This morning, after the kids and my wife left for work, I felt a need to worship. I was still in my pajamas in the parsonage, so I considered getting dressed and walking across the lawn to sing and pray Matins (Morning Prayer) by myself in our sanctuary. Perhaps it was out of laziness, but for some reason I found that idea unappealing. I thought to myself, “I really just want to pray as a person in the pew and not the person leading the service.” So, I stayed in my pajamas, clicked on the YouTube app on our TV, and searched for recorded Matins services that use our same hymnal setting. I was a little surprised that there were not more out there (Lutherans have gone incredibly digital these last few years!), but I eventually found a few and decided to sing and pray along with an ELCA pastor from a church I did not recognize by name from a place that I did not bother to look up. Though I did not know the person leading me in prayer through the internet, I was very familiar with the prayers he prayed, the canticles we sang together, and the scriptures that we read. Across time and distance, we were united in our faith through technological tools. I found myself surprisingly renewed through the experience. Our worship was simple, but I felt prayed over in new ways and my faith was strengthened to serve the church another day. The service was fairly basic (probably due to the fact that it was recorded in the first month of shutdown), but it was good, honest, faithful, and sacred.
           
The experience got me thinking about how many aspects of ministry have gone digital lately, and there are many reasons we can be grateful to God for the fact that faith is now shared, encouraged, and renewed online. Just as people now have made massive moves to shopping online instead of in stores downtown, banking is no longer restricted to paper checks and cash, people’s dating lives have gone digital, and we can even go to school online now, it seemed like only a matter of time that faith and spirituality began to be shared in a similar way. Online, we can now worship in the Washington National Cathedral, old sanctuaries throughout Europe, or locally here at Faith Lutheran Church in Ronan, Montana. No longer does a church require the grandeur and high production value of a mega-church to televangelize their worship. The internet has made it possible for a humble pastor in a small town to be led in morning prayer by another pastor with a simple laptop in front of him, a church wall with a homemade version of DaVinci’s The Last Supper behind him, and a clergy collar around his neck. Personally, I find this much more powerful than TV preachers who lead far larger churches, with far bigger budgets, and far higher salaries. God has always blessed the small, and He did again this morning.
           
This is not to say everything is better online. At the end of the day, I still take that experience with me alone. If I did not write about it for you today, I am not sure that I would ever be inspired to share it with anybody else. There is not much to tell, really. Nevertheless, it was significant. It was one experience of many in which digital ministry has blessed the world in new ways. Some churches who went online quickly out of necessity to protect worshippers during the pandemic have moved away from online ministry just as quickly. I disagree with their approach, because I believe that there are new blessings found in our new ways of doing sharing the Gospel. I am grateful that we continue to do the work of connecting in-person when we can, and grateful that we connect online as we are called to, as well.
           
May we all continue to find God in ways old and new, in-person and online, through old spaces and new technologies, and continue to trust that God promises to be forever present to us in love, no matter the format.
​
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

There are many things in life we should leave behind. As we grow, there are clothes and shoes that we should no longer wear when they get too small. As we age, there are immaturities and trivial endeavors that should be left behind later in adulthood. There are bad habits that, though they certainly do die hard, should be left in the past if possible. There are toxic ways of thinking that we should do our best to move on from. There are sins that we should always be repenting of.
           
Sadly anymore, too many people think that repentance is for suckers. They believe that saying your sorry and turning over a new leaf in life shows that you are weak somehow. Admitting your faults does indeed involve being honest about your faults, but far too many people think that the work of changing for the better is somehow beneath them. While they would probably not go so far as to say they are perfect, they would also say they are not in dire need of improvement because to do so would mean that they have much in them that is wrong and needs correcting.
           
