The local church may call and ordain who it wills, whether or not they done their “Lutheran year” at an ELCA seminary or not even gone to seminary at all, as long as the pastor has been properly examined:

Neither Titus nor Timothy nor Paul ever instituted a priest without the congregation’s election and call. This is clearly proven by the sayings in Titus 1 [:7] and Timothy 3 [:10], “A bishop or priest should be blameless,” and, “Let the deacon be tested first.” Now Titus could not have known which ones were blameless; such a report must come from the congregation, which must name the man.

Again, we even read in Acts 4 [6:1-6] regarding an even lesser office, that the apostles were not permitted to institute persons as deacons without the knowledge and consent of the congregation. Rather, the congregation elected and called the seven deacons, and the apostles confirmed them. If, then, the apostles were not permitted to institute, on their own authority, an office having to do only with the distribution of temporal food, how could they have dared to impose the highest office of preaching on anyone by their own power without the knowledge, will, and call of the congregation? (LW 39, 312)

To ordain is not to consecrate. Therefore if we know a pious man, we bring him forward, and by the power of the Word which we have, we give him authority to preach the Word and to give the sacraments. This is to ordain. . .On the basis of ordination it is established as a result of election that, for the sake of order, not everyone should have the desire to preach. Thus they have the obligation to perform their ministry, but not perpetually. Today we can commit it to him, tomorrow we can take it away. (Sermon from 1524 in WA 15, 721 (3) Quoted in Werner Elert, The Structure of Lutheranism, p. 347, note 13)

Anyone may preside over communion, baptize, and administer pastoral care according to the will and call of the local congregation:

. . .whoever has the office of preaching imposed on him has the highest office in Christendom imposed on him. Afterward he may also baptize, celebrate mass, and exercise all pastoral care; or, if he does not wish to do so, he may confine himself to preaching and leave baptizing and other lower offices to others—as Christ and all the apostles in Acts 4 [6.4]. (LW, 39, 314)

On small groups, house churches, and cell churches:

a truly evangelical order [that] should not be held in a public place for all sorts of people. But those who want to be Christians in earnest and who profess the gospel with hand and mouth should sign their names and meet alone in a house somewhere to pray, to read, to baptize, to receive the sacrament, and to do other Christian works. According to this order, those who do not lead Christian lives could be known, reproved, corrected, cast out, or excommunicated, according to the rule of Christ, Matthew 18 [:15-17]. Here one could also solicit benevolent gifts to be willingly given. . .Here would be no need of much and elaborate singing. Here one could set up a neat and brief order for baptism and the sacrament and center everything on Word, prayer, and love. (LW 53, 63-64)

The local church may allow anyone to preach:

St. Paul gives every Christian the power to teach among Christians if there is a need, saying, `You can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be admonished’ [I Cor. 14:31]. Again, `You should earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues; but all things should be done decently and in order’ [I Cor. 14: 39-40].

Let this passage be your sure foundation, because it gives such an overwhelming power to the Christian congregation to preach, to permit preaching, and to call. (LW 39, 311)

And if the ELCA continues to require structures that are hindrances to the gospel, the quote below gives direction for churches:

[W]herever there is a Christian congregation in possession of the gospel, it not only has the right and power but also the duty—on pain of losing the salvation of its souls and in accordance with the promise made to Christ in baptism—to avoid, to flee, to depose and to withdraw from the authority that our bishops, abbots, monasteries, religious foundations, and the like are now exercising. For it is clearly evident that they teach and rule contrary to God and his word. (LW 39, 308)

Why do I think the above guidelines for congregations are helpful? Because I believe they will locate authority in local congregations, which will in turn make them more nimble, allow them to be more contextual, empower the laity, and free the church for mission. Many of the current structures hinder these things. It’s time to quit doing everything for the sake of order and to start doing things for the sake of the gospel.

• Make a paper youth directory using a free program. I’ve never used this, but it looks interesting.
• Joel is rethinking big events.
• Is this what youth pastors will look like in 2019? I hope it doesn’t take that long.
• Halloween and the sexualization of evil.
• Adam McLane is starting a new youth ministry.
• Kevin refuses.
• Facebook pages are the way to go for youth ministries (not groups). Here’s why.
• Another resources full of great, practical ideas: Tear Down the Walls of the Youth Room.

