Should we just forget about it?

[filosofer]

On fire attitude, eh sis? Yeah, well... usually when my hair goes aflame I put my foot in it. This is a perfect example. My apologies Filo, I wasn't addressing you in particular. Perhaps your earlier advice of waiting twenty-four hours and typing it up on a W.P. was such that I should have taken.

Forgive me for being brief today. I can't stay upright for any length of time right now.

We’re good, Stude.

Blessings as you struggle with the pain.

 

[Studeclunker]

Okay, the Naproxen has kicked in and I can at least sit upright for a little while... Oi.

Okay, I'm gonna start over a little here. I get confused as to your denomination sometimes Filo. In fact, I'm still a bit confused.

Filo, I realize that from an interdenominational standpoint, there's little or nothing you can do. The point I was making, is that generally speaking the Conservative Pastors (and there quite a lot of good ones there) in the Liberal denomination are in a very uncomfortable position. They are now aligned with a denomination that is so hetrodox as to be barely recognizable as Christian anymore. Yet they stay on. Many are trapped financially, some by their love of a particular congregation.

There are many congregations that are likewise trapped.

Then you have people like me who are so frustrated we could outspin Warner Brother's Tasmanian Devil! I left that denomination because I could no longer stomach the duplicity of the leadership and the corporate pastors who spout more psychobabble than scripture! Then I find the denomination to which my refuge has been trusted heading in exactly the same direction! Here in Redding, we have the misfortune of only having one LCMS congregation and they've fallen hard on the side of liberalism! Thank God the Synod appears to have arrested the effects of the liberal infection. However, at the moment that's all that's visibly going on. Only time will tell what the result of the new administration will be. As to Redding, we will likely be stuck with this spiritually dead congregation for the rest of this generation anyway.

We live in intensely frustrating times for the Church.

Back to the beginning: Should we just forget about it?
Absolutely not! Not if we are going to be obedient to the Word!

BUT WHAT CAN THE AVERAGE PERSON DO??? For the majority of laity, this venue of shouting out into the vacuum of the internet is the only outlet we have!

Would I like to be able to do something about all this?

You bet your sweet patootie!

The reality is, I have no way to do so!

Some people say, "Volunteer, we always need volunteers!" Really? Who's going to pay for the gas, transportation, materials? Even if I didn't eat for two meals a day, I couldn't do it! I can't even get there!

If someone wants me to give up my life (per se), pursuits, home and hearth, okay... no problem, then they have to supply the rest! Well, that hasn't happened and is greatly unlikely to do so.

So that leaves me (and a whole lot of other people) here shouting out into the vacuum of the internet.

 

[seajoy]

Well said, Stude.

Your back is feeling a little better today, eh? That is good.
My back went out this afternoon while I was trying to clean my kitchen. I can't bend, turn....you name it. I called my therapeutic massage therapist, and she is gone until July 19th! Along with my sore foot - I've had about enough. Prayers for me would be appreciated too. We are having guests in our home this coming week. Hubby's sis and mom.

Anyway - this whole thing with the ELCA is very difficult. It saddens my heart greatly....and makes me mad at times too. Sometimes the net is the only place we have to talk about this. But if talk does nothing, is it all best left unsaid? I don't know the answer.

 

[Studeclunker]

Does talk do nothing? Sometimes... Then again, sometimes it can really hurt people. Other times it can be a life-saver. Still other times that voice (or words on the screen) can be just the floating plank in an ocean of loneliness that keeps one from drowning.

The talk here has done a great deal for me. Almost all of it good. It has kept me in the word. The talk here has taught me things I never even thought about before. So... yes, the talk here does do good things. This much I am sure of; six years ago I was so lonely, so alone, that without this venue I don't know what I would have done. There is another forum for Studebakers that also has been a great Blessing to me.

All of you here, Seajoy, Rad, Revrand, Filo, etc.. all of you have been more kind and helpful to me than any Church group I've ever belonged to. You certainly put up with my occasional rantings a lot better. It also gives me considerable hope to know that there are still people (especially in the LCMS) who still hold true to the catholic faith Martin Luther led the common people to so many years ago.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has fallen to the Heterodox and the Liberals. There's not really much of anything we can do about that now. I feel so sad that there are people like Doulos who understands and expresses a proper understanding still clinging or trapped there. I don't know but that maybe, just maybe (when I haven't honked him off too very much) what we talk with him (and others from there) about here helps keep people like that focused in the right direction. One can hope that they then go back to their own congregation and then are a light in a very dark place.
The whole situation just makes me want to weep.

If you think this place does nothing, well, It does a great deal for me. Trust me, I don't get out much (LOL, you should be able to tell that from my posts!) thus often this will be my only human interface for days. I'm quite sure that there are numerous lurkers who get a lot from this forum as well. Often I find that counting one's little pennies in works is a waste of time. It would be better to let the Spirit do that and do what Luther advised Phillip to do, "Relax. The Word is doing it's work while we are sitting here enjoying our beer."

Good night everyone. I do hope you all have a blessed day in the Lord's house tomorrow.