As Christians, we are commanded to repent. Our ritual of practicing confession and forgiveness requires that we confess our sins before we are forgiven of them. Jesus often told people he healed to “Go now, sin no more,” with the expectation that they would live a repentant life after having encountered the incarnate God on earth. Throughout the Old and New Testaments, the worst sins are not often described as people being uniquely evil or imperfect, but rather that they are uniquely unrepentant for the sins that they contribute to the milieu of human misdeeds. Repentance is central to the Christian life.
           
​Entering 2023, I invite you to think of new ways that you might be repentant this year. Do you have a bad attitude towards others or toxic traits to your personality that you need to work on? I invite you to turn away from them and turn towards loving others in new ways. Are you distrustful of God’s role and place in your life? Turn away from your distrust and place your faith in God’s direction for your life in 2023. Do you have harmful habits like eating or drinking too much, overworking at the neglect of your personal life, not prioritizing family relationships like you should, or the myriad of other sinful habits that we are inclined to fall into human beings? I encourage you to make a change. Walk away from the sins that have held you down and step into the Way of God – the Way of repentance.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

In this year of our Lord, 2022, Protestants in general and Lutherans in particular celebrate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s translation of the New Testament from Greek to German. Though this was not the first time these books of the Bible were translated into a common language of Europeans, Luther’s version served as a powerful and profound work of the Protestant Reformation to bring scripture into language that people of all classes, careers, and ages, could understand. For the first time in centuries, common people could hear the Good News of Jesus Christ read directly in a language they used to sing their children to sleep, joke around with their friends, and tell their spouses that they loved them. No longer were they forced to learn Latin before they could read the Gospel – now they could hear it proclaimed over their lives directly in deeply personal ways.
With more translations of the Bible than we know what to do with anymore, it can be easy to take this history for granted. Imagine, though, if you will, that you were only able to hear, “Sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam”? Would it mean much to you? Instead, we hear, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who ever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). To me, as an English speaker, this translation of the Good News of Jesus Christ is far more important than the Latin Vulgate. For that, we celebrate the work of Martin Luther and the work that he did to change the church and change the world.
           
​The work of translating the Good News into every day language continues to this day, though in different ways. The translating work we do one a daily basis does not require one to learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew (though some of us still labor away at that kind of work, too!), but, instead, is the work of us translating ancient teachings about the grace, love, mercy, and goodness of God into the lives we live. We regularly interpret how these attributes of our Lord engage and encourage us in our every day lives. Martin Luther was locked away in his stay at Wartburg Castle while he pondered what the ancient words he labored over meant in German, but we do something similar when we carry our faith through the fields of the Mission Valley, the hallways and classrooms of our school districts, the offices where we work, the houses we keep up, and the forests where we hike, hunt, and fish. The eternal truths that encourage our faith are translated anew each and every day as we show the love of God to every new person we encounter and work to find divine encouragement with every passing moment. The Good News comes to us not only in English or whatever language we are most comfortable with, but also through the hope that we share as we inhabit the world that God created for us and for all living things.
           
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

I just dropped off my kids for their first day of school this morning. The first day of school is a significant rite of passage every year for many families – families with young students all the way up to those beginning graduate programs. There are new teachers to meet, new friends to make, new classrooms to navigate, new lockers to get situated in, and all sorts of new experiences in between. For kids like our daughter, Freja, this rite of passage is all the more pronounced since she is entering a new school for the first time as a kindergartner. She is growing quickly and her entry into a new school mark that she is growing up.
           
At the same time, new school milestones are so regular that they can seem almost routine and ordinary. While there are all sorts of “new” firsts for our young students, these are the same milestones that their parents went through, just the same as their grandparents did before them (albeit with some changes in technology along the way!). The practice of teaching the next generation knowledge and curiosity about the world is as ancient as the human race. We pass on what we know to the best of our ability and do our best to raise up the next generation of smart, capable adults who can keep things running for just a bit longer. Many thanks to all the teachers, educators, and administrators who make this happen!
           
