November Newsletter

      Greetings to you all in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ!  I realized I didn't post my article I did for November Newsletter here at the church.  Here it is:

“Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!” Psalm 98:1
     News Year Eve, the last night of the year, is usually spent in wild celebration! People like to get all dressed up, go out on the town, and enjoy grand food and joyous drinks with friends and family. Even the ones who just get together in the comfort of their own home with friends and snacks still consider it a special night of celebration. It is a celebration because another year has come and gone. Stories are told, memories are reminisced, and worries seem to disappear for one night. No matter how tough times may have gotten, no matter how dreadful the year actually was, this special night is a time to reflect on the fact that it is over and a new year will begin. The whole evening comes to a climax with the handing out of champagne, the shouting out of the final countdown, and then cheers and praises at the stroke of midnight. A joyous celebration indeed!
      Hold on though, has the vicar lost his mind? New Years is not for another month yet. December 31st may be over a month away yet, but the church’s New Year’s Eve is this month. November is the last month of the church year, and December will be Advent season and the start of the new church year. This is why I am writing about New Year’s Eve. We may not all get together on November 30th with large parties and outrageous celebrations, but we should take at least a little time to reflect on the fact that the same thing we celebrate on December 31st is true in November too. The good and gracious Lord has brought us through another year. There may have been tough times and trials. There may have been dark moments of doubt, worry, or fear. There may have even been times that made you question your faith all together. Nonetheless, He has kept you safe and in the faith for another year. As this church year comes to a close and the new one is about to begin, we should sing to the Lord a new song, for He has certainly done marvelous things. He has been with us through good and bad, never giving us more than we could handle even if it seemed like it at the time. He has surrounded us with fellow Christians to be witnesses to us and bear our burdens as the one body of Christ. He has kept His church alive and His chosen nation in existence, even in times of persecution. More specifically, He has brought a new pastor to Mt. Calvary to continue preaching the Word in its truth and purity to all of her members. He has blessed me with the best vicarage I could have asked for from Him. Even more importantly, He has forgiven us of all our sins again and again, washing us clean through the blood of His Son and the water of our baptism, even though we certainly do not deserve it. As the psalmist goes on to say, “His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. The Lord has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” God has indeed done marvelous things for us His people, remembering His steadfast love for us and remaining faithful to all of us. He has worked salvation by giving His only Son to die and rise again to be the salvation that has been made known to all nations. For this we should bring in the New Year with joyous celebrations and loud shouts of praise, singing Him a new song for all He has done.
In the name of our Lord who has done all marvelous things for us His children, Happy New Church Year!

Vicar Kevin Richter

“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises! Make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!” Psalm 98:4 and 6b

Pictures of LSF Events!

Psalm 3

      Greetings in the name that is the name above all names, Jesus Christ!  This last weekend was a busy one.  Saturday afternoon I helped with the Fall Fun Festival which is where the youth group sets up games and things for the little kids to come in costume and do.  I was helping with a game where they would cast a clothes pin on a string tied to a pole over a curtain like they were fishing, and then the kid on the back side would clip a piece of candy to the clothes pin and let them "reel it in".  I love little kids and the little kids have really taken a liking to that crazy Vicar Richter (even though they all struggle to say his name).  We had a blast though.  Then Saturday evening I had four college students come in and help me make 6 batches of chili.  We did one spicy recipe tripled and one mild recipe tripled in two roasters.  Then Sunday morning I went in before church, took the roasters out of the fridge, and got them simmering.  Then as soon as church was over we had ten students helping serve the chili to the members.  It was the quarterly voter's meeting and it is tradition that the LSF serves the meal.  It went really well and had just about the right amount left over.  Then after we got everything cleaned up, we went out to a member's house and had Gun Day Fun Day.  I had bought ammunition and clay pigeons.  I borrowed a thrower and we had a trap shoot.  We had eight students and several had very little experience with guns.  It was a fun day and I think all the students really enjoyed it.  It was beautiful out weather wise.  No body got hurt and everyone left with a prize and a smile.
    We did pumpkin carving last Thursday night before Bible Study and then this Thursday I hope to have a bonfire at my place after Bible Study as we watch the parade of costumes.  I figure we should be there just in time to watch the little kids ending trick or treating and the "Big kids" or college students start their walk from campus to the bars.  I also got the ping pong table in my basement finally so I am excited to get the students over and let them feel my pong wrath.
     I preach this Sunday for All Saint's Day which is cool because I got to preached it last year too.  I will post my sermon on Monday.  Other than that everything is going well, just busy and the time seems to be disappearing faster than a piece of pumpkin pie in front of me.  Here is my devotion on Psalm 3.

