Back to Church Sunday

is a simple idea born in England. It is about inviting a friend, neighbour, colleague, or anyone we know, to come to church with us. Some people we may want to invite may never have been to church but it’s still Back to Church Sunday for the church is our place of belonging.

Some churches are tucked away in quiet neighbourhoods and no one ever knows they are there. Our church is at a busy street corner and we can expect traffic only to increase. I am happy to exchange a little bit of quiet for the great visibility this busy intersection offers. We want people to notice us and to know we are here. But people don’t visit a church simply because they know it’s there (unless it’s Notre Dame or Westminster Cathedral or something like that). Church is not about the building. People need an invitation because church is about relationships.

We’re not used to inviting people to come to church. We’re used to inviting people to all kinds of things but we keep our faith pretty private, we don’t want to come across as zealous or religious, or something. But how will people find their way into the community of the church and through the community of the church to Jesus, if they are not invited? Chances are some of us are here because we were once invited.

We have room in our pews but inviting people to come to church with us is never about filling the pews, it’s about life and salvation, belonging and becoming.

Inviting someone is simple. All it takes is for us is to care: About them, and about the life with God.

Invite someone to church for October 16 or for any other day. It’s not only good for them, the practice of inviting is good for us too.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph

I remember the soccer World Cup of 1974. I was a ten year old boy living in Germany. Germany had won the World Cup, and following the World Cup an important ritual was added to our scrimmage games: Before we could begin, we had to sort out who was who, for we all wanted to “be” Gerd Müller, the top scorer of the 1974 World Cup.

Role models are important. They change over time. When we are young, we want to be like our parents, as we grow older we notice that our parents are not perfect and we find other role models. We seek role models that have qualities we seek for ourselves.
I don’t remember when Gerd Müller ceased to be my role model. Perhaps it was the year I finished playing organized soccer. Perhaps it was when I became more involved in our church, for I distinctly remember a youth group leader who had a strong influence on my life and my faith.

I have different role models now and you are among them. Occasionally I will say to someone, “When I grow up, I want to be like so-and-so,” meaning that living together as God’s people is inspiring, as it should be. It also makes it clear that saints aren’t those free of sin, not people who are perfect, but saints are people like us who allow God’s Spirit to lead them, people in whom God is present.

The church calendar includes a rubric entitled “Saints and Commemorations”, often remembered in the prayers and the Eucharistic Prayer of the Sunday liturgy. These commemorations help us remember that we are not alone but that others before us have striven to live faithfully, as we strive to live faithfully. If God could use them and make them faithful witnesses, God can do the same with us. If the Church in their day could bring forth men and women through whom God acted in the world, God can act through us. So, consider the lives of our brothers and sisters and pray that God act through us today.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph

The neighbourhood of our church in Winnipeg was diverse.  One time, on the way to the cemetery I noticed how a driver in a car going in the opposite direction made the sign of the cross as he encountered our funeral procession.  It stuck with me because these are not the signs and symbols we are accustomed to seeing in public.

We are used to other signs and symbols. Pastor Kata sent us pictures of her citizenship ceremony (some of you may remember your own), at sports games we sing “O Canada”, and yesterday another pastor told me of his son’s graduation from the Royal Military College of Canada with all the regalia, pomp and ceremony. Signs point at meanings whose presence may not be apparent. Thus the graduation from the Royal Military College marks not merely the end of educationally conditioned poverty and the beginning of making your own living but rather, it marks the participation in our nation’s story and purpose. Rituals are the way in which we participate and how something becomes ours. Canucks fans say “We” won the Western Conference Final, and to prove our point we wear Canucks jerseys, shirts, and caps.

When Christians make the sign of the cross we remember who we are: God’s children, claimed in our baptism, redeemed in Jesus, and loved by God.  I never spoke to the fellow in the car who encountered our funeral procession, but I imagine that seeing the procession and faced with his own mortality, he remembered the one thing that matters more than all else: that through Jesus we belong to God.

When we make the sign of the cross, we remember that God’s story is our story and that it is a story that is “for us”.

Romano Guardini writes about making the sign of the cross, “On the cross Christ redeemed humankind. By the cross he sanctifies us to the last shred and fiber of our being. We make the sign of the cross before we pray to collect and compose ourselves and to fix our minds and hearts and wills upon God. We make it when we finish praying in order that we may hold fast the gift we have received from God. In temptations we sign ourselves to be strengthened; in dangers, to be protected. The cross is signed upon us in blessings in order that the fullness of God’s life may flow into our lives and sanctify us wholly.”

Having grown up Lutheran in Germany, we did not make the sign of the cross often, rather it was a practice we tried to reclaim. My first encounter, and possibly yours, came with Luther’s Morning and Evening Prayers in the Small Catechism. I have copied it below.

Yours,

Pr Christoph

Luther's Morning Prayer

In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say:

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that You have kept me this night from all harm and danger; and I pray that You would keep me this day so from sin and every evil, that all my doings and life may please You. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me.  Amen.

