Hitting the nail on the head

Randy Ruckdashel is currently enrolled at Luther Seminary, and as such is particularly steeped in Lutheran history. He volunteered to write this week’s blog because today isn’t just Halloween — it’s a day to remember an important moment in the history of our faith. Thanks for being our guest blogger today, Randy!

Grace and peace from the Luther Seminary campus in St. Paul and happy Reformation Day! As we celebrate the 497th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 Theses on the castle church door at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, what a splendid opportunity to reflect on how the Reformation matters today.

The Reformation actually began bubbling even before Luther mounted his protests and sought to rally the voices of his peers. Almost 200 years before Luther, an English theologian, preacher, and translator named John Wycliffe voiced his objections to the influence of the Pope in government, and in 1408 Jan Hus (a Czech priest and philosopher) spoke out against the absolute control and power being claimed by the Pope and the church in Rome. These early protests were judged as heresy, and the protesters suffered excommunication and even death for their words and actions.

Dorothy called. She wants her shoes back.

Over fall break, my two sons were home from college, and both of them needed new shoes and new winter coats. The job fell to me to take them out on my pastor’s day off (Monday) to help them shop for what they needed, and we found everything necessary at Penney’s. The men on the Nelson side of the family tend to make wardrobe decisions quickly, and if we can find everything we need at the first store we go to, we consider that a success. However, as the shopping cart filled up, I started feeling a little left out, because these young men of mine were getting quite a haul of new things and I was coming up empty-handed. So I made an impulse buy.

Celebrate good times, c’mon!

From guest blogger Greg Gardner, member of the stewardship committee:

Stewardship?! Uh-oh! Yes, it’s that time of the year. What is stewardship, anyway? We are taught to be good stewards of a lot of things these days. If I start a sentence, how many words or phrases can you put in to complete it?:

“You should be a good steward of ________.”

Let’s see…

1) The earth 2) Your time
3) Your house 4) Your business
5) Your material possessions 6) Your school
7) Your money 8) Your family
9) Your church 10) Your friendships

So being a steward means to take care of your stuff. Hmm…What does being a good steward mean? A good steward takes good care of something important.

Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly …

Our national holiday of Thanksgiving is just around the corner. (Do you know where your turkey roasting pan is?!?) And here at church we are entering into the season of counting our blessings – an emphasis usually referred to in-house as “the stewardship campaign.” Stewardship is a church-y kind of a word, not one that is used all that much in everyday conversation. So what do we mean when we encourage one another in the church to be “good stewards” of God’s gifts to us?

A cure for tunnel vision?

I want to share with you some highlights from a blog post I recently read that really hit home for me. The blog is momastery.com. In the post, blogger Glennon Doyle Melton talks about a picture of her kitchen which she posted on the blog a while back. After she posted it, she was getting all kinds of suggestions to help her remodel or organize her kitchen. She began to feel bad about it, and felt that what she had wasn’t good enough. She writes: