In case you can’t figure out what in the world this is a picture of…it is a picture of a wooden spoon Salem used to have. My wife has preparing spaghetti for our Wednesday night "Sunday" school program when this spoon got a little too close to the gas flame 🙂
[Sorry honey…you had to know that this would turn up here…I love you]
I still think I am in trouble 🙂
-edh-
This makes me wonder how much Jackson, MN would be worth (not that Iowa is knocking down our doors to make a bid). But apparently Ely is worth something:
-edh-
Someone please comment because I am sitting at comment number 6_6 (I will let you fill in what that middle number might be). 🙂
Other notes:
(1) My sermons blog has been neglected lately. I wish I could use the excuse of a busy Lent, but I need to do better than that. I will have that site updated maybe tomorrow but for sure when I get back from vacation on April 7.
(2) Please remember my secretary in your prayers. She is still really sick (going on 2 weeks now). We’re not sure yet what is going on yet. It is looking like some nasty viral thing going through her system.
With that…have a very blessed day! Take care!
-edh-
It happened again…
…at my favorite coffee place (which is in downtown Jackson).
I am at Coffee Choices most days and every once in a while (like today) I have lunch there. And on more than one occasion, when I have gone to Coffee Choices, the total that appears on the cash register is $6.66…"scary". The owners, when they see that, always give me a wry laugh and immediately take one cent off my total.
[Mental note: A turkey wrap and travel mug of coffee is "evil" :)]
O.K…maybe nothing bad has ever happened by me receiving "that number" time and again, but at least I save myself one cent every now and then. So that means after another few hundred more cases of being "cursed" with the mark of the beast I will have saved up enough money for a free coffee. What a deal 🙂
[Mental note: Consider cutting back on the caffeine]
-edh-
Diane over at Faith in Community posted a fun piece titled, Luther on Dogs, part II. Being the dog lover she is, this is very appropriate. But as I was reading her post I could not help but chuckle (don’t worry, Diane, I wasn’t laughing at you). What made me chuckle was the scene on my shelf to my left…
I guess Martin and Katie DID love dogs. Scooby dooby dooooooo…. 🙂
-edh-
I got this as an email forward from the church secretary here at Salem. I normally don’t send forwards but considering Salem is celebrating "Bible Sunday" next Sunday I thought this was appropriate. I think I will include this in the bulletin on Sunday as well.
CELL PHONE vs. BIBLE
I wonder what would happen
if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell
phones? What if we carried it around in our
purses or pockets? What if we flipped through
it several times a day? What if we turned back
to go get it if we forgot it? What if we used
it to receive messages from the text? What if
we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?
What if we gave them to kids as gifts? What if
we used it when we traveled? What if we used it
in case of emergency? This is something to make
you go….hmm…where is my Bible? Oh, and one
more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don’t
have to worry about our Bible being
disconnected, because Jesus already paid the
bill. Makes you stop and think, ‘Where are my
priorities?" And…no dropped calls!
(Source unknown)
I hope you enjoyed that. Take care and God bless!
-edh-
I don’t have anything really theological right know, but hopefully this afternoon I will when I return from text study. The texts from Ecclesiastes and Luke 12 are running around in my head creating all kinds of chaos — good chaos though (if that even makes sense). I do have a couple thoughts on them but have not formed them into "intelligent" sentences yet (if THAT even makes sense). So in the mean time I am going to leave you with these three postcards that always make me laugh. This is such a random post, but that is how I am feeling today. Enjoy and I will see you later:
(1) Indifference: It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile, but it doesn’t take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face.
(2) Curiosity: There are no stupid questions, but there are a LOT of inquisitive idiots.
(3) Intelligence: Some people drink deeply from the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
God bless and stay cool (it is hot and humid in SW MN).
-edh-
My secretary emailed this to me and I just had to share it with you:
A man is stumbling through the woods, totally drunk, when he comes upon a preacher baptizing people in the river. He proceeds to walk into the water and subsequently bumps into the preacher. The preacher turns around and is almost overcome by the smell of alcohol, whereupon he asks the drunk
loudly, for all to hear, "Are you ready to find Jesus?" The drunk answers, "Yes, I am!" So the preacher grabs him and dunks him in the water. He pulls him up and asks "Brother, have you found Jesus?" The drunk replies, "No, I haven’t found Jesus!" The preacher, shocked at the answer, dunks him into the water again for a little longer. He again pulls him out of the water and asks again, "Brother, have you found Jesus?" The drunk again answers, "No, I haven’t found Jesus!" By this time the preacher is at his wits end and dunks the drunk in the water again – but this time, holds him down for about 30 seconds and when he begins kicking his arms and legs, the preacher pulls him up and asks, "For the love of God, have you found Jesus?" The drunk wipes his eyes and catches his breath and says to the preacher…"Are you sure this is where he fell in????"
Not very "Lutheran" but still very funny. Maybe a better thing to say is, "Jesus has claimed you". Jesus is not lost…we are. Jesus is the one who leaves the 99 in search for the one.
So here is to dunking people in God’s grace.
-edh-
I just had to share this with you…
…I was visiting this exegetical web site I visit quite often for sermon prep called CrossMarks Christian Resources. If you page down a little bit to "Other Resources" there will be a link to exegetical notes on the lectionary. I then found the Gospel text for today and this is what I found in the opening paragraph:
"…this is the one shot the lectionary preacher has of saying, ‘This is the first reported case of deviled ham." (Of course this is the reference to Jesus driving out the demon from a man into a herd of pigs)
I don’t know about you but I laughed out loud when I read that. That line could be a good sermon opener this Sunday. If not a sermon opener then you could use it as a fun Bible fact to open a conversation…an ice breaker.
On a serious note…check out CrossMarks sometime. There is a lot of good information for Bible study and sermon prep plus other resources. The author of the site is a former pastor in Minnesota but now is a professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary Gettysburg.
Enjoy and God bless!
-edh-
The Heart of a Pastor 
