I eagerly listened to the free CD’s from CPH with the liturgy settings and a few hymns from LSB.  What a tremendous devotional resource it would be... almost. 

I realize that the goal is to help pastors and church musicians get familiar with the settings, so I suppose it serves its purpose in that sense. 

But I have a request for CPH : Could you re-issue it without the narration?  And if you really wanted to offer something extraordinary, music from the Daily Offices would not be amiss.  I know that it was done when LW was released.  (How much has the world changed since then?  Those recordings were on vinyl!  Now, CD’s are almost obsolete.) 

So here’s my suggestion for CPH : Make the services (without narration) a downloadable purchase in MP3 format.  Either record the daily offices, or digitize the LW ones.  Cost is minimal.  License it so that for each purchase, a set of CD’s for personal use can be made.  (You could also do group licenses for churches so that one congregation can make as many as it wants for its members. Cost could be based on average attendance.)  What a way to teach the liturgy to the young!  What a gift to give to shut ins and the sick!  What fun to listen to while traveling!   I would buy it. 

As for the hymns - another great resource that is almost great but for the talking. 

PTM, if you’re reading this, what say you? 

I found this among my seminary notes.  It was a what-if list of professor-produced hymnals.  Some of the professors aren’t at the seminary anymore.  Others have joined the church triumphant.  As I read it, the publication of the new synodical hymnal made this old joke seem new again.  I offer it as a loving tribute to the men who so well prepared me to serve as a shepherd of the church :

Art Just : Lutheran Synaxis

William Weinrich : Hymnal of Lutheranicity

Charles Geischen : Lutheromorphic Hymnal

David Scaer : Stamp-out Lutheranism Hymnal

Daniel Reuning : Copes, Chant, etc. Hymnal

Douglas McClellan Judish : Ye Olde Hymnal

Dean Wenthe : Lutheran Torah

Richard Resch : Sola Bach, Sola Luther, Sola Gerhardt

Eugene Bunkowski : Missio Dei, the Broadway Soundtrack Album

Cameron MacKenzie : The Illustrated Hymnal

Melvin Zilz : The What-do-you-want-to-call-this Hymnal

Heino Kadai : I’ve Seen This Hymnal Before

Walter A. Maier : The Wamnal

Gregory Lockwood : The Over-the-Page Hymnal

Roger Pittelko : Hymnal of the English District, et. al.

Richard Meuller : Ordo Worshipos

James Bollhagen : That-Song-Reminds-Me-Of-A-Joke Hymnal

Student editions include :

Year 1 : I Don’t Understand This Hymnal

Year 2 : I Know More Than This Hymnal

Year 3 (Vicarage) : I Wish I Was Using This Hymnal.

Year 4 : Songs I Love to Sing ... About My Vicarage

Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus, can my heartfelt longing still.  (Mysteriously left out of the latest hymnal.)

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Now, I must prepare for a funeral tommorrow, and then go pick up the latest Harry Potter book, before going to bed. 
To all those who were elected delegates, and who now get to endure Houston again in TWO years for reasons unknown at this time, I say :
Ha-Ha!  I mean, "You have the thanks of a grateful synod."

The annual “Social Security Statement of Benefits” arrived today.  They admit that by 2041 they have only enough money to pay 75% of the money they will ‘owe’.  But that’s not the problem. 

For many years Social Security has been taking in more than they pay out.  Where does that money go? A coffee can under a mattress? A vault somewhere in Fort Knox?  No.  By law, the government must invest the money.  This means that the “Social Security Trust Fund” is earning interest.  A lot of interest.  But guess what, the government can only invest the money in... Government Savings Bonds! 

So the government collects the money from your pay check.  It then loans the money to itself.  It then spends the money.  (Starting to see the problem?)  In 2017, it has to start paying back the money.  With interest.
More people my age beleive in UFO's than belive they will ever see money from Social Security.  I wonder why...

I will pay $50 to anyone who can find a definitive theological reference to “seriatim prayers” under the following conditions :

1) The reference must be from before September 23, 2001.

2) The reference must not be from LMCS President Emeritus, the Reverend Dr. Ralph Bohlman.

Anyone else care to offer money for the challenge?  I’ve said before that this is an invention of bureaucrats.  Now I’m putting my money where my mouth is.  I’d put more money there, but I have kids; my mouth isn’t that rich anymore. 

I read today that among members of the national Academy of Sciences, only 7% believe in a god.  With numbers like that, their could also be those who are too afraid to admit it, even to pollsters.  But what of the seven percent?  How vocal are they?  Will they admit it to their colleagues?

There is one ironclad rule in academia, and even more so in science : There can be no God. 

You can be an anarchist communist avant-garde nudist polygamist, and be accepted into the fraternity of academia.  The only rule that can never be broken is that you may not be a theist.  Those who dare to believe in a higher power are looked down on as intellectual lightweights.  That 85% of the population or more does believe in a supreme being is only proof to them that they are superior and above the fray. 

The church’s moral authority to speak to any issue of science was irrevocably lost during the whole “Galileo incident”.  But then what of doctors and their authority to treat patients?  After all, wasn’t there that whole leeching thing?   (Which arguably killed our first president) 

Of course, we laugh at such medical antics now, but they are no different from the church misinterpreting the scriptures regarding the center of the universe.  But such comparisons are not made.  After all, you can’t blame the church for leeching. 

I am known to my friends as someone who enjoys the occasional political discussion.  So it is only natural to expect that at some point I will comment on elections at the upcoming synodical convention.  So here it is, for those who were wondering :

Trust not in princes they are but mortal; Earthborn they are and soon decay. Naught are their counsels at life’s last portal, when the dark grave doth claim its prey.  Since then no man can help afford, trust ye in Christ our God and Lord.  Hallelujah! Hallelujah!. 

And that’s all I have to say about that.