Below is an excerpt from an article titled, “Content of Lutheran Education,” that appeared in the November 2023 issue of “The Lutheran Witness.” A copy of this magazine is in our church library. The author is The Rev. Dr. Adam Koontz. I've known him for many years, going back to when he was a student at Swathmore College, located in a suburb of Philadelphia. At the time he wasn't yet Lutheran, but he became one and joined St. Mark's Lutheran Church. The congregation recognized his gifts and changed the constitution so that he could be elected as their president. So, he was the young president of the congregation when they called me to be their pastor. He soon was off to attend seminary in Ft. Wayne. He was called back to the Philly greater area as a pastor, worked on his doctorate, and eventually was called back to teach at the seminary. He has since left there and entered back into parish ministry. I count him as a friend, a colleague in the ministry, and along with many others recognize the great gifts with which God has blessed him, to be a blessing to our church body.

            Our congregation has a few children. This article is not only an encouragement to give our children a great Christ-centered Lutheran education, but to remind parents that they are the first and primary teachers of the Faith to their children. There is nothing as important as the children seeing their own parents give priority to God's Word in their home lives (prayers and devotions/bible stories with the children, bringing them up with the instruction, patience, grace and love of our Lord modeled for them) and gathering weekly for church service. Our congregation also has tuition funds available for those parents who are interested in sending their children to a Lutheran school. Talk to me or our Board of Education members Mert and Star Troeger about this. Here's the excerpt:

What overcomes indifference (in our children to the Christian faith, because we might act like there are more important matters than God and His teaching)? Knowing God from His Word. The knowledge of the Bible creates love of God, not indifference. It guards against the hatred of God taught to our children by all kinds of other sources and all kinds of other schools. Let them go to school in God’s school and to learn to know Him directly from His Word. Little ones can begin with Bible stories learned over and over again until they can tell you when you have got a detail wrong, just as they do with the stories you read to them. They will let you know if you have too many or too few people on Noah’s ark or what kind of tree Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus. Let them go from there with the particulars in place to a personal knowledge of Scripture, so that they grow in time to know its particulars and its generalities, the specifics of this or that book of the book and the unity it all has in Christ.

What overcomes indifference? Knowing the Divine Service. Let everything else be put aside so that the child can be in the Divine Service. Let him learn to listen to the Scripture readings and to the sermon. Let him learn to examine himself, confess his sins, and receive God’s forgiveness. Let him learn Christ’s Words and believe them firmly so that he can partake of the body and the blood of his Lord. The Bible and the catechism will not lead him to mere head knowledge. They will lead him to the Divine Service on Sunday and bring him full in head and heart back to what he learns Monday through Friday.

            If you teach him to treasure the Bible, the catechism and the Divine Service, he will. And what else is a Lutheran than someone who loves God’s Word, the confession of our faith and the gifts of Christ? If we want our children to be Lutherans, let them love these things that Lutherans love. Teaching and schooling are not matters of mere head knowledge; a child is always learning from the people and situations around him. Our children learn from us. What we treasure, they will consider treasuring and will finally treasure themselves. What we despise, they will consider despising and despise themselves.

Teach your children to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and their neighbors as themselves. Teach them the Bible that shows them their living God. Teach them the catechism that shows them how His truth fits together. Teach them that the Divine Service matters more than lacrosse, dance practice, video games or anything else because in it their God is present for their life and their peace and their joy.

Pastor Engler here again: While this article by Dr. Koontz is mainly about parents and their children, we have members of all ages who have been gone from the weekly Services for too long, not just weeks, or months. I pray you are not part of the general “de-churching” that America is experiencing. In another context, when many of Jesus' disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him, Jesus said to the twelve: “Do you want to go away as well?” (John 6:66-67; I hope you know how Peter answered!) This pains not only your pastor, and the board of lay ministry who is tasked with watching out for your spiritual welfare, but the whole congregation. I preached a sermon before leaving on my trip to Korea, based on the “disbelieving Thomas” story, wherein I said that the members in attendance should “see” those who are missing. We need them/you. And, they/you need us. We should go get them, like the disciples went and told Thomas that Jesus is alive, with forgiveness and peace. Like Thomas during that week of his “disbelief,” those apart from Jesus cannot experience peace and joy in life. Jesus said to Thomas, and those he represents: “Do not disbelieve, but believe!”

            Let me leave you with a great response from a member when I said, “See you at Service!” She responded in the words of Psalm 122:1: “I was glad when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD!”'   Be glad! And, you will be, because of the...

                                                                                           Blessings in our Risen Lord Jesus!

Pastor Engler