A Formula For Parish Practice

This book combines a rich description of the (Lutheran) Formula of Concord (1577) with experiences in today's Lutheran parishes to demonstrate how confessional texts may still come to life in modern Christian congregations. Timothy Wengert takes the Formula of Concord, traditionally used as ammunition in doctrinal disagreements, back to its historical home, the local congregation, giving pastors, students, and theologians a glimpse into the original debates over each article. The most up-to-date English commentary on the Formula of Concord, A Formula for Parish Practice provides helpful, concise descriptions of key theological debates and a unique weaving of historical and textual commentary with modern Lutheran experience. Covering the entire Formula of Concord the book includes discussion questions at the end of each chapter.

As profound as Martin Luther's ideas are, this giant of church history was concerned above all with practical instruction for daily Christian living. Harvesting Martin Luther's Reflections highlights this concern of Luther, mining his thought in key areas of doctrine, ethics, and church practice. Gathering noteworthy contributions by well-known Luther scholars from Europe and the Americas, this book ranges broadly over theological questions about baptism and righteousness, ethical issues like poverty and greed, and pastoral concerns like worship and spirituality. There are even rare discussions of Luther's perspective on marriage and on Islam. As a result, Harvesting Martin Luther's Reflections is both a state-of-the-art discussion of Lutheran themes and an excellent introduction for newcomers to Luther's work.

Preaching the Manifold Grace of God is a two-volume work describing theologies of preaching from the historical and contemporary periods. Volume 1 focuses on historical theological families: Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Anabaptist, Anglican/Episcopal, Wesleyan, Baptist, African American, Stone-Campbell, Friends, and Pentecostal. Volume 2 focuses on families that are evangelical, liberal, neo-orthodox, postliberal, existential, radical orthodox, deconstructionist, Black liberation, womanist, Latinx liberation, Mujerista, Asian American, Asian American feminist, LGBTQAI, Indigenous, postcolonial, and process. In each case, the author describes the circumstances in which the theological family emerged and describes the purposes and characteristics of preaching from that perspective.

This book explores the church's engagement with worship and theology as a result of the pandemic, especially as it relates to digital worship and the means of grace. Organized around the four-fold pattern of Sunday worship—Gathering, Word, Meal, Sending—this collection of essays provides source material for both theological discernment and practical implementation. Topics include preparing and theologizing worship no matter the modality, engaging the questions of embodiment as related to the incarnation of Christ, and looking at the theology of church in a digital age. Renowned scholars in the field explore how online worship provides for the visibility of the gospel, how to lament and pray in the midst of pandemic and future crises, and how the mission of the church through its worship can continue regardless of physical restrictions. This timely collection appeals to researchers, professionals, and practitioners in the field.

Presented on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, this collection of essays honors the life and work of Dr. Timothy J. Wengert. Wengert, a pastor, a teacher of pastors, and a noted Reformation historian, brings to the work of scholarship a deep sense of its practical dimensions in the life of the church. Over the course of his career, Wengert's work and insights have been marked by the way in which they apply to and make different the lived life of the church, whether in preaching, worship, or theology. In these essays, Wengert's students, colleagues, and peers follow in their honoree's footsteps by highlighting the practical and pastoral implications of a rich tapestry of Reformation topics organized into three parts. In Part One, Luther and a diverse cast of colleagues are considered in light of their significance for today. In Part Two, the texts of the Reformation are examined, opening to Part Three, where the formation of faith through catechesis and the life of the church bring the book to a close.

Meet the most evil character in American Letters. This is a western, but unlike any other western. The Lutheran, "threadbare" he's sometimes called, stalks the plains, kidnaps a boy (because he could) and raises him in his own image. A literary masterpiece, the author manages a 500 page novel into 136 pages of exciting prose. The Lutheran stalks the plains, and he'll stalk your mind, your dreams, and your memories forever. If you like great writing, you just have to read this book.

For Lutheran pastor John Berntsen, the cross is about more than the crucifixion on Good Friday. It is shorthand for the whole drama of salvation--God's decisive act of reconciling the world to God's own self. The cross is dying and rising with Christ, but at a deeper level it is the story of the world's resistance to grace. Those who lead are subject to the cross no less than others. In contrast with the current fashion for "visionary" or "purpose-driven" leaders, cross-shaped leaders are not primarily the providers of master plans, nor are they master builders. Cross-shaped leadership is provisional, contextual, and fallible--open-ended ministry that has the character of a pilot project. It is always under construction and revision. Our moment-by-moment functioning in ministry is subject to countless deaths and resurrections, few of which are heroic or glorious. But Berntsen offers good news within this potentially dismal perspective. He writes, "Once we've accepted the truth that ministry is hard, even impossible--once we've stopped living in denial of this reality, or perhaps whining about it--it becomes the truth that sets us free. We cease being gloomy servants, weighed down by our resentful conviction that we are all alone in our work--the closet atheism born of the worry, 'If I don t do it, nobody will'--and instead become joyful coworkers of a strong, wise, and consoling Lord." With optimism, humor, and deep empathy, Berntsen's Cross-Shaped Leadership offers hope and challenge in the midst of the rough and tumble of parish practice.

The Augsburg Confession is the single most-important confession of faith among Lutherans today. However, it is often taught either from a historical perspective or from a dogmatic one. Yet the context out of which it arose was far more practical and lively: marked from the outset as confessions of faith in the face of fierce opposition and threats. The original princely signers, while clearly outlining the teaching of their churches, were also staking their lives on the witness to the gospel that had been emanating from Wittenberg since 1517, when Martin Luther first published his Ninety-Five Theses. By situating both the history and the theology of this document within the practice and life of faith, Timothy J. Wengert shows just how relevant the Confession's witness is for today's Lutheran parishes and their leaders by unlocking how its articles can shape and strengthen the church's witness today.