On 3/19/2010 7:37 PM, Anderson, Ethan wrote:
Hi Rev. Drosendahl
I don't think we've ever met. I'm currently the president of the Epiphany,
Greenville Lutheran mission, and I'm wondering if I could trouble you for a bit
of assistance.
Rick Rogers has retired, and we are in the process of having one of our
members, Bob Larsen, go through the SMP program with the LCMS to be our new
pastor.
I'll be honest with you, I'm not a big fan of the SMP program, for a
couple of reasons. First, it is roughly *half* of pastoral training
before ordination. I'd not be comfortable with a surgeon who only
finished *half* of medical school, and doctors only deal with temporal
life. Pastors deal with the eternal! Secondly, the priority of the SMP
training is weak on doctrine, and does not include the biblical
languages. The Hebrew & Greek bible is the foundation source of
preaching & teaching. Without it, SMP pastors will be severely
handicapped in carrying out their duties. I much preferred the old DELTO
method of training Pastors (even with all of its flaws), because at
least the guys had a nearly complete Pastoral training before they were
ordained.
My very strong suggestion would be to look at the SMP as a only stop-gap
at best, searching for a way for Bob to continue his education in
biblical languages & doctrine as soon as possible, so that he will be
fully equipped.
For the next few months, we will be without a committed pastor. God in his
mercy has sent us John Mitchell, who is an ordained pastor in the LCMS, but not
currently active as a full-time pastor, who has moved into Greenville to work
as a software engineer for a local business. His work schedule leaves him
little extra time, but he has been kind enough to offer his assistance in
leading liturgy and in Communion. He doesn't have time to prepare weekly
sermons, however, and that's where I'm left with asking you a favor.
My wife generally posts my sermons on my blog
drosensermons.blogspot.com. Feel free to take any of those and have John
read/adapt as necessary if you like.
Would it be possible for you to forward me your weekly sermons, so that I could read
them to our group on Sundays? I simply don't have time to prepare a weekly message,
nor do I feel that I"ve been adequately trained to do so. I'm faculty at the
ECU medical school, and besides the teaching I do, the vast majority of my time is
spent doing experiments and reading/writing scientific reports.
My eldest is a Junior at ECU (IT major) , and my next eldest will be
going there in the Fall (music major). Perhaps you can help me convince
one or more of the other 8 to go into the medical field!
In addition, I have 3 little baby boys at home (ages 4, 2.5 and 5 months) and
so you can imagine my life is pretty much full at present.
We do need to get together! Our three youngest boys are 5, 4, and 9 months!
There are precious few men in our small mission here, and the ones that are
faithful are all active in leadership of various parts of our small mission.
Believe me, if I didn't absolutely have to be doing this I wouldn't, but I'm
serious when I tell you that if I quit doing this, and my small family stopped
attending every week, the mission would fail.
I understand. Another place to go for solid Lutheran sermons is
<[email protected]>. I sometimes post my better efforts there, and a few
other pastors I know post sermons there regularly. You might find a
superior sermon there. Often guys post there before Friday (while my
sermons are rarely finished until later on Saturday).
We are in a bit of a bind for this coming Sunday, in fact, and your assistance
in this and in any other way would also be of tremendous help to us at right
now.
My sermon for Sunday won't be done till Saturday afternoon at the
earliest. It is on Abraham going up to sacrifice Isaac on Mt. Moriah.
You could contact one of the pastors on the [email protected] and get
their permission to use a posted sermon, if you need one earlier. I'll
plan on copying you a *bear bones* sermon Saturday to your email
address, if that would be helpful.
Another excellent preacher in our circuit is Rev. Jim Daub in Havelock.
(You've probably already contacted him.) The latest email I have for him
is [email protected].
Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. We'll be keeping
you and your mission in our prayers.
John C. Drosendahl, Pastor
[email protected]
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