Pastor Joe Burnham, a classmate from the seminary and good friend of mine is a missionary in Denver.  He has a number of projects going and one of them is just now coming online – literally online – on the internet.  It’s called “Life in the Fishbowl.”  In Joe’s own words, the site has two major goals: 

This is the manuscript of the sermon I preached for Sunrise service this Easter morning.  The Scripture text is John 20:1-18. 

Lent is a liturgical season of the Church during which we prepare for the celebration of Christ’s resurrection – the festival of Easter.  Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (this year on February 6^th) and concludes the day before Easter. 

A parishioner once asked me, “Why did you need to learn Greek and Hebrew?  The Bible has already been translated for us?  Is Greek really all that necessary?”  I responded with a wholehearted “Yes!”  When we read the Old and New Testaments in English, we are reading a translation – someone else’s translation of the original.  I then used an analogy originally given by my Greek professor:

A couple of weeks ago, one of my classmates from the Seminary died - losing his long battle with brain cancer.  I was thinking about writing a note to his family or a message in his online condolence book.  I wanted to write something about how he was an example of faith for all of us.  But then I got to thinking, “Was he a model of faith, or is he a model of faith?”

A couple of months ago, I attended the Texas District Church Planting Conference at Tapatio Springs, TX (beautiful resort in the Hill Country).  Hope Lutheran has, along with a number of other congregations in the District, been challenged to plant another congregation within the next 10 years.  The goal of the District is to plant 200 new congregations by 2017. 

Did you see the Today Show last week?  They aired a segment on Ave Maria, FL – a planned community centered around a large Roman Catholic parish called “The Oratory.”    In addition, a New Roman Catholic university is planned as part of the core of the town.  The developers, including Dominos Pizza founder, Tom Monaghan, dreamed of creating the first major Catholic university in the United States in more than 40 years built within a town with Christian values in-line with Roman

Joe Burnham is a good friend of mine and a classmate from the Seminary.  He is pastor of Genesis Denver – a mission of the LCMS in downtown Denver, CO.  I was perusing his blog yesterday and ran across this post .  Even though, as a Cardinal fan, I can’t really understand how Joe could possibly have an emotional response to the Colorado Rockies, I agree with his points

For all of you married or soon-to-be married guys out there.  I want to recommend an eye-opening book.  It’s called For Men Only – a straightforward guide to the inner lives of women written by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn.  It will totally change your understanding and interaction with your better half. How can men possibly understand what goes on in the mind of women

My parents just got back from a trip to Holland and Belgium.  They toured on a riverboat that cruised the extensive canal system crisscrossing both countries.  And, of course, after getting back to the States, they had plenty to talk about – the canals, the tulips, the people, and the churches.  Well, just the church buildings – there weren’t any worshippers.  My parents told me that nobody – absolutely nobody attends church in Holland.  The churches that have not