Jesus Speaks about a change/movement in the Old Testament

Jesus Speaks!!! Honestly, this isn’t something new, but what if I told you Jesus spoke in the Old Testament long before He rend the heavens and came down to us. What did he say? What is our response? What does Chuck E. Cheese, Back to the Future, Superman, and the Wizard of Oz have to do with all this? Only one way to find out…

New Blog Logo is finally here

After almost a year of nudging my Manager of Graphical Artist aka WAth… I have a new blog logo. Now, I have a few days left of free time to blog until my fingers hurt. Maybe…

Orientation Day 2

Just another brief synopsis on the second day of Orientation through my eyes. Since there wasn’t chapel scheduled during these days today we were led by in devotion by Dr. Hartung with song from the mass of 1st years in the room.  A sign of what was to come on Sunday afternoon I assume.

One of the things I forgot from yesterday was the presentation on Pastoral Formation Outcomes as presented by Rev. Tim Saleska. I won’t go over it, but I will print the 15 desired outcomes. I think they’re self-explanatory.

1. The student adheres to the apostolic faith as set forth in the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions.
2. The student exhibits a life shaped by the centrality of the Gospel.
3. The student interprets reality theologically.
4. The student speaks for the Lord and his purposes.
5. The student exhibits a zeal for proclaiming the Gospel to all people.
6. The student respects and accepts the creaturely diversities that exists among people.
7. The student aspires to life-long growth in theological understanding, spiritual formation, and vocational skills.
8. The student preaches the Word of God faithfully.
9. The student teaches the faith of the church capably.
10. The student serves the assembled gathering in worship with Word and Sacrament and supports the assembly’s response of prayer and praise.
11. The student demonstrates faithful pastoral care.
12. The student provides appropriate pastoral leadership.
13. The student speaks the Word fo God to those outside the faith.
14. The student equips the priesthood of the baptized within their walk of life for works of service.
15. The student fosters healthy relationships with family, laity, colleagues, and community members.

Editors Note: Capitalization of “Word” and “Sacrament” in 10 were done by myself.

Now back to day two.  We continued with what type of student would we be now. We were given examples of the mindset of jumping through hoops to reach a desired outcome. Another mindset was plowing through the course work to get to the parish. Yet, another mindset was being opened to being formed into a pastor for whatever situation is your calling.  We then broke into small groups again to discuss the type of student we wanted to be and the introducing yourself to some people we’ve yet to meet.  Oddly enough some still considered this to be a means to an end. Very unfortunate as there is a wealth of knowledge and experience at CSL that will no doubt prepare us for the ministry.

As we came back together as a larger group we were administered a personality exam.  While answering the questions everyone would laugh as reached certain questions. Then asked again in a different format.  I think by this time in life just about everyone has taken one of these types of exams. Either for work or during our schooling.  We departed from this session for lunch in Wartburg.

Key terms taken away from our two days with Dr. Hartung:

altar call: I point in our ministry/lives where we must make a decision. A gut check or life changing decision.

drink, yell, & masturbation: When presented with spiritual warfare will you result to turning to a liquor, lashing out to those around you, or will you turn sexual immorality. Note: The correct answer is none of the above.

The second half of our day was spent in Koburg. We started off with a brief introduction to the “Business Side of Seminary”. Basically, we were showing how to use SemNet to view our balances. Campus Services in an attempt to make the review of the handbook fun split us into teams of 8.  Now those 10 teams were to compete against each other in handbook trivia. Coincidentally, 10 rounds of trivia covering each facet of seminary life. Each round had 9 questions. Suffice to say the competitive nature was alive and well at the beginning through the first 3-5 rounds.  After that point it became mundane. We were still listening, but it seem to just drag on a little too long for most. Keep in mind at this point we had been should to shoulder in lectures,presentations, and eating for 9hrs on Wednesday and at this point 8hrs on Thursday. I think we all just needed some time away to decompress and rebuild our personal space.  Don’t get me wrong it was a great idea and there was a ton of info to cover.  We did learn a number of things we wouldn’t have known via handbook. For instance Lisa S. is the longest tenure Admissions office employee through her combined tours of duty with the office. I think I heard close to or maybe over 20 years.  That was something we all can appreciate as during your application process we all may have talked to Lisa more than our admissions counselors.

We finished with the trivia and now it was time for the group photo with all the first year students in the main quad. It was warm, close quartered, and jokes never stopped. Whenever, the photo comes out see if you can find yourself in the mass of faces.

Later that night many of us returned with our spouses and families to Luther Statue Park for a picnic provided by Lutheran Hour Ministries. We heard numerous speakers including Rev. Dr. Ken Klaus. As always we broke bread, met new people, and watched kids play in the park. Great fellowship event as we now saw each other interacting with our wives and families.  All the 1st year receiveda presents for LHM in the form of a nice Men’s Network bottle opener and “What Luther Says” by Plass.  The wives in attendance also received I believe bookmarks and something else from “Women to Women” host and program.

Rev. Gibbs and his wife also attended and I’m pretty sure introduced themselves to everyone.  They’ve done a remarkable job atremembering names and faces in such a short amount of time. Mrs Gibbs leads a women’s bible study weekly.  After most people had dispersed the Ekongs, Millers, and Starfeldts sat at a table where our wives shared how we met and wound up at seminary. For the men this was interesting to hear someone else tell the story as over the past couple of days we’ve told it to each other no less than 5-8 times. 🙂