?) meant to manipulate a beloved. Rather, the discipline itself changes and forms us.

Perhaps we might focus on that closing verse of Matthew: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In the context of Valentine’s Day, that could help us consider how to keep and create healthy relationships. As Luther reminded us, “Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.” (“The Large Catechism,” The Book of Concord, ed. Kolb & Wengert 2000, p. 386). Even a good thing, like being in love, carries peril.

Or perhaps we might use those texts to remind ourselves that in order to love, it is necessary to know who we are; Joel and Isaiah call us to the hard work of knowing who we are not, that important step towards knowing who we are. As we consider healthy Christian community, we can follow Bonhoeffer and remember that we belong to each other only through and in Jesus Christ (Life Together).

There are probably as many ways to explore this interesting intersection as there are worshipping communities. Thinking together about that intersection – how do we relate to our surrounding culture? – matters, because it is a chance to reflect on Jesus’ mission entrusted to us. As we follow him who loved the world so much – how shall we love it too?  It seems to me a chocolate heart just isn’t quite enough.