Psalm 3:2b and 8a

            It does seem that people today who doubt in this thing called faith or religion want everyone else to doubt it too.  They are constantly trying to tell Christians that they are “not good enough” or "not worthy” for God’s love and forgiveness.  This is sometimes referred to as the fourth use of the law when you hear those whispers and voices telling you that you have really done it this time!  There is no way God is going to forgive you for what you have done this time.  You have sinned too greatly, messed up too royally, and dug yourself so deep this time, even God can’t get you out of it.  Even if He could, why would He do that for a miserable sinner like you?  So not only do we hear the devil whispering these ideas into our heads, but then our “friends” and those around us also say the same thing.  Sometimes it seems like everyone around us, many rising against us, telling us that “there is no salvation for [us] in God.”  After hearing it so many times, unfortunately it becomes easier and easier to believe that maybe we really aren’t worthy of God’s salvation, that He really won’t forgive us this time. 

            However, even when King David feels this way, as he is fleeing from his own son, he continues on to end the psalm with a more positive note.  He feels everyone has turned against him, even his family is now his enemies, and the question of whether even God himself can get him out of this mess.  However, with a good night’s sleep, he wakes well refreshed and restored in his faith.  Have you ever had one of those nights?  Where you lie awake, tossing and turning, pondering upon the mess of your life, wondering how you got into this mess, wondering if you will ever get out of it?  It really seems like you are hopeless and helpless, as if this one is too tricky for even the good Lord to handle.  Again, even if God could get you out, why would He go to the trouble of helping a rotten person like you?  You are questioning everything you have ever known, but somehow you still fall asleep, and the next morning you awake refreshed, rested, and the whole thing just doesn’t seem as impossible as it did the night before.  The Lord has sustained you with a good night sleep and now you have the energy to tackle that problem, begin to sort out that mess, and climb back out of the hole you were in.  The strength and motivation comes from our Lord, because He does go to the trouble of helping us miserable, rotten sinners.  It is true, if it were up to us and what we do, we would never be worthy, never be good enough; but because salvation belongs to the Lord, He gives it to us sinners.  Because salvation belongs to Him, He has the ability to give it to people who are not worthy.  Now He does not just give it to us in our sinful state because He is a just God.  Nonetheless, He gives it to us.  He does so by washing us in the blood of Christ, cleansing us white as snow, pure and blameless just as Christ was when He was crucified.  Christ died to pay the price for all of our sin, He rose from the dead to defeat death once and for all, because we brought death into this creation at the fall of mankind.  Now, because we are washed in the blood of Christ, and made holy, sinless by His forgiveness, given the gift of eternal life, the gift if His salvation, that is His alone to give.  King David knew it was God and God alone who can give salvation, and bring us out of any mess into His life, into His peace and joy of sins forgiven.  There is no salvation from God for us by our own merit, but by His grace and mercy alone, the salvation that belongs to Him is granted to us His beloved children.  Praise be to Him for it!   

