Top Blogs of 2023

Well, it’s been another year of blogging, mainly about the church. Below are the top five (well six actually) most read posts of the year. It’s kind of an interesting mix, on one hand some folk interested in what a Renewed Lutheran Church might look like, a few more reflective posts where I named my experience of worship and my experience of being a pastor, and then the number 3 slot was a summary of notes I took at a seminar.

1.       What is Church, how should we reconstitute it?—This was my prologue to deeper reflection on Reconstituting the ELCA. I used a summer series I do in my congregation, “What is the Church” as a lens to see some big picture things the ELCA will need to keep in mind as we become the Renewed Lutheran Church, whatever that looks like. The definition of church that popped out the end of this post was: “A community who trusts in Jesus Christ, gathers around word and sacrament, and proclaims the Gospel to our neighbors.”

2.       Is the Liturgy Reasonable?—In this post I asked what do the seven central things of worship do to a person, or at least to me. I concluded, “Church, when done well, ought to: help people to be in community, increase their sense of self-worth, get over slights and make sense of life, and be more content, generous, and gentle.”

3.       Twelve Steps to Finding a Partner for your Congregation—This post was a “book report” on the Partners for Sacred Places seminar I attended. I came away with a roadmap for getting a congregation ready to partner with community, and steps that help a congregation even if they never take the plunge and invite a partner organization into their building.

4.       Being a Pastor 12 years on and 10 “Rules” for Pastors—I’m lumping these two posts together, as the second is a mixing of the first with a post from five years previous. These were reflections on my “process” of pastoring, not that I follow through perfectly every time, but I at least know myself as pastor, and that’s no small thing.

5.       A Centralized ELCA—The Final post folk were interested in was about what a serious consolidation of the ELCA, as we become a Renewed Lutheran Church, might look like. I proposed everything from synods ceasing to exist, to tying each middle judicatory to a seminary, to folding every three synod into one.

 

Those were the posts people were drawn to. Here are five (well seven actually) posts I wish people had read this year.

1.       My Reformation Sunday Sermon (including 10 theses)

2.       I preached the entirety of Paul’s letter to the Romans in one sermon.

3.       I preached about God and Moses’ relationship.

4.       I preached on Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian Church.

5.       I preached about how stories and commandments shape community.