ELCA

• An interesting study published at Pretty Good Lutherans reveals that women and laity struggle for voice in ELCA news.
• Why Erik is Luthermergent.

Church and Theology

• A thought about conversion theology: Why I am NOT an Evangelical.
• Will Willimon on whether you need to be a REAL church or not.
  
• Are we getting to the point when we need to choose bi-vocational ministry over large church ministry?
  
• The Dark Side of Bible Reading.
• Adam says that if all church staff are equally valued, then they should be paid the same.
• Good thoughts by a college student.

Usually, I write my sermons (like most people, I ‘d expect) on the computer. Computers are so much more efficient, right? You can cut and paste, move things around, look up a verse real quick and insert it into the sermon with just a few clicks. So, I wasn’t looking forward to writing my sermon on paper last friday, but I wasn’t going to lug my computer around all day.

When Alicia went into her first interview, I put my head down and started writing my sermon. Her first interview ended up being really short, probably 20 minutes, but in that period of time I wrote, mostly in outline form, over half of my sermon. There was something about putting the pen on the paper with no distractions–no internet, no email, no twitter–that allowed me to focus and think clearly. I wasn’t able to finish the sermon while I was there, so I took what I had written home.

I decided that I would finish writing the sermon on paper, even though I was at home. So, I sat down and cranked out the rest of the sermon in almost no time. Later, I transcribed what I had written to the computer and made a few minor edits, but for the most part I really enjoyed writing a sermon on paper. I’ve heard it said that poets should never write poetry on a computer; it makes the process too technological and removes the organic creativity that comes when stroking a pen across a sheet of paper. Perhaps sermon writing is the same way.

Have you tried writing a sermon in a different method than normal? What were the results?

For those who are wondering how this thing has progressed over time, here’s the breakdown:

• 2004 – I started reading various blogs. I think the first blog I ever read was Tony Jones’ original blogspot blog, whose book I was reading for a youth ministry class. That I could read the original, timely thoughts of a real-life author was pretty cool to me. I was enamored with the blogging style: anyone anywhere could publish any thoughts to anyone in the world with no filter or hoops to jump through. I had to try this.
• October 14, 2004 – In my townhouse at John Brown University one evening, I started a blogspot account and began posting. Looking back, my posts were totally random and sporadic. I only made 47 posts between October 2004 and September 2006.
• September 19, 2006 – I migrated from blogspot to wordpress.org since Wordpress had some widget features that blogspot hadn’t developed quite yet. I was much more disciplined and posted around 100 posts while on that site, including many of my personal favorites. That was when I wrote my Neo-Youth Ministry Series.
• November 28, 2007 – I switch from wordpress.org to a self-hosted wordpress website, MattCleaver.com, allowing me to do anything I want with this website. This is when I got really “serious” about blogging. I have made around 240 posts on MattCleaver.com. Not only that, but I have learned tons about wordpress and web publishing, and have even made a little (emphasis on “little”) money helping other people set up and tweak their own websites. I’m not an expert on Wordpress, but I have learned quite a bit over the last two years.

When I started blogging, I had all these visions of grandeur that people would come and read my thoughts and be mesmerized by my theological insights. Well, I learned that sometimes the stuff that people want to read isn’t always what you think is the most important. Check out the top-10 posts of all time (since I started tracking with Google Analytics in November 2007):

1. How I Built a Church Website for Free: Picking a Wordpress Theme
2. The Ultimate Ubiquitous Capture Device?
3. How I Built a Church Website for Free: Introduction
4. How I Built a Church Website for Free: Wordpress Plugins
5. 13 Reasons Why (Traditional) Seminaries are Irrelevant (For Church Leaders): Part 1
6. Locution, Illocution, Perlocution, and Developmental Psychology: Age-Appropriate Cultural Texts
7. 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly: Thoughts from One in the Minority
8. Brian McLaren is a Heretic
9. Review: Francis Chan’s Crazy Love DVD
10. Podcast Episode 0: Church Marketing

Over the years, I’ve learned that the posts people read the most are the ones that rank well in search engines in a particular niche (hence I have 3 of my top 10 posts having to do with building a free church website with Wordpress), that get linked to from bigger websites (Ubiquitous Capture Device and Podcast Episode 0 got linked to from much more popular sites), or are posts that are written to strike while the iron is hot (ELCA Churchwide Assembly). The posts that I think are most important often don’t make huge spikes in traffic.