Psalm 2

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.  I am behind schedule already today so I will not post much about what has been going on.  I am doing pumpkin carvings with the college students tonight before Bible Study, and then I think I have everything ready for Sunday's Gun Day Fun Day.  I will try to put up on here how all of that went and maybe even some pictures.
I have been doing pretty well so far with my daily Psalm's devotions.  Here is Psalm 2:

Psalm 2:5-6

            When one first reads these two verses they seem contradictive.  The Lord is angry, speaking in wrath, going to terrify them, but then speaks a not very scary quote.  It makes me think of a bad scary movie where the scene tries to set up major fear, with lower lighting, intense music, slow panning camera angle, all leading up to… a non-scary monster.  The buildup was scarier than the actual “scary” thing.  Here the buildup makes it seem like God is really, really angry.  He is going to say this horrifying, stop you cold in your tracks, make your heart miss a beat, terrifying thing.  God could speak words that would literally scare us to death; He could speak words that cause our heart to race so fast it would explode.  And yet what He says here isn’t scary at all.  How is this message going to terrify anyone?  Well, I guess I am looking at ti through my personal bias.  It is not scary to me because I know that His King is Jesus, my Savior and my life.  It is comforting and reassuring for me to hear these words, because I have faith in this King who is now sitting on Zion, the holy hill.  However, looking back to the previous verses who God is actually talking to, we can better understand that these are terrifying words… for them!  The kings of the earth and the rulers all have taken council together against the Lord.  These guys who have set themselves up as their own gods, thinking they are better than God, to them this message is terrifying.  His King who He has set on the holy hill of Zion is easily going to defeat these puny little earthly kings.  These guys should be shaking in their boots as the Lord speaks out of wrath and fury, because their time has run out.  Their reign is now over as the one true King is now here, ready to defeat them, end their silly little council, and show them that God is still above all.  For these guys who are against the Lord, these words of the Lord are terrifying.  However, for us they are comforting because we are His chosen people who the King is here to protect and rule over.  So we rejoice, but for all those against the Lord they tremble in terror, knowing this New King is the end of them.  Thanks be to God He has called us to be His people, given us His faith to believe in Him rather than stand against Him, so that these words are words of grace, love, and comfort rather than the terrifying message it is to all those against Him. 

Dear Heavenly Father, 
Please keep us all in the one true faith at all times, so that we may never stand against you.  Send Your King who sits on Your holy hill to us quickly so that we may live in service and worship to Him under His protection and reign in Your presence each and every day.  Amen.   

Psalm 1

    Greetings to you all in the name of Christ Jesus!  I woke up this morning to some white stuff on the car and roof.  Yes, SNOW!  However, it only stuck on surface areas such as cars, leaves, and roofs.  The ground is still too warm to hold it.  I did get excited seeing it though.  Every Tuesday Pastor and I get together with two other LCMS pastors and three ELCA pastors for a text study on the upcoming lectionary readings.  It is a really good way to work through all angles of the text with that many guys asking questions and throwing out opinions.  This morning was my morning to lead the discussion, which worked out well since I will be preaching on the readings we were studying.  We always stay two weeks ahead so this mornings discussion was on the texts for All Saints Day on November 3rd, the next time I preach.  It went well and gave me some more things to consider as I begin to work on that sermon.
     I decided to spend a few minutes every day writing a short devotion on the psalms.  My plan is to work straight through all 150 psalms, then just keep going through them and picking out something new each time.  For longer psalms this will be definitely easier to pick out something new, for the shorter ones it will be more challenging but still doable.  The first week has gone by and I have done three, so I am not keeping up with the whole daily thing, but am going to try to do them as often as possible.  I wrote the first one on my phone actually while I was in the deer stand last week on a really windy night.  It was too windy for anything to be moving, and I didn't even take my bow with me.  I took my camera hoping to get some cool pics, but saw nothing.  So I spent some time writing this devotion.  I will try to post them every other day or so as I get them done.
This is on Psalm 1 looking specifically at verses 3 and 4.

            As I sit here in a tree, moving in the wind, I over look two corn fields both shining bright gold as the sun slowly sets, and both look like a rolling sea as the wind rushes over top causing the stocks to dance in unison.  The broad flat leaves caught by wind take random lift off into the air high above the fields, soaring as they float back down.  I realize this corn has produced its fruit.  It is ripe and ready for harvest as the giant ears weighted with numerous large kernels hang upside down.  Each stock has produced its fruit but now stands lifeless, done growing, and finished producing.  Firm stocks hold the plant upright but withered leaves allowed to be ripped off and blown away. 

            Psalm 1 verses 3 and 4 compares the righteous to the wicked using the imagery of plants.  The righteous are like trees that produce their fruit but their leaves do not wither.  Then it says the wicked are like the chaff blown away in the wind.  The author of the psalm is not saying that the wicked do not produce fruit. He is saying that the wicked after producing their fruit die, blown away by the wind because they are lifeless.  Non-believers (Non-Christians) can still be morally good people who produce fruit, caring for others, being kind and polite.  They can shine bright gold like those ripe corn fields but the difference is because they do not have a relationship with God after their fruit is done, they die.  The righteous, believers who do have a relationship with God, through the faith produce fruit, but then they still live like trees that produce fruit every year.  In exception though, they are a special kind of tree that their leaves never wither because they have life in Christ.  The comparison is not the fruit, but the life versus death.  Everyone produces fruit but only the righteous have life after the harvest.  These corn stocks will be gone as soon as the combine rolls through picking ears off, separating the kernels, shredding stocks, leaves, and cobs and throwing them out on the ground to be blown away by the wind, but the trees are harvested by plucking the fruit off and leaving the tree in tack to live on.  So are the wicked and righteous at harvest, the wicked will be lifeless and thrown into the fire, but the righteous will be transplanted by the river to live on in the presence of the one true God who made them righteous by His grace through faith.  

Blessings on your week! 

Ruth Sermon

      Greetings in the name of merciful Lord!  Everything is still going pretty great in South Dakota. Last week we spent three days out in Rapid City for the district's pastors' conference.  It was a fun three days of meeting and getting to know the other pastors of South Dakota.  There was still a ton of snow everywhere, but the roads where cleared.  The biggest thing that shocked me was all the dead cows everywhere.  They were in the ditches right along the interstate and even some in the median.  They had signs posted that read, "Livestock at large!"  It must have been one terrible storm.  The last number I heard was over 40,000 cows dead.  There were trees down everywhere, power lines and poles down, and some places still didn't have electricity when we left Wednesday.  They will still be cleaning up the mess from this storm next summer after the snow melts for good.  Please keep all the farmers and people living out there in your prayers.
       My Adopt-A-Student program kicks off this week.  I don't know if I have mentioned it too much on here yet, but the plan is for a member/family of the congregation to "adopt" a college student.  We have 14 students and 12 member/families signed up for the program.  We do the pairing tonight and then Thursday is the kick off.  This is a program I wanted to add to try to bring the members and students closer.  However, approved by the elders it is also my Evangelism module.  We are required over the year of vicarage to do one evangelism project where we incorporate something new to the church to try to reach more people.  I really hope this goes well so that it will continue in the years to follow, even when I am not here.  My roommate in college was "adopted" by a family from his church and they still have a strong relationship, keeping in touch even after he graduated and moved away.  They would invite him out for meals, to watch football games, to do laundry, etc.  They also gave him rides to the train station and other places since he didn't have a car.  They would house him over holiday breaks when campus was closed, or even house his girlfriend when she would come to visit.  It was a really positive thing for both him and the family and that is what I am hoping for each one of these pairing ups.  So I kindly ask you keep this program in your prayers, that it may go well, strengthen the faith of the students, and work for the good of the Gospel.
        I preached this last week for LWML Sunday on the text from Ruth.  Not my best sermon ever, but it went pretty well.  I have also been doing some writings on my devotions on the psalms, so I will try to post those over the next couple days.  Here is my sermon for today:

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Our text for today is: Ruth 1:16-17 = ¹⁶ But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” 