Our lives of faith are much the same. Though some things have changed in the church over the last few decades and centuries, our practices are much the same as they were a few thousand years ago. While we read scriptures in modern English now, the texts that were once read in ancient Greek and Latin proclaim the same Gospel that we hear in our own tongue and in our own time. Our baptismal liturgies have changed some over the years, but the practice itself is older than even John the Baptist at the river Jordan. Our practices of communing around the table have changed a bit since that first Holy Supper between Jesus and his disciples in the upper room, but we still eat the bread and drink the wine much the same as those original twelve did before Judas betrayed Jesus to the authorities. There are lots of routines in our lives of faith that can seem almost ordinary at times.
           
Yet, much like a new student entering the classroom for the first time in months or even the first time ever, we all encounter the mystery and wonder of our faith anew in our own lifetimes. Generations have been baptized for centuries in more or less the same way, but there is something powerful and wonderful that happens with each new baptism that occurs in our own time. The bread and the wine are elements of renewal and rebirth that we experience every week around the table. The Good News of Jesus Christ can renew our hope in new and powerful ways, no matter how many times we have heard it preached over our lives. This month, we will start our programs of 3F (Faith, Family, and Friends) geared towards students in Kindergarten through 6th grade, 406 Church geared towards our high school students, and our Sunday morning Bible Study focusing on the book of Genesis. These programs all seek to teach the ancient faith that has been passed down with great regularity through the generations so that hearts and minds might receive it in ways that are new and exciting once again.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

A lot has been happening in our church lately. After years of brainstorming, discussions, visioning, and voting, we finally have new structural supports in place so that we can open more space in the narthex. This will enable us to put in a decent ramp into the sanctuary (the one we have used for years is hazardously steep) and open more space for fellowship after worship. You have probably also noticed that we have moved our office spaces as part of this project. The Pastor’s Study is back in the original sacristy, and we have converted two of our hallway classrooms into the new church office space. We are still completing a few parts of this move, but we have come a long way in improving our building for its current use. We are looking forward to how improved accessibility and use of our space will benefit our community and ministry down the road. Many thanks to Gordon Granley who has gone above and beyond, putting in long hours to make this happen, as well as to others who have helped along the way!
             
There has been a lot happening in our nation as of late, too. As I write this, I am processing the news that a deranged gunman in small town like ours in Texas shot up an elementary school yesterday, leaving over 20 dead. Most of his victims were children. In the past few weeks, there has also been a mass shooting at a grocery store and a church. Murderous violence has claimed the lives of Americans of all ages and races recently; from children learning at school, grandparents shopping for food, to Christians praying in church. This morning my son, in a very matter of fact tone, said, “People love to kill other people in America these days.” The image of our nation that we have allowed to form in the minds of our youngsters is one of violence and rage, not peace and prosperity. Lest you think he has this image just because we watch the news in our house, I quickly explained that the incidents he was hearing about are the reason he had to go into lockdown on his very first day of public school as a kindergartener here in Ronan. It is difficult to be raising up the next generation to face unprecedented levels of violence and domestic terrorism.
           
In many ways, though, this is nothing new. Though we like to think of our world as modern and enlightened, the callousness people show toward one another and the evil we endure together is as ancient as our stories of creation. In fact, the older I get, the more I believe in sin – sin that is pervasive, long lasting, often difficult to acknowledge, but even harder to endure. Whether it be the sins of addiction that orphan children in their own homes, the sins of members of one race trying to terrorize those of another through violence, the sins of drunk drivers who claim innocent lives on highway 93, the sins of greed that displace locals, drive up prices, and collude against farmers and ranchers, or the sin of mass murder, the evils of the world swell up around us constantly and persistently, no matter how enlightened and exceptional we might envision our world to be.
           