And therein lies the frustration for many who blog. I have seen quite a few youth ministry bloggers come and go in my five years, and I have thought about quitting every now and then. Fortunately, ever since the beginning I have told myself “This blog is for me as much as anyone else.” I enjoy writing and haven’t taken the time to get really serious about publishing my thoughts in traditional forms of media, and blogging allows me to keep writing on a fairly regular basis.

To those who have stuck around for a few years and keep coming back, thank you. Your comments have (hopefully) made me a better writer, minister, and theologian. I hope to continue fruitful conversation here for the foreseeable future.

And for those who don’t keep coming back, please subscribe to my RSS Feed.

Sermon on October 11, 2009
Hope Lutheran Church

Prayer – God, we ask that in your mercy you would give us ears to hear your word this morning. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our thoughts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen

Over the past few weeks, we’ve begun evaluating and describing our church using a popular organizational model that asks: what are our values, what is our mission, how will we measure if we are achieving that mission, and then how will we actually go about carrying it out? Pastor Joel, for the past three weeks has outlined our values, and he begins first with God himself, moves to God’s Word, and then finishes with people. Notice some of the things that are absent: Not buildings, not money, not attendance. These things may be tools we use to carry out our mission and our values, but they are not the beginning point. And that is important, and I think you will see that in the future as we get to how we measure what it is we are doing at Hope Lutheran Church. So, throughout the rest of the discussion about mission, measurement, and how we are going to go about it, we always have to keep in mind our values. In no place along the way can we forsake our values. Everything we do must be in conformity with our values.

Holding on to our values, we are going to begin to talk this week about our mission. What are our goals? Where are we going? What, literally, is our mission? Or maybe more accurately, what is God’s mission. Our Gospel text this week provides us with a good starting place when we begin to consider our mission.

Our gospel begins with a rich young man running up to Jesus and asking what he can do to inherit eternal life. He is concerned with the inheritance that is to come and wants to make sure that he is included in it. What are some of the characteristics of inheritance? First of all, the inheritance exists tangibly in the present. I’ll use myself as a hypothetical example. If I am to receive an inheritance, that inheritance already exists, usually in the form of cash, stocks, real estate, etc. However, it is not in my possession, it is in the possession of my parents. That does not negate the reality that the inheritance already exists, out there somewhere. I could go and count it up and I would get a real number because it exists in hard assets. Secondly, this inheritance has already been secured, and not by myself, but by my parents. I have done nothing on my part to build up the assets that make up my inheritance. Third, inheritances are given solely at the discretion of the benefactor. The heirs can try to do things that will influence the benefactor to give them certain things, or to include themselves in the inheritance, but ultimately who receives the inheritance is at the sole discretion of the benefactor. And fourth, an inheritance is a future event. Though the assets that will one day make up that inheritance will one day be mine, they are not so right now. It is something that will happen in the future.

Hopefully as I am describing these characteristics of inheritance you are seeing the parallels between the inheritance which God promises us through Jesus Christ. The Bible often uses the language of inheritance to describe the gift that we are to one day receive from God on account of Jesus Christ. Hear these words from Hebrews chapter 9:

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

The rich young man comes to Jesus knowing that he is the one who can help him receive the inheritance. However, he thinks that there is something that he can do to make sure that he receives it. After 2000 years of Christian faith, and about 500 years of Lutheranism, we know that there is nothing we can do earn God’s favor. Jesus surely knew this as well, and so he lists of an impossible list of things that the young man must do: keep the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother. Surprisingly, sort of, the young man says that he has kept all of them. Apparently he was not at the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus said over and over again, you have heard it said, but I say to you… “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment” “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” This young man doesn’t get it, but notice that Jesus lovingly (v. 21) tries to help him understand.