            These words that make up our text for this morning are the beautiful confession of faith given by Ruth to her mother-in-law Naomi.  The Old Testament reading that Pastor Wurm just read for us is the introduction to the book of Ruth and it really sets the stage for the whole story.  A man takes his family to a foreign land because of a famine.  It was meant to be a temporary stay, but as the text tells us ended up being ten years.  While they are there, this man dies, leaving his wife and two sons now all alone in this foreign land.  The two sons take wives from the local people of this land.  To make matters worse as tragedy would have it, both boys die too.  Now there are three women stranded away from home, with no one to take care of them or support them.  However, Naomi, the mother, finds slight relief when she hears the news that there is food in her homeland again.  She decides to go home and rely on the mercy of her husband’s people to take care of her and support her.  She also makes the decision that it would be best for her daughter-in-laws to not go with her, but rather to return to their own families and depend on them for their support.  This is when Ruth steps forward and says her confession to her mother-in-law that we will focus in on today. 
            Now before we get to Ruth I think we first need to defend Naomi.  I think it is pretty easy for us to give Naomi a bad rap for trying to send away her daughter-in-laws, but in her defense she was just trying to do what she thought was best.  Naomi is stuck in an extremely tough situation.  She has the responsibility of these two girls in her hands, and this responsibility forces her to decide between faith and health.  If she was selfish and making the decision based purely on her own wants, she would have easily chosen for her daughters to go with her.  I am quite sure she would rather have them with her to make the trip back instead of going alone.  I think she would have preferred to have them live with her once she was back in Bethlehem.  However, Naomi does not make the selfish choice, but rather considers what is best for these girls ahead of herself.  This is where she is stuck between a rock and a hard place.  She knows that if the girls go with her, they will struggle for the basic needs of life.  Naomi is already depending on the mercy of her husband’s people to provide food, clothing, shelter, and other basic needs for her.  She knows this is going to be a burden on the people to take care of one widow, let alone if they had to take care of three.  These young girls will have a much better way of life if they return to their families, can be provided for, and have the chance for a second marriage and new husband who will provide for them and give them children.  However, if she sends them back to their families where their needs will be provided, she also knows they will return to their family gods.  Elimelech and his family were believers in the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  After Elimelech died, and his two sons took wives from the Moabites, Naomi and the sons taught these new wives who their God was and their faith in this God.  Orpah and Ruth would have given up their family gods and accepted the God of their new family, the God that Elimelech had kept his family faithful too even in a foreign land.  Even after her husband died, and both her sons died, Naomi was still faithful to God.  We can see this in verses 8 and 9 as when she tries to send them away; she does so in the name of the Lord, asking her God to be with them.  Even though she knows if they return home to their original families, they will return to their original gods, she still asks her God to be with them, deal kindly with them, and give them rest in the house of their new husbands.  So Naomi must decide whether to send them back to their families where their needs will be provided but their faith in God will be lost, or else let them go with her where they can remain in the faith of the Lord but will struggle for daily necessities.  This is the situation Naomi is stuck in and it is not an easy one for her.  That’s why I think we need to give Naomi a little break in her decision.  She did what she thought was best and tried to give them an easier life, even though it meant they would return to idolatry. 
            It is easy for us to say that Naomi made the wrong choice.  That it would have been better for the girls to struggle for food and clothes and still be in the faith than to have daily needs and worship false gods.  Jesus himself will later say, “For what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”  Paul states in Romans from our Epistle for today, “For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.”  Why didn’t Naomi trust in God to provide for them and keep them in the faith by letting them go back to Bethlehem with her?  I mean we would never be foolish enough to do such a thing, or would we?  If we were put in Naomi’s position, would we make the right choice?  You have the choice to send your children to a Christian school where they can receive a deeper education in the Scriptures and their faith, or to the public school where they can play sports and hopefully get a scholarship to a better college so they can get a better job and make more money so they will be able to better provide for their family, which do you choose?  You have the choice to bring your children to church on Sunday mornings and make sure they are in Sunday school, or take them to their hockey or soccer league, which do you choice?  You have the choice at work to stand up against the boss when you see he or she is doing something unmoral and try to show him or her that they are sinning, or to just sit quietly, letting it go so you do not risk losing your job?  You have the choice to do daily devotions with your family after supper, or to work on that project for work to make sure it gets done on time?  We are faced with these decisions where we must decided if the quality of life is more important than risk suffering and simply trusting God to provide.  We have choices where we must choose between what seems like the best option for everyone involved, even if that decision means letting God take a back seat.  How often do we choose the one that puts God first and takes our safety net of assurance out from under us?  When it comes right down to the wire how often do we walk by faith rather than by sight?  This is where I feel we are really no different than Naomi and would have probably made the same choice she did. 
            However, thanks be to God, even when Naomi made the wrong choice, Ruth has the faith to do what is right.  Orpah listens to her mother-in-law and returns, but Ruth stands up and speaks these words of confession.  “For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.”  Naomi had been a witness to Ruth when she taught her about the one true God.  She taught Ruth the faith and taught her what it meant to be faithful.  Ruth saw her mother-in-law remain faithful to her Lord even after she lost her husband and two sons.  Naomi was a witness to Ruth and brought her into the faith.  However, then at Naomi’s weak point, Ruth became a witness to her.  Naomi does what she thinks is best, and Ruth tells her that this is not what is best for her.  What is truly best for her is to remain in the faith, remain with her mother-in-law and trust in God to provide for both of them.  The teacher becomes the student, the witness gets witnessed to.  And then of course as we know the rest of the story, God does provide for both women.  He not only provides them with daily necessities, but gives Ruth a new husband.  It is through this new marriage that the line of Christ will be passed on.  God not only provided for them, He used Ruth, who had become a witness, for the purpose of His plan of salvation.  Ruth’s witness to Naomi directly affected the spread of the Gospel, in the sense that she would be part of the linage of King David and eventually Christ Himself who is the Gospel.  Ruth’s witness was for the glory of God and is a part of the Gospel narrative.
            God gave Ruth the faith to be a witness to her mother-in-law in order to continue His plan of salvation, just as God gives us the faith to be a witness to the world around us in order to further the spread of His Gospel.  Jesus was the perfect witness.  He was a witness to Himself.  Through His birth to a virgin, through His baptism where the Father spoke from Heaven and said, “This is my beloved Son”, through His death on the cross where He cried out, “It is finished”, and through His resurrection where He defeated death once and for all, He was a witness that God exists, God is faithful to His Word, and God has won salvation for His people.  Then after His resurrection we see His message to His disciples in our Gospel reading for today.  Jesus tells the disciples, “You are witnesses of these things, You are witnesses to my life, death, and resurrection which is the Gospel message of forgiveness of sins and eternal life.”  Christ was a witness to them, preaching to them the truth of the Gospel, and then called them to be witnesses to all nations.  We today are still called to be witnesses of the same Gospel, proclaiming Christ crucified to all nations, proclaiming forgiveness of sins to all those around us.  But God does not expect us to do this alone.  No, just as Naomi who had been a witness to Ruth, needed Ruth to be a witness back to her, we too witness to those who have never heard the message before, but need to still be witnesses to each other as well.  When we make those decisions of an easier life, security over our faith, we need those around us to be witnesses to us. We need to be reminded when we make those wrong choices that there is forgiveness. When we are weak and make the bad decisions like Naomi did, there are witnesses around us like Ruth to remind us that God’s saving grace does grant us forgiveness.  He is strong no matter how weak we are at times.  We have the faith that calls us back to Him, and we have been given faithful witnesses to keep us firm to that faith. Some days you are going to be a witness to your children reminding them God has gifts to give them in church, but then the next day they might be a witness back to you reminding you that God will provide at all times.  We are called to be witnesses to the world and to each other.  The LWML does a great job of this through the use of their mites, their quilting, and their support of the Gospel worldwide, and yet they are still witnesses to each other sending birthday cards, visiting the shut ins, and supporting each other.  These ladies have shown us how to be both a witness to the world and a witness to each other.  Preaching and proclaiming the death and resurrection of Christ, preaching and proclaiming the forgiveness of sins to all nations, and holding each other firm to that Gospel message they proclaim.  We all are witnesses.  We are witnesses, both by our words proclaiming the truth of the Gospel, but also by our actions of trusting in God to provide all things, keeping Him as the most important factor in all our decisions.  He calls us to be witnesses, but He also gives us the witnesses.  He gives us each other as witnesses, and He also gave us the perfect Witness of our savior Christ.  Knowing the truth of this Gospel, that it is by His grace and mercy alone that we have our salvation, we pray He gives us the strength to be witnesses in everything we do and say so that His Gospel may be heard, believed, and firmly clung to by all. In the name of the one, true, perfect Witness, Jesus Christ.  Amen.  

October

     Greetings in the name of our Victorious King!  Also, happy October, where does the time go?!  I do not have huge post today, but am trying to do better with keeping up with this.  Hopefully you are OK with shorter ones more often (actually that's probably exactly what everyone wants).  Saturday, we had tailgating at the Jackrabbits game for the students to stop by and eat some food.  The Jacks played North Dakota State University.  They are ranked number one in our division and some of you might recognize them since they just upset K-State a few weeks ago.  We actually held them to fewer points than K-State did, but our offense never put a point on the board.  We lost 20 to 0; however, it was 7 to 0 until the fourth quarter when our defense finally was just too tired from playing the entire game.  The weather was perfect, chilly with a little breeze, for a late-September Saturday football game.  I am loving the fall weather.
     Then Sunday we had a lawn games and hot dog roast day for the students at a member's house.  We played a few games of bags (corn hole), but the wind was pretty bad.  We grilled some hot dogs over the fire.  They have a huge and deep fire pit made of giant rocks so even in the wind we were able to have a fire.  Then we went inside their beautiful house for dessert and Bible study.  Since it was St. Michael and all angels day, we had out Bible study on angels and demons.  The students seemed really interested and it was one of our best ones yet I think.
     I am busy trying to keep up with all the everyday stuff on top of doing everything I possibly can to spend time with the students.  We have an IM volleyball team, which I am allowed to play on since I am a student.  I played with them for the first time last night and it was a blast.  We lost the first one, but won the second game.  I am also trying to work ahead this week, because Monday through Wednesday next week is our Pastor's Conference for the whole district in Rapid City, SD.  The biggest thing I am upset about is missing another class.  About one fourth of the class got to do repelling today, but we were on limited time.  Next week the whole class is going to be doing multiple repels from various heights in the gym, and I won't be there.  However, he did say he would come in some time to do it with groups, so I am going to try to sign up a time with him for the college students and I to go in and do it.  I think they would thoroughly enjoy that.
     My thought for the day comes from Adult Confirmation Class last week.  We just started and have two new members attending.  One of the new member's boyfriend, who is already LCMS, is coming with her too.  However, Pastor Wurm was trying to explain why our confessions, (Book of Concord for the LCMS) are so important.  He used this analogy which I told him I was going to steal.  Picture the church as a ship.  It's floating in the water off the coast, and a huge storm arises.  It drops its anchor to help hold it from crashing into the rocks along the shore, or being blown off course.  The church is the ship and the anchor is the Word of God, or Jesus who is the Word.  He is the one who holds us firm and keeps us steady during the storm.  The storm is culture and society trying to bring us down or get us to change our ways.  However, the anchor is what holds the ship firm, but the anchor is only as good as the chain that holds it to the ship.  So the anchor is the Word of God, it holds us firm.  But without a strong chain to hold us to the anchor, we will still be blown off course or into the rocks.  The chain is our doctrine or confessions.  The Book of Concord is what holds us firm to the Word of God which is our anchor.  That is why the Lutheran Church holds its confessions so high and important, because without them, we cannot continue to cling to the Word.  I thought it was a really powerful and yet simple analogy that helps explain the use of each part.  The Book of Concord is not the Word of God, it is simply our doctrine that keeps us faithful to the Word of God.  Maybe this will help clarify for some of you or at the very least give you a new way to look at it.  All Praise be to Him who gave us both His Word and our confessions to help us remain faithful to Him.  All Praise be to our anchor who does hold us firm in all the storms of life.
Dear Heavenly Father, 
Be and abide with Your church, never letting her be misguided or blown off course, but give her Your Spirit to hold her ever firm to You and Your Truth.  In the name of Your Son, who is the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus Christ. Amen.