​Still, I am drawn to recall the words of psalm 23 that my church had me memorize when I was roughly my son’s age – though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil (Psalm 23:4). Though our neighbors rage against us, God does not. God binds up the wounds of the brokenhearted, comforts those suffer evil, and guides those who journey beneath the shadow of death. It is for such times as these that we believe in a future that God provides – one which is infinitely better than the present we are providing for ourselves and for our children. It is for such times as this that we place our trust in Christ’s resurrection which confounds the deaths planned by spirits of malice or the cowardice of indifference. It is for such a time as this as we exhort one another to love our neighbors as ourselves and teach our children the way of peace, so that the way of the cross might lead us beyond such godless evils.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

Upon writing this, I have recently returned from my first in-person Montana Synod event in at least two and a half years. My colleagues and I have met online for Zoom meetings and convocations, but we have not physically gathered together in years. While I am grateful that we have been spared driving thousands of miles of travel across Montana and Wyoming these past few years, I have to say that the collegiality and community that we experience when we meet in-person cannot be matched by get-togethers on computers. It felt good to be in the same space with my fellow pastors again.
           
There are many reasons that online connections feel different than being in the same physical space. For one thing, when we meet others online, we meet them two-dimensionally. This is all that our computers, tablets, and phones allow for. We only see one another on screens as having height and width, but never depth. I, for one, have felt that lack of depth with my colleagues, and I also felt the difference it made to finally meet in the same physical space again, almost immediately. Additionally, it takes a great amount of intentionality to meet online. Unlike running into someone at the grocery store, at a local high school game, or even at the office, planning to meet with others online takes a lot more effort than simply running into somebody around town. This usually has meant that our online conversations have been much more focused and serious than the small talk that we usually gab about when we meet in the same physical space. It can make a group’s conversation feel more two-dimensional, as well. When our gatherings are all planned, it can feel like we constantly need to stay on topic in how we speak with one another, never straying to talking about how we are doing or other chit-chat like that.
           
What I think was the biggest difference about finally being able to meet in-person once again was, in the end, all the small stuff. In conversation, it was priceless to share in small talk about where new pastors in the synod have come from and what old friends have been up to since we last met face to face. In relationship, we finally had another opportunity to go fishing, have our kids play together, and enjoy the pool in one another’s presence. It is the little things of our lives that really bring us close to each other, and the more little things we are able to commiserate with friends over, the closer we are able to be.
           
This experience has led me to realize that God knows us fully through the little things, too. We do not only come to know God through the largesse of the cosmos or the massive expanse of the history of the universe. We also know our Lord through the small moments of encountering God moving in our lives on a daily basis. Likewise, God does not solely know us by our careers, our school transcripts, our reputations, our legacies, or other achievements in the material world, but also by our deepest selves from the inside out. God knows us by our small passions and prayers, our unique interests, our fears, our small joys and pleasures, and everything in between. God knows us and loves us from the littlest parts of ourselves on up to the greatest bits of who we are. There is no part of us that is too small to save, and part of the grand wonder of Christ’s salvation is that the most miniscule, personal parts of ourselves are saved first so that big things may follow.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

I am open to criticisms that I do not preach about Hell enough. Some preachers like to fill their congregations with fear about eternal damnation so that they might better provoke their people to lean into their hope of heaven and eternal reward. I am not one of those preachers, but it is nevertheless important that we understand our beliefs about Hell and why they are important. Hell is the Germanic term for “realm of the dead”, most often termed Hades in our Greek Christian sources. Hell or Hades features centrally in the story of our salvation, as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus “descended to the dead” before rising again on Easter morning. Jesus did not make the journey to his resurrection without going to Hell first, so we should not try to sidestep it either.
           
I do not preach about Hell as much as some other pastors, though, because I believe that hellish experiences of pain, suffering, grief, and despair surround is in this world all on their own. There is little need for pastors to push more of these experiences on people through our preaching. Those in the pulpit do not need to lead parishioners into the realm of the dead since we mortals lose loved ones all the time. Preachers do not need to lead people to moments of anxiety, fear, or despair, since the world will bring us there anyway. Pastors do not need to shepherd people into the grip of the demonic in order for them to appreciate the hand of God in their life since evil will reach out to grab at us anyway. Whether we like it or not, sin, death, and the Devil are as much present and on the move in our contemporary world as in the ancient world that Jesus inhabited.
           