Then go joyfully to your work, singing a hymn like that of the Ten Commandments, or whatever your devotion may suggest.

Luther's Evening Prayer:

In the evening when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say:

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.

Then go to sleep at once and sleep in peace.

By the time you hold this in your hands we will be at the climax of the celebration of our salvation. There is nothing like Lent and Easter. We prepare for 40 days, we celebrate death and resurrection and know that we cannot celebrate one without the other. The rhythm of Sunday and Lenten services, personal devotion, and the liturgical observance of Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday and culminating in the last three days of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Day invite us to enter the story, reminding us that the story of our salvation is much more than a historical remembering but that we celebrate because God’s story is our story.

The Jewish writer and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel sums this up when he says, “True writers want to tell the story simply because they believe they can do something with it — their lives are not fruitless and are not spent in vain. True listeners want to listen to stories to enrich their own lives and to understand them. What is happening to me happens to you. Both the listener and the reader are participants in the same story and both make it the story it is. I speak only of true writers and true readers and true listeners. As for the others, they are entertainers and their work doesn't really matter.”[1]

Wiesel may be talking about writers in general. But what he says describes the Evangelists. Like nothing else they want to invite us into the story, for they know it is our story. In springtime and in autumn, in summer and in winter.

Wishing you a blessed Easter,

Yours,

Pastor Christoph 

My parents were not raised in the church and it was when my brother and I were children that they began to attend. My memory is that we attended every Sunday and gradually became involved in the life of the congregation.

My parents did not make attending church mandatory for my brother and me (perhaps because they didn’t have to …?) and I do remember a few occasions on which I stayed home from Sunday worship. My grandparents lived with us and so staying home did not create childcare issues. On the two or three Sundays when I did stay home, I remember a sense of the day ‘not being a Sunday without having attended worship’. In part, this may have been because I likely sat around bored. And, of course, there were weekends I was away because of athletic involvement. But what I remember most distinctly is that for me Sundays were not Sundays without corporate worship, even though I would not have been able to put it into these words.

Worship is important to us on many levels; they include the church being a place where our friends are as well as a sense of duty that would shrug at the suggestion not to go to church. In my youth many (but not all) of my friends were at church. Yet just as (or more) important was that I knew that I needed the church because the story of God’s redemption was my frame of reference. Going to church helped me understand the world in which I live and that has not changed. In this way, the practice of my faith is not an accessory or a luxury but essential for my every day living.

It is Lent and living the seasons of the church year, contemplating the life of Jesus and practising being a follower of Jesus serve the same purpose: We remember the story of God’s redemption in Jesus as our ultimate reality and as the ultimate reality of the world that shape our own life and our own story.

As the world around us has changed and the church finds itself often at the margins of society and of public debate, it becomes more important for us to remember that we belong to God, to tell the story, and to share with one another what God’s redemption means for us and what it means in today’s world. In this way, our worship is more than an opportunity to “recharge” but the call to live the Gospel together. Entering God’s story and sharing God’s story gives us eyes to see the Kingdom, eyes to see God’s presence and God’s promise as well as to have it take shape in our life together.

Keep it up so we may continue to grow in faith and love and die and rise daily with Christ!

Yours,

Pastor Christoph

The Church has used a prescribed order of some kind for scripture readings in worship since the antiquities. We call this the lectionary.

Those of us who have been around long enough, know that lectionaries can change over time. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada adopted our current lectionary in the nineties, making small changes to the order of readings found in the Lutheran Book of Worship.

You may also have noted a pattern to the readings. Generally, the readings relate to the season of the liturgical year.

In Advent they reflect our expectation of God’s coming, both of Jesus’ return as well as his first coming. During the season of Epiphany, the readings remember the early ministry of Jesus, his baptism, temptation, the calling of the disciples, concluding with the Transfiguration, foreshadowing the Easter glory before the descent into Lent. During Lent the readings hold together our need for salvation, God’s faithfulness, and Jesus offering himself for us and to us. Easter celebrates the resurrection and the new life in Jesus. The Season after Pentecost is the season of the church in that its focus is on the life of God’s redeemed. This season and the liturgical year end in the expectation of our Lord’s return.

There are multiple reasons for using a calendar of readings.

Christians believe in God’s self-revelation to Israel and to the Church. The Bible gives witness to this and we believe that through the words of Scripture God speaks to us today.

In all three years the lectionary attempts to cover much of the Bible: All four Gospels for the life of Jesus[1], the letters of the New Testament, and the Old Testament.[2] The Psalms are given to us to pray with our ancestors. We have a lectionary to read the Bible broadly to gain familiarity with much of Scripture and to avoid reading only our favourite passages.

One of the benefits of the lectionary is that it has many Christians of different denominations engaged by the same readings.[3] It is also easy to read ahead. In my personal devotional practice I read the Sunday readings throughout the preceding week. If you read Eternity for Today you will have noticed its attention to the Sunday readings.

