Hey! Let's Muzzle the Ox!
Then come back here and tell me where are the new websites and blogs to protest the recalling of missionaries from Africa.
When is the special prayer service for the missionaries?
Where can I find the online petition of protest so I can add my signature and let the “powers that be” know of my discontent?
Where is the post on nearly every single blog run by a Lutheran? Pr. Petersen wrote about it and got a whopping three comments.
What’s the link to the paypal account taking donations for the people who lost their income?
This is not a *job* at a radio station…it’s Word and Sacrament Ministry among the poorest people in the world.
I wonder if they heard “Issues” in Africa…
We, the LCMS, have a SERIOUS problem with priorities, and it’s NOT JUST the “Purple Palace.”
Do I sound angry? Bitter? I should.
4 comments:
Agreed, of course. Poor miserable sinners we all are.
I wonder if missionaries shouldn't start blogging themselves. Their special callings need to be heralded. I find it a little shameful that I don't know where our missionaries are at.
I think I have one, maybe two missionaries in my Bloglines. I know a lot more blogging Lutherans (and at some point, Wilken was one I believe) than I do missionaries. We don't personalize this kind of loss because we don't know the guy and what he's doing. We aren't involved.
We were involved (even if it was just by downloading and listening) with Issues, Etc. Obviously it seems we need to be more involved with the missionaries.
I know a lot of missionaries don't have Internet access. But they usually write a host congregation or calling organization, and their host can easily set up a free blog and post their writings.
Yet, when we do hear about it, the furor doesn't match that having to do with the cancellation of our flagship confessional radio show.
As a confessional pastor, I am afraid it's confirmed--confessionals really don't care about mission and outreach.
More said about it here than anywhere else I have found:
http://augsburg1530.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/mor-programmatic-and-business-problems/
Thanks "anonymous," I'm glad to see that it *is* out there somewhere other than just the one other place I knew about.
Here's the link from anon in clickable form.
And, lest anyone think this is just one man, this happens a lot.
Scott, I know what you mean. And I think (maybe delusionally) that the lack of outrage is because of what we've come to expect from St Louis. This is not the first time there's been a major recall of pastors from foreign mission fields. It happened a few years ago. It happened a few years before that too. In fact, when I saw the news this week, my initial response was that I didn't realize there were even missionaries LEFT still overseas to be recalled stateside.
We expect St Louis to withhold funds from Word & Sacrament ministry overseas. It's normal. It's sad. It's disheartening. It's even disgusting if you think about it for what it really means. But it's what we've come to know as normal. I think the amount of outrage over Issues was due to the surprise. I mean, forget theology and mission: that didn't even make sense financially -- taking the most popular show off the air.
When the uproar over Issues' cancellation happened, my own family was in the final weeks of meager paycheck from Gary's congregation, having had to move to a new home so that he could earn money to support his family because the congregation didn't have the funds, nor the willingness to make the parsonage decent and not unhealthly. It was good to see the outpouring of support for Todd & Jeff. And yet, that week, I thought the most important thing I saw online came from Pastor Liese on behalf of the Augustana Ministerium. He wrote about how the same thing happens to many many pastors. He wrote about different situations where pastors were fired, or where pastors were living on paychecks less than poverty-level wages, or where pastors with great medical needs were being cut off their health insurance. Pr Liese reminded us that what happened to Todd & Jeff is not an isolated situation but keeps on occurring and re-occurring throughout all of synod. Todd & Jeff even had the good fortune (?) to have severance packages; many pastors do not even have that.
"Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked; a man reaps what he sows." God have mercy on our synod lest we reap what we have sown!
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