Yet, the good news that we celebrate again this Easter season is that the Son of God descended into Hell and was resurrected from it. He also knew what it was to lose. He also knew what it was to be tempted to be afraid, anxious, or despairing. He knew what it was to face down demons (literally). He experienced death like the rest of us will, one day or another. He took on these hellish experiences of pain, suffering, grief, despair, and death itself, so that he might save us from them all. He did all of this by dying, descending into Hell, and rising again on the third day – Easter Sunday.
           
With this profound truth in mind, we will shout again on Easter morning, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” He is risen from the worst, so that we may be resurrected with him to the best that is yet to come. 

The second to last weekend in February, I took some time with my family. A gift we received this Christmas was money to rent an Airbnb, so we decided to book a house in Kalispell and spend Saturday and Sunday skiing with our kids at Big Mountain. (Otto would correct me right now and insist that I was snowboarding, not skiing, but that is beside the point…)! Our family aspiration this winter has been to get our kids up the mountain and finally teach them the sport of downhill skiing that we are so fond of. It is important that you love where you live, and enjoying the outdoors goes a long way towards enjoying the wonders of Montana.
           
On Saturday, however, things did not turn out so wonderfully for me. As we were headed down one of the easy, green runs for beginners, I decided to have a little fun and go through a small patch of trees. I do this all the time, so I did not think to be extra worried or cautious. It turns out that I should have been a little more wary on this section than I realized. Towards the end of this particular patch of trees, the snow had melted off a fallen log right under the path I was planning to take – a danger that caught me by surprise. I tried to make an extra wide turn around the exposed hazard, but my efforts failed. The log grabbed the edge of my board and threw me to the ground, ribs first - hard, fast, and likely hitting the end of the log that had brought this all about. The fall was more painful than any I have experienced in years. I got up, continued on, and tried to make a few more runs. Yet, the pain in my rib cage was so acute and persistent that I knew I needed to check if I had broken anything and make sure that my lungs were okay.
           
Fortunately, when we headed to the urgent care clinic in Whitefish, we received the all-clear that my ribs and lungs were intact. I only need to rest for the contusion to heal itself over the next few weeks. Unfortunately, the pain from this fall is still surprisingly debilitating. This is another setback in a season of setbacks. Over the past month of life and ministry I have had to stay home for multiple close contacts with COVID-19, had to suspend ministry activities, lost my grandmother, and now had my weekend of family recuperation interrupted by a rib injury that has left me reeling in physical pain. It kind of feels like the hits just keep on coming. (Pun intended).
           
​Yet these worldly setbacks give me opportunities to practice what I preach and place my hope, trust, faith, and love in the capable hands of our Lord who transcends our physical limitations and setbacks. The life of the Christian is not defined by the material possessions, worldly comforts, or the eases that this life affords to some, but, instead, by the hope that transcends and overcomes all adversity that we face in our lives. Suffering does not mean that God is absent, but rather provides moments for us to realize God’s presence and comfort more wholly and completely. This month, we journey into the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday with the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words are ominous but true. Our mortal flesh often proves to be little more than dust on its way home. Nevertheless, we trust that God does miraculous things amid all the chaos we encounter in this world - even with simple piles of dirt.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

At my alma mater, Valparaiso University, the campus chapel is kind of a big deal. It is so big, in fact, that it is the largest campus chapel in the United States, and second largest campus chapel in the world. At the time when construction began, 1959, many people accused the campus president, a Lutheran pastor, of using the chapel building project to pad his ego. He stated, though, that the large building would be a shining symbol of the faith of faculty and students at the time, and a giant symbol of shame to future generations if they ever strayed from it. I agree with him and like to think about our church buildings as monuments to the faith of our ancestors, beckoning us to keep placing our hope and trust in God, long into the future.
              