There are some proposals to change the lectionary but it requires consensus. There is only one day (Palm Sunday) when I do not follow the lectionary. By and large, the lectionary is a gift to the church and it is my prayer that we can experience it as such.

Yours,

Pastor Christoph

I did some church window shopping last summer. I was welcomed by faithful communities with different styles of worship. While every denomination has an order to their worship whether they call it liturgy or not, not everyone worships in the same way. If you have worshipped in churches of other denominations, you may have noticed that not everyone prays the Creed. So, why do we pray the Creed?

I think that not saying the Creed is a nod to our culture. The creeds are old and don’t have a ‘contemporary’ ring to them. And yet, the creeds articulate the faith all Christians (should) share. The creeds remind us that our faith is older than our pastors. Not surprisingly, the Abbotsford Christian Leaders Network in its statement of faith leans heavily on the Apostles’ Creed, even though most churches in Abbotsford do not pray the Creed in their Sunday worship.

The function of the Creed in worship is to respond to the proclamation of the Good News. It is our answer to the sermon. In this way it is not only a dogmatic statement but a prayer of thanksgiving. In the rite of Holy Baptism it is to join the Church by affirming the faith of the Church.

What does the creed do? It tells the story of God and the world, and reminds us that this is our story. It begins with God's creation and it ends with the heavenly city. In telling us that God’s desire is the salvation of the world in Jesus, it interprets the scriptures and reminds us how to read the Bible.

Amidst many competing world views the Creed affirms that the world and all that is in it are the Lord’s. It establishes accountability toward God and knows world and life a gift (not a possession!) from God. And if everything is the Lord’s and must be governed according to God's will (Col 3:23), then the Creed also informs our practice.

Listen to theologian Luke Timothy Johnson: ‘In a world that celebrates individuality, we are actually doing something together. In an age that avoids commitment, we pledge ourselves to a set of convictions and thereby to each other. In a culture that rewards novelty and creativity, we use words written by others long ago. In a society where accepted wisdom changes by the minute, we claim that some truths are so critical that they must be repeated over and over again. In a throwaway, consumerist world, we accept, preserve, and continue tradition.’[1]

I know I am getting old because I have begun to be nostalgic about past Christmases. Not our first Christmas as newly-weds nor our boys’ first Christmases; for those I will be nostalgic soon enough as our boys grow older. Instead, I am nostalgic for the times when Christmases  seemed so much busier compared to the rest of the year. I am nostalgic for the Christmases that made me complain about the busyness of the season. I am nostalgic not because it has gotten too quiet in our life but because it seems that we are as busy year-round as some time ago we only seemed at Christmas time.

Busyness can mean that we are merely trying to keep up, trying to stay afloat, hoping not to drop the ball, living from day-to-day.  Busyness can mean that we have trouble living in the moment because as soon as one task is completed our mind turns toward the next one. Yet at our best we want to do more than stay afloat but be purposeful, deliberate, and grounded.

You don’t have to be swept away by busyness to experience this longing. Like no other season, Advent and Christmas are shaped by traditions. What we did in our childhood, what we did with our own children, what we did as a couple or as individuals, we will do again this year. And as people of customs and traditions, we too long to be purposeful, deliberate, and grounded. And yet while we can find meaning in our customs, our customs don’t supply meaning automatically.

Anglican priest Barbara Brown Taylor notes that people long for ‘more’ in their life, a ‘more’ they often describe as ‘spirituality’. To find this ‘more’ people are willing to go to great lengths: to read many books, to learn new meditation techniques, to travel to Tibet, etc.. “No one longs for what he or she already has, and yet the accumulated insight of those wise about the spiritual life suggests the reason that so many of us cannot see the red X that marks the spot is because we are standing on it. ... All we lack is the willingness to imagine that we already have everything we need. The only thing missing is our consent to be where we are.”^[1]

Like no other time of the year Advent and Christmas are times of longing. In our longing we long for more, and it doesn’t matter whether we wish it quieter or busier. The profound truth about Christmas is that God comes to us where we are: The Word becomes flesh, Immanuel, God with us. And so our longing is fulfilled right were we are, not because of customs and traditions, not because we broke free from the busyness of our lives (though we should try), not because in our memory we try to bring back the past, but simply because God chose to, because Mary said “yes”, and because we say “yes”.

Knowing that God comes to us where we are means we no longer have to chase life as if we could never reach it, or only reach it if we could accomplish this, accumulate that, or be with those people, family, friends, or otherwise.

That being said, our Advent and Christmas can still be different and amidst all familiarity we hope that they will be, for as one of our offering prayers says, we dedicate our lives to the redemption of all that God has made. That is what gives meaning, purpose, and grounding.

Use your imagination to visualize what it looks like. It begins with worship, prayer, service, and almsgiving.

Wishing you a blessed Advent and Christmas,

Yours,

Pastor Christoph