Gottesdienst: Pro-mission, anti-devil.

Don't let this happen to your church. Support Gottesdienst.

Subscribers to Gottesdienst have just received, or will shortly be receiving, the annual support drive letter (loving referred to as The Beg-A-Thon.) Why does the journal solicit donations apart from subscription rates? Well, do you think a fancy blog like this comes cheap?

Yes, actually, it does. We keep all our overhead low. The only pay Fr. Beane needs is for all of us to say how much we love New Orleans. (Words of Civic Affirmation are Fr. Beane's Love Language.) As has been amply proven on the Lutheran blogosphere, Fr. Petersen doesn't even need to eat: he lives off of girlish limeades from Red Robin and his own sense of self-satisfaction at having a set of rose paraments. Indeed, all our editors are strictly volunteers, high quality and word-count notwithstanding.

And still we keep the subscription rates below cost. Thus, the journal has always been dependent on generous donations above and beyond subscription fees.

Thus, the Rev. Fr. Editor-in-chief writes in the Beg-A-Thon letter (mishnah in red),

“We'd like to think there's a trend. At least it's rumored, and often verified, that people are beginning to grow weary of the entertainment-driven mentality that has for almost a generation gained a foothold in places of worship once regarded as holy. We hear stories of people who yearn for traditional worship as for a long-lost treasure, and, more often, we hear lamentations of Christians who cannot find a decent place to worship where they live.

Too many of the churches still aren't catching on. Too bad they aren't reading Gottesdienst.

Big time! Ask us about our adopt-a-church program where we send unsolicited copies of Gottesdienst to a church of your choice!

All of which means that we need to keep at it: informing, educating, encouraging, explaining, and pushing the liturgy of the Church. We need your help, again.

Liturgy pushers: the first hit is free. After that, you'll pay absurdly low subscription fees.

We couldn't have gotten this far without the help of generous donors in the past, and we need to rely on your generosity just as much now as we every have. As many of you have depended on us for seventeen years to provide you with the very best in material promoting dignified, evangelical liturgy and worship, we must also depend on you to help us again, as you are able, to keep the mission moving.

See, friend, it's about mission!

The devil isn't burning churches; [oh really?] he's been turning them into dance halls, or concert halls, or coffee houses, and deceiving the people into thinking it still counts as worship. But we think maybe the tide is turning, and people are beginning to realize how empty this kind of 'church' really is. And so the time is ripe for Gottesdienst to step into the void, and do our part to help turn things around, foster evangelical preaching and worship, and seek to restore the boundary between the sacred and the profane. Reformation can mean many things; we'd like to think it means a return to right worship. We know that the church needs it now.”

Gottesdienst: Pro-mission, anti-devil.

Contribute here. Stop this.

PS: Visitors to next week's Symposium at Concordia Seminary – St. Louis will notice that all the faculty will be wearing matching green-and-gold striped ties. If you would like to contribute to a special fund for all the editors of Gottesdienst to have matching maniples, please send donations (prime numbers only, please) via PayPal to pastorcurtis AT gmail DOT com.)