Worshipping within the walls of Valpo’s chapel as a student, I was often drawn to one of the building’s smallest symbols – a “Cross of Nails” made from the rubble of Coventry Cathedral in Coventry, England – a cathedral which was bombed by the German Luftwaffe in 1940. The cross is not very big –  maybe only six inches by eight inches or so. It is positively dwarfed by the bigness of the symbols all around it. The large ceilings, tall walls, and massive windows make the cross look tiny by comparison. The large altar with a towering cross at the front, make the small cross formed from war torn debris look insignificant in comparison. The stained-glass windows fill the chapel with color and magnificent imagery from the front, while the nail cross is about as gray and drab as you would expect. Even the organ at the back of the chapel, the largest in all northwest Indiana, dominates the space with massive sound whereas I doubt you would even hear the Cross of Nails from one end of the chapel to the other if it happened to fall off its stand. The tiny cross is made to seem even tinier by all the bigness that surrounds it.
              
Yet, that small cross, which is made to seem so much smaller by all the largesse which surrounds it, is a glorious symbol of the endurance of faith. The nails held the sanctuary together in England for centuries before it was destroyed. The nails formed sacred space for prayer and worship. They held the walls and structure together that secured the faithful within, guarding them as they sought out safety and spiritual rest from the outside world. The nails helped to surround the faithful for generations, before finally succumbing to violence from the sky in the last century. Still, despite the destruction these nails suffered at the hands of the Nazis, they endured and were redeemed in profound ways that the magnificence of Valpo’s campus chapel will never match. They kept their form to remind us that the broken, sinful forces of the world can only win out for a moment. The foundations of our faith will stand forever.
              
​No matter what devastations, disruptions, and death we encounter in this world, the cross of Christ stands above and beyond it all.  Even in the rubble of our lives, the love of God provides the greatest hope of all.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Western movies. Whether they feature Allan “Rocky” Lane, Amanda Blake, or the famous John Wayne, Westerns across the decades have featured themes that are quintessentially American. Many of these themes – from rugged individualism to simple portrayals of good triumphing over evil – are honest depictions of cultural values for a lot of Americans. For this reason, I appreciate the genre very much. On the other hand, I have rarely found life to be as simple as these quintessentially American cinematic portrayals plot out. The genre also gives false hope and misguided perceptions of who we are as a complex nation with a complex history which requires complex thinking and self-understanding if we are to continue to guide our Republic well into the future.
           
Still, there is one motif from the Western genre that I appreciate more than most – scenes which feature the main characters heading over the horizon to whatever lies ahead. These scenes portray the uniquely American optimism that the future brings resolution to our current woes. Hope, happiness, good times, opportunity, and all good things are usually portrayed as lying just over the next horizon, no matter how many bad guys the hero must shoot to make it there! Over the next hill, mesa, or mountain lies opportunity not yet realized, problems not yet solved, and love stories not yet told. Cheesy, I know, but I have to say that this spirit of unbounded optimism often keeps me going.
           
As we enter 2022, we cross yet another horizon. Some of do this as the literal cowboys we are – tending our ranches and trying to hone our skills at roping. Others cross this horizon as teachers who are still trying to catch our students up from the developmental disruptions of the past two years. Others in our community cross this horizon at the head of our businesses, navigating new levels of inflation that we have not seen in forty years, and supply disruptions that we have not experienced since the Second World War. Others cross yet another horizon as nurses and medical staff trying to tend to a population that is perpetually anxious and angry. Whatever high noon shoot outs and bar brawls that we have been through to get to this point, here we are crossing another horizon together.
           
​As we ride off towards our next sunset, may we be guided by the words of Psalm 90, “Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil…Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands!” (Psalm 90:15 and 17, NRSV).
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth