Nathan and Sarah Federwitz serve as missionaries with Lutheran Bible Translators. The Federwitzes have been training for international missionary service and hope to use this training to support Bible translation. They shared Lutheran Bible Translators' work and how aviation plays a key role in Bible translation efforts in many areas. They depend upon our support and prayers to carry out their ministry. May the Lord bless their work in His Kingdom. 

National Lutheran Schools Week provides more than 1,800 preschools, elementary schools and high schools with the public opportunity to proclaim and celebrate God’s work among us in schools of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

I've assembled a few recommended Bible-reading plans below. No plan is better than another; the right one is the one you like and are able to stick with. I have yet to meet someone who expressed regret at taking the time to read through Scripture in its entirety!

For Christian congregations and schools, instruction in God’s Word is our priority. We gather regularly for instruction in the Word of God, not simply to learn knowledge about God, but that our faith in Jesus Christ might be strengthened and that we might live by that faith in our lives. We call this teaching “catechesis.” From the cradle to the grave, receiving our Lord’s teaching from the Holy Scriptures is a way of life for us, young and old alike. Our Lord is with us wherever His Word is faithfully taught and received. This does not begin in the fall and end in the spring but occurs daily in our schools, homes, and congregation.

A parent's first responsibility as Christians is for the catechization of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and selfless service to others are the rule. That's because a Christian home is best suited for education in these virtues. This task requires parents to embrace self-denial, good judgment, and self-mastery—the preconditions of all true freedom. 

Good government is a gift from God and is worth celebrating. In the act of remembering, we consider our vocation of citizens and be more active in preserving the justice and peace that we have articulated in the Declaration and Constitution. We remember the fourteen generations and their hard work and sacrifices to give us this nation. We work as citizens to remedy our nation's flaws and seek "a more perfect union." And as Christians, we follow our conscience and do nothing contrary to God's Word.

The sign of the holy cross is one of the traditional ceremonies retained by Luther and other reformers in the Lutheran confession in the sixteenth-century Reformation. Luther urged in his Large and Small Catechisms that it continue to be used. This holy sign has been used in the church from apostolic times and continues to be used in our day.

In this age of information, the messages are often conflicting. There are so many messages that you’re often confused. What is true, what is deceiving, and what is misleading? How can you possibly know? If only you had an angel from God, a holy messenger, to come and tell you what is really real. But you have angels sent by God to speak the Word of Jesus authoritatively.

Why is this happening? What is real? Who should I trust? How did we get so confused? Have we lost our collective minds? I keep asking these and similar questions. We are mixed up. We don’t know up from down. We can’t figure out who is telling the truth and who is lying. We’re back on our heels and disoriented. We are overwhelmed with information, misinformation, and disinformation.

Christians believe that they live under two kingdoms, God’s eternal kingdom and the temporary earthly kingdom. Civil government belongs to the outward, temporal kingdom. The one holy Christian Church is the kingdom of Christ Jesus. We live and serve in and under both kingdoms, but in different ways.

The Lord’s Supper is a gift of life and love to be received, not a requirement to be fulfilled. What Jesus gave to His church in the Supper is the inviting and absolving Gospel. Therefore, it was celebrated daily Apostles and then weekly by the church. In Acts 2:42 records, "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” The “breaking of the bread” was the very means by which the Holy Spirit continued to bring Christ to the baptized at Pentecost. God fed the new life by His Supper that He had gifted them with Holy Baptism. The same form is found later in Acts with the Apostle Paul delivering teaching and those “gathered together to break bread” (Acts 20:7).

It is fitting to use this setting for the end of the church year as we celebrate the Reformation. Luther composed German hymns for the Ordinary so that all of his fellow Germans could learn and understand the Liturgy. Previously, only those few taught Latin could participate and understand the words of the Liturgy. Essential to Luther's Reformation was and continues to be learning how we live out the faith, what we believe, and why we believe it. These hymns continue to assist us in singing the faith and enhancing our understanding of each part of the Liturgy.

While God is present everywhere, He cannot be found everywhere as the God of love and mercy. Instead, in the Divine Service, Jesus promises to be for us. He is not the abstract or hidden God! Jesus’s presence in the Divine Service is His saving presence in concrete means where He has promised to give us forgiveness and life. He serves us through means that He has appointed and received by us in faith. Word and Sacrament are together the treasures given by the risen Christ as He comes into the midst of His gathered church.

Catechesis is much more comprehensive than mere education. This life is lived by faith in Christ as we go about our daily tasks as husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, neighbors, and workers of every kind. Living the Christian faith is not merely an "internal thing"; it has authentic "external things" by which it is known and sustained. It is about a real faith that is fed and nurtured through preaching and sacraments in real places of worship. It is lived out in the real world where there is real sin and real sorrow, but real forgiveness and consolation through the Gospel of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. This is what catechesis is all about. All this and more is meant by the word of Jesus: “Make disciples of all nations; baptizing them ... teaching them ...; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

So, it is for those in the Church. We too have “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” For, indeed, the Triune God has promised that “everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:13). He who is Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier gives us His abiding care and protection through all the battles and storms of this life, and He promises to carry us in the ark of His Church into the safe harbor of heaven.

It’s all simple, but it’s not easy. We are learning to guard all that Jesus has commanded us to defend. Speaking, singing, and praying to guard the gifts He gives. We live together with Christ in the life He gives through His gifts. Simple, not easy, but it is good.

Why does the congregation at Sherman Center exist? So that faith in Christ for the forgiveness of sins be received. Simple. And how is this faith given? It is given by the Holy Spirit working through the Word and Sacraments. And what are the Word and Sacraments? Namely, we preach Christ Jesus alone for forgiveness, life, and salvation. We declare absolution in Christ’s name for the justification of sinners. We baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity for forgiveness and new life with Christ. We deliver Christ’s body broken and the blood shed to forgive sins, strengthen faith, and increase love for neighbor.