Spring Tea

Yesterday, we held a Spring Tea to honor our mothers. Nothing elaborate, just a short and sweet time of fellowship and fun. Finger sandwiches, veggies, fruits, and yummy desserts were served, along with hot and iced tea, coffee, lemonade, and water, which were served to the ladies by some of the wonderful manfolk in our congregation. We began with prayer, the ladies enjoyed the goodies of food and conversation and laughter, Cassie led a trivia game, and we concluded with a litany, praying the Our Father, and the benediction. All the ladies left with a little packet which included packages of tea, seeds, and other goodies, and sixteen of the ladies were blessed to win a potted plant by answering the questions asked in the trivia game. Lots of fun! The idea to do this was introduced by Cassie just a few weeks ago, but you would have never known that we threw things together quickly, and we were extremely pleased to have such a good turnout on short notice. The ladies had a wonderful time together. We'll definitely do this again next year!

Some pics of the occasion:

Day Trip to Fort Wayne

Yesterday, a small group from our parish took a day trip south and visited Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne. The "Visit the Sem" idea originated in our Thursday morning Bible Study a while back, but it always remained one of those "We should do that someday" things - until yesterday.

We began our visit by attending Divine Service in Kramer Chapel at 10 a.m., which was greatly enjoyed by everyone. For all but two of us, this was the first time at the sem and, thus, the first time in Kramer Chapel to hear the beautiful voices of the seminary choir and community resounding through that Holy Place during worship and, as expected, they were blown away by it all. After chapel, we headed over to the Student Commons for coffee and got to chat with a few profs and students, including the venerable Dr. Scaer (the older version) and a couple of guys I have become acquainted with online, who have received calls and will soon be sent out to be ordained and serve as pastors. After coffee in the Commons, we headed over to tour the new Walther Library, which is coming along marvelously - future students will be extremely blessed by that wonderful project. Then, we headed over to take a peek at Sihler Auditorium and ran into a bit of good luck. It was locked, but Rev. Tom Zimmerman, Dean of Students, happened to be walking by and graciously came over and unlocked it for us, turned on some lights, and chatted with us for a few. After Sihler, we had lunch in Katie Luther Dining Hall, and then it was off to the bookstore, which always gives me the feeling I imagine teenage girls must have when going to the mall - I could spend hours in there! :) After the bookstore, we walked through the halls of Loehe and Wyneken quietly, as classes were in session, and finished our tour by visiting the food and clothing co-ops and other buildings on the grounds. It was a wonderful visit and everyone enjoyed themselves and would like to do it again.

Yesterday's visit was completely non-structured. We just decided to go a couple of weeks ago, put things together quickly, and several people were not able to come with us this time. So, next year, I'm hoping to plan a "Visit the Sem" day well in advance and coordinate it with the sem, so that we can have a little more structure to our visit (get a real tour, meet more of the faculty, and maybe sit in on a class, etc.). Hopefully, if we plan far enough in advance, we'll be able to bring a much larger group. We'll see.

The rest of the group headed back home in the afternoon, but I stuck around and spent the night, which allowed me to attend Divine Service at Redeemer in the evening, which was awesome! On Thursday evenings, they have Divine Service in the beautiful little chapel located behind the narthex, which is just perfect for the feeding of 20-30 sinners with our Lord's Holy Word and Sacrament. TLH p. 15. Pr. Petersen preaching (superbly, as usual). Kantor Reuning playing. The Body and Blood of Christ received. Simply sublime!

After the Divine Service, Pr. Petersen graciously invited me to go have a beer, so we headed over to Mad Anthony's and nursed a couple of beers while chatting for a couple of hours. Greatly enjoyed spending some time with him! My only regret is that I wish I would have had the waitress take a picture of us, so that I could have sent it to Adriane Dorr and rubbed it in. :)

It was a great day all around.

A few pics of the group at the sem:

Installation of Pr. William Weedon

Pr. William Weedon was installed today as the LCMS Director of Worship and Chaplain of the International Center. I look forward to his service to our synod as he fulfills these new offices and I am confident that both the folks at the IC and our synod as a whole will be richly blessed as he does so. Pr. Weedon has been a true gift to many in our synod for many years through his blogging (who doesn't visit his blog daily?), his unique ability to converse with others in various forums in a way that is polite, but steadfast (we could all learn from him in this area), his writing and editing of various publications, his service as a catechist and speaker at various conferences/venues (e.g. Higher Things, International Center, Concordia Deaconess Conference, etc.), his many appearances as a regular guest on Issues, Etc., his supervision of vicars and field workers, his service as a PALS coordinator, his service as pastor to the saints he's been called to serve, and his counsel to brothers in the Office, of which I have been blessed to receive on several occasions, and in many other ways, I'm sure. I can think of no one more suitable to fulfill these offices and pray that our Lord will use Pr. Weedon's many talents to bless our synod in the area of worship for years to come, even as He has been using him to bless us in the many ways mentioned above.

Here are some thoughts he shared about his new areas of service with Rev. Jason Braaten of Gottesdienst, some photos of the occasion of his installation, and some videos posted below.

Congrats on your new post, Pr. Weedon! The Lord be with you, dear brother.