So, perhaps to drive the point home that this young man can’t do anything, he tells him, “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” The young man says he can’t do this. But here is my question to you: of the two answers Jesus gives, which is easier: To keep all the commandments or to go sell all of your possessions? It seems clear to me that the easy thing to do is to go and sell everything. That’s a one-time event. Keeping all the commandments is a call to perfection. The point may be that the rich young man can no more keep all of the commandments than he can sell all of his possessions to the poor. There is nothing he can do to receive the inheritance. The disciples also kind of miss the point. After hearing Jesus tell say all these things, they get quite worried: “The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, ‘Who then can be saved?’” Jesus again places the emphasis back on grace, saying that “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

Likewise, there is nothing we can do to receive that same inheritance from Jesus. We receive the inheritance only by grace through faith. But here’s the paradox: we are still called to those things that Jesus had said are impossible. We are still called to keep the commandments, not in order to receive the inheritance, but because we have already been promised it. The inheritance frees us to keep God’s commandments.

Think of it this way: let’s say I am guaranteed to receive a $100 million inheritance. Do I need to scrimp and save and worry about my IRA or my 401k and calculate whether or not I will one day have enough money to retire? Of course not! Any amount that I would be able to save on my own would still be miniscule in relation to the inheritance. The inheritance would swallow up and overwhelm any of my work to save up for my own retirement. It would be nothing more than a drop in the bucket.

How much more so does the inheritance that we have been promised to receive free us to act in a different way than if we were trying to do this all on our own? There is no price tag that we can place upon it. In the words of Isaiah (64:6) to try to secure it ourselves leaves us with nothing more than filthy rags.

Because we are guaranteed the inheritance, we are now freed to serve God and serve one another. God has done the work to secure our future, so we are now free to live for others in the present. We are freed to share our inheritance with others.

Here’s why this matters for mission: over the next three weeks we are going to talk about some of the ways which we are called to share this inheritance with others, about what God has called us to. Were going to talk about how the inheritance that God has secured for us breaks into our present world through the church and how we are called with living out of the security of our inheritance and leaving deposits of faith, hope, and love wherever we are and wherever we go. But it we are only freed to do the work that we are called to because God has already secured our inheritance in Jesus Christ. May it be so in our lives and in this church.

Prayer – Almighty God, by your grace grant us the faith to be heirs of your inheritance, that in your promise of life to come we may be freed from the bondage of sin and death to serve you and our neighbor in faith, hope, and love. Be with us as this church strives to live out that calling in faith. In the name of him who has secured our inheritance, Jesus Christ, Amen.

Now, some places say they offer free resources, but you have to register for their website, they only offer samples of resources you can then buy, or they have plain useless, low-quality stuff. Luther Seminary is not one of those places. They offer lots of free resources for people and churches with no strings attached. There are two which stand out as the creme de la creme of church resources:

• WorkingPreacher.org – This is an amazing resource for preachers who use the lectionary to preach their sermons. They have commentary on every lectionary passage every week by top-notch scholars. They have an audio podcast with reflections on the week’s texts. There are short video snippets of insights for honing the craft of preaching. There are articles that help preachers integrate theology with culture through cultural commentary. All of these resources are made available every week, for absolutely free.
• EntertheBible.org – Another high quality resource with absolutely free resources to aid in Bible study. You know how you go to those websites that offer “free Bible study tools” and only use public domain publications that are old and out of date (think Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Easton’s Bible Dictionary, etc.)? Yeah, this isn’t one of those sites. Instead, they have new articles written by current professors on almost every single book of the Bible, different time periods during the biblical era, commentary on certain passages, new articles on biblical people and places, and more. Of course, if you want to sign up for an account, you can. An account will allow you to keep track of your notes on passages, track your learning, and follow study paths that have been created for the site. This is a truly top-notch resource for Bible study.

I’m highly impressed with the quality of resources that are available on these websites. Not only the quality, but also the quantity. There is loads of information available on these two sites.

My question is, when will we get something like this for youth ministry? I would love to see a free one-stop website with:

• Youth-oriented lessons available in one place for every book of the Bible
• Topical lessons, too
• Resource articles for dealing with different teen crisis issues
• Small group training materials
• Video illustrations for different topics
• Worship ideas for youth ministry
• Ways to incorporate the church calendar into youth ministry
• Tips and tricks for administration and planning

Come on Luther Seminary (and donors), let’s see something of equal quality available specifically for youth ministry.

I think I have the know-how to at least get some of the stuff above on the web in one place, but it wouldn’t be as high-tech, easily searchable, and user-friendly as the two sites above. To do it right will take a bit of money and some commitment from youth workers.

Can it happen?

The problem is, I’m not sure which questions to ask.

To me, annual reviews should be tools to help you do your job better, and to allow you to see yourself the same way most of the congregation does. So if you think you are working too many hours and the congregation thinks you are working too few (for example), then there is likely a communication and expectation disconnect. The annual review should allow you to see where the disconnects are and work on fixing them.

So, I’m trying to craft a meaningful framework and procedure for my review this year. Do any of you have good processes for conducting annual reviews? My current job is about 50% youth ministry and 50% general administration/Christian education/other, so my final product will need to be broader than a very youth ministry specific review.

I’d love emails, links, or comments about what you have found helpful in an annual review. Thanks.

Ever since I took church history during undergrad I wanted to incorporate church history into youth ministry. When I am teaching I try and make references to people like Bonhoeffer, Augustine, and Luther. But why don’t we teach church history in our youth ministries (or our churches for that matter)? Has anyone ever done a study with their youth group about church history? What materials did you use?

And if you have thought, like me, that we need some church history in our youth ministries, what might it look like? Would you be willing to collaborate on an open source curriculum?

I’m thinking that Mark Noll’s Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity might be a good text to base a curriculum from. In the book he has a chapter on what he thinks are 13 defining moments in Christian history, which would make a great outline for a semester’s study:

1. Fall of Jerusalem
2. Council of Nicaea
3. Council of Chalcedon
4. Benedict’s Rule (Monasticism)
5. Coronation of Charlemagne
6. The Great Schism
7. Diet of Worms
8. “English Acts of Supremacy” (1534 – The English church breaking from the Roman Catholics)
9. Catholic Reform & Jesuits
10. Conversion of John Wesley
11. French Revolution
12. Edinburgh Missionary Conference
13. Further turning points in the 20th century

What do you think about the list? Does he pick the right big ticket items? What would you change out? My only thought is that he leaves out Augustine, and I love me some Augustine. I’d like to incorporate him into the mix somehow. The other approach would be to study figures rather than events (Athenasius, Augustine, Luther, Wesley, etc.).

What other books would be good foundational texts to build a church history curriculum from? What do you think about the whole idea? Am I nuts to want to teach teenagers church history?

The fall is a prime time for people to do some serious college searching, so I thought it might be good to let people who are looking for an undergraduate youth ministry degree know from those who have graduated and are currently in ministry what they thought of their programs.

I am trying to organize this blog day for Tuesday, November 3, so you have four weeks to write your post and spread the word.

These are the only qualifications to participate:

• You have an undergraduate degree in Youth Ministry (or a similar degree that was meant to prepare you for youth ministry, such as Religion, Bible, Christian Education, etc.).
• You must have graduated no later than 2008. That means you have over a year out of school.
• You must be in some sort of paid youth ministry position, whether that is part- or full-time.
• You need to know enough about the current program to be able to speak authoritatively on it. So, if you graduated 20 years ago and none of the faculty are left from when you went to school, chances are you can’t speak to the current quality of the program. As a rule-of-thumb, graduating over 5 years ago might be a bit much unless the faculty is very similar or you have maintained a close relationship with the school.
• Your post must contain a link to all the other blogs that are participating in the Blog Day. I will supply you with the list of blogs participating (hence the need for someone to organize this).
• You agree to post the morning of Monday, October 26 Tuesday, November 3. Obviously, I recommend writing the post ahead of time and scheduling it to post on the 26th 3rd.
• You are not on faculty at the school you are writing about.

Here are some things to include in your post:

• Your school with appropriate links
• The year you graduated
• What makes your program unique?
• How did the program best prepare you for ministry?
• What were the weaknesses in the program?
• What did you wish you knew before your first job out of college?
• What kind of graduate did the program produce?
• Other stuff as you feel appropriate

If you want to participate, email me at cleaverm [at] gmail [dot] com (or use the contact page on my blog) with the following information:

• Your name:
• Your school:
• Your degree:
• Graduation date:
• How long you’ve been in youth ministry:
• Current position & church:
• Your blog address:
• Name of your blog (if different than your name):

Feel free to pass this on to your friends. You can also have people contact me via twitter (@mattcleaver) if they have questions about this. I look forward to helping inform the those searching for a program about the real life experiences of those of us in youth ministry.