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Sunday, June 5, 2011

Looking for things to pray about???

Here's a short list from President Harrison to get you started.

What do I hope for at this moment? My hope is for time, for patience, for prayer, for love, for kindness. My hope is for a time of peace, as God wills. My hope is for a church, which is and remains faithful to the inerrant word of God, and unreservedly to the Lutheran Confessions. My hope is for pastors and people who love the Word of God and read it vigorously. My hope is that wherever I fail, wherever we fail, whatever we have done or do to make our life together bitter, that God grant us repentance, and faith. My hope and dream is for a church which loves its pastors, pastors care for their people, pastors who visit their members’ homes as possible, pastors who head into their communities to “seek and save the lost.” My hope is for preaching which is lively and pulsing with damning law and the joyous, forgiving and faith-creating gospel of free forgiveness in Jesus’ cross. My desire is preaching which is both textual (biblical) and grabs the hearer by the neck, heart and toes, throws him/her to hell, then carries them to heaven. My hope is for laypeople equipped to share Christ in their vocations. My hope and prayer is for laypeople who are delighted to invite friends and family to church. My hope is for a lively mission of mercy where zeal is as great for orthodoxy as for mercy and vice versa. My hope is for continuing joy and success in reaching different ethnic communities, and through them, reaching the nations of the world. My hope is for a growing appreciation for the Synod’s national and international mission, for improvement in that mission, for advancement in what is good, and the support and participation of our pastors, congregations, districts, and people. My hope is for a continued healthy and healthier Concordia University System, schools free to meet the challenges they face, but resolved to maintain and even increase fidelity to the Lutheran confession of the faith. Our schools have missions and capacity well worth celebrating, a cause to rejoice in hope. My hope is for a growing number of grade schools reaching into their communities. My hope is for a renewal in teaching the faith to the youth, and a profound love of the simple Small Catechism.

My humble hope is for greater agreement among us on communion practice and especially issues of worship and other things, which cause angst and impede our common joy, mission and life together. God have mercy upon us as we attempt to come to a meeting of the minds under the living and mighty and active word of God.

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