We have moved! Our new home is now directly tied to the Gottesdienst website, under the new name Gottesblog.

Gottes News

Big changes are coming to Gottesdienst in the coming months, fortuitously coinciding with our 100th issue anniversary in December.

We've been in touch with a web designer and at long last we are looking at streamlining our resources and overhauling our ship.

Our regular website and this blog will be brought under a single umbrella, as well as our facebook page. We hope to have an online store too.

One of the things we'll be working on is more automation of the mundane stuff, to enable us to spend more time on the theological/liturgical stuff. We'll be seeking ways to encourage as many subscribers as we can to let us maintain their subscriptions online (using credit cards, etc.).

This will cost us, of course, so if you'd like to help us out, we'll gladly accept your (tax free) donation.

Meanwhile, we are still soliciting notes from people who might have something to say in our 100th issue. If you'd like to say something, drop us a line.

Out of the barn!

The Trinity issue of Gottesdienst is out of the barn! It may take a week or more to reach your mailbox, but that depends on how fast the pony runs. Our part is done, the printers are done, and the matter is in the mailman's hands. We know it's a little past Trinity, but, well, we've been busy, as you may know.
Yesterday we released our film, The Form of the Divine Service: an instructional video for pastors and seminarians 
(available for viewing online for free; just click here), and in just 24 hours we got over 5,000 hits. In LCMS terms, I'd say that's already close to going viral.

Anyhow, in the meantime we have now finished the Trinity issue, a little behind, but here you are.

Not a subscriber? Well, that's easy to fix. And why not get a bulk subscription: share wealth with your congregation. The contents of the current issue are listed here, to whet your appetite.

Out of the barn

Oh, and by the way, the Easter issue is out of the barn. Coming to a mailbox near you, hopefully just in time. Unless you're not a subscriber, which you can easily fix.

Calling all subscribers: APB

Dear subscribers and friends of Gottesdienst

This, as you may have heard, is our 25th anniversary year. Our Christmas issue will be our 100th.

In the course of looking the last 25 years over, we discovered that there is a missing issue. So, we're putting out a BOLO, an All Points Bulletin.

We need your help!

And here's an offer: the first person who can come up with this missing issue and provide us with the issue itself, or photocopies of its pages, or a pdf or Word or some other version of it receives a prize: 


we are prepared to offer a four year subscription, or addition to your subscription to this helpful Gottesdienster.

Here's the missing issue we need:

Advent - Epiphany 1994 - 1995 (Volume 3 Number 1)

Anyone finding this, please let us know!

2017 Sabre Goes to Rev. Dr. Gottfried Martens and Trinity Lutheran Church of Berlin

The Sabre of Boldness for 2017 went to the Reverend Dr. Gottfried Martens and his congregation Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin, Germany, for their steadfastness in the face of possible deportations, beatings, and threats of death for conversion to Christianity as over a thousand members of the congregation have come from Persia and other Muslim lands to the joy of knowing and being baptized into Christ.

Pastor Martens was a nominee for the second straight year. He had been pastor of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church in Berlin for many years, a church which has seen hundreds of refugees come in, Muslims seeking the truth and finding it under his preaching and catechesis, being baptized and brought into his congregation. His success among the immigrants has put his name in the German news, and so has put him personally at risk, due to the violence that so easily attaches itself to the Muslim extremists who do not take kindly to losing nearly a thousand converts to Christianity.

Dr. Martens has recently become pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin-Steglitz, which is almost entirely comprised of immigrants who have converted to the Lutheran faith. But the German governmenthas recently begun to deny en masse the refugee claims of many of these converts, following what Dr. Martens is calling deeply flawed refugee hearings. The problem, Dr. Martens says, is that “Many [of those hearing the cases] are manifestly clueless about the situation of Christians in Iran and Afghanistan, and worse yet they are utterly clueless concerning questions relating to the Christian faith. But all of this does not prevent them from assuming the role of self-appointed experts, whose questions ‘unmask’ the supposedly deceitful Iranian asylum applicants one after another, even when those hearing the cases don’t even know the difference between the [Apostle’s] Creed, and the Our Father [Lord’s Prayer].” The challenges come after a year of other difficulties, as converts to Christianity have faced increasing persecution from Muslim refugees angry at their conversions from Islam. Congregational members and candidates for baptism are being attacked, sometimes beaten and threatened them with death, both in Germany and from their homeland to which deportation is threatened The refugees are instructed in the Christian faith prior to baptism—or excluded, if a genuine conversion is not evident. Currently baptisms sit at between 30 and 40 a month.

What the editors have chosen decided for this year is to offer the Sabre of Boldness for 2017 to Rev. Dr. Martens and his congregation, Trinity in Berlin-Steglitz.

Rev. Wilhelm Torgeson, a close acquaintance of Dr. Martens and an adjunct professor at the Lutheran seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario, was on hand to receive the award on their behalf.

Sabre of Boldness Nominees Sought

The Sabre ceremony, with which regular Gottesdienst subscribers are familiar, is in its twenty-second year.  Nominations are hereby invited and encouraged THIS WEEK (ASAP) in anticipation of the Symposia in Fort Wayne January 16th-19th.  

Please submit your nominations via email: full name of nominee, reason for nomination, with as many details as you can, nominee's address, phone number if you have it, and your own name.

The award is given “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity on behalf of the Holy Church of Christ while engaged in the confession of His pure Gospel in the face of hostile forces and at the greatest personal risk.” The degree of the adversity, steadfast resistance to pressures to compromise, heedlessness of threats, and a clear confession of faith are considered.  The slate will close on Tuesday, January 17^th. 

What is the Sabre of Boldness?  – an excerpt from Fr. Eckardt’s Sabre speech in 2003:

The Sabre of Boldness is a venture which has been undertaken annually since 1996 by the editors of Gottesdienst as a gesture, however inadequate, toward the acknowledgment of unsung heroism which sometimes defines the deeds springing from Christian faith.  Maybe you aren’t supposed to know this, but the original idea was not quite so earnest.  If you haven’t already guessed it, the Sabre of Boldness was conceived in a bit of jest.  There was a fully intended and not-too-subtle double-entendre in the awarding of the S. O. B.: the recipient was on the one hand bold in the faith indeed, so much so that for his boldness, on the other hand, he had certainly gained recognition, of the kind not generally sought after, a page in someone’s Who’s Who among the Infamous.  But the Geist of the award very quickly changed, when it became evident that there were not a few readers who had a genuine and very serious desire to stand in solidarity with unsung heroes of the faith; heroes such as we seek to note, ordinary people whose boldness of confession, we imagine, must be recognizable as extraordinary at least to the angels, however unnoticed or even disdained by the masses who prefer to recognize status or reputation in accord with the norms of the world.

Those norms, we hasten to add, are often and routinely used to judge honor not only in the world, but also by people who like to go to church, and even in the judging of churchly matters.  Wherever they see compromise, call it virtue; whenever they find people willing to back down a bit from their principles, they call them wise.  Conversely when they see fidelity and dedication to one’s ideals they call it stubbornness, and when they find someone delaying the whole train just for the sake of conscience they call him a fool.  And since their kind of wisdom resonates well with the wisdom of the world, they sometimes even get lucky enough to find themselves in the world’s craved limelight, where the world in turn calls them wise, honorable, and even holy men.

So it is really no wonder, in retrospect, that this award began to take on such an aura of dignity among our readers, who have always been hungry for things which resonate well with the mind of our holy Christ. After all, He certainly did not fare well according to the wisdom of this world. The world certainly did not account Him virtuous or wise, at least not until after it saw that it would be advantageous to do so. Before that they easily scoffed, and reckoned that His stubborn fidelity to His Father’s ideals brought Him nothing but grief, crucifixion and death. Whoever has the mind of Christ must also acknowledge that what is lovely to the world is an abomination to God, and the world’s rejection or acceptance ought never be the allowed to determine the difference between a fool and a hero of the faith. As it is written, He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

Thus the Sabre of Boldness has become our own meager way of saluting not merely its bearer, but anyone who, in however otherwise unnoticed a way, did the very kind of bold deeds that we saw in other heroes of the faith: Moses before Pharaoh, Joshua against the kings of Canaan, or Jael in the tent against Sisera.  The Sabre is fittingly a sword, reminiscent of Gideon’s against the Midianites, Ehud’s against Eglon, or even Goliath’s, against himself in the hands of our David. It signifies most of all the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God against our greatest foe, running him through by the stubborn, unbending, and fierce resolve of our Lord Jesus Christ to endure crucifixion and so to redeem us all. That Sword, in the hands of the Christian warrior, is what produces the kind of spirit which the world and its minions find so annoying, since it is ever so intractable and unyielding. Therefore we salute herewith every Christian who has such a spirit: first of all, those saints in glory for whom martyrdom was preferable to compromise, and after them also any who gave up some claim for worldly adulation, because they deigned instead to do the right thing for conscience’ sake, and closed their ears to the clamor of the world’s folly.

The Sabre certainly does not get any legitimacy from us clumsy louts at Gottesdienst who now find ourselves annually in this awkward position of being a kind of judges’ panel for something which, though we don’t quite feel qualified to judge, we really do consider a very highly honorable and salutary thing to recognize. The highest honor is the honor of suffering for the name of Jesus. He who suffers for Christ is honored already. The Sabre only seeks to emphasize this truth.

Out of the barn!

The Christmas issue of Gottesdient is on its way to the mailboxes of subscribers! Not on the list of Gottesdiensters? It's easy to fix that today.

A Festival of Worship in Hickory, NC

Though not an official Gottesdienst event, two of our editors will be speaking.  For more information, contact Father Gaven Mize by email or Facebook.

Salem Lutheran Churches Host Famous Evangelists

By Larry Beane

Salem Lutheran Church (LCMS) will be hosting Baptist Evangelist Beth Moore of Living Proof Ministries.  She will be speaking in the "worship center" following an Advent brunch.

Here is a link to some of Beth Moore's sermons.

Just to be clear, this isn't Salem Lutheran Church in Gretna, Louisiana, where I serve.  This is a SLC in Tomball, Texas.  

Instead, we'll be hosting the Lutheran bishop of our sister church, the Siberian Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Rev. Vsevolod Lytkin, late in January.  He will speak in our parish hall and preach in the sanctuary during the Sunday Mass.  More specifics to follow.  Feel free to contact me by email or Facebook for more information.

Here is a link to some material on Bishop Vsevolod's remarkable journey from growing up in the USSR, his conversion to Christianity, his odyssey traveling thousands of miles by train to be baptized, his ordination and consecration, and ongoing life as a bishop, pastor, preacher, and evangelist, as well as sermon excepts from my blog.  

More about the bishop and the SELC is available at the Siberian Lutheran Mission Society website, especially the newsletter archive.

Christmas issue is soon to go to the printers

The Christmas issue of Gottesdienst should be printed and in the mail within a few weeks. With a quick look at  the Contents page you can see what's in there. Now is the time to subscribe, or renew. 

Now is also the time to consider getting a gift for a friend (be sure to scroll down to the gift portion of the form): say, for Christmas.

Now is also the time to consider making a donation, In fact, remembering that we do depend on gifts for a large part of our support, we have just launched a fund drive, and we are pleased to announce that for a donation of $50 or more, we’d like to send you a free gift, your choice of either of two books. The first option is Every Day Will I Bless Thee: Meditations for the Daily Office.  This book, published in 1992, provides a Bible reading and a meditation for every day of the year plus Saints’ Days, with the year’s collects and an index (hardcover, 520 pp.). Or you may prefer The New Testament in His Blood: A Study of the Holy Liturgy, published in 2010, which delves into the significance and meaning of our New Testament liturgical worship (paperback, 117 pp). Just indicate your preference in the comments box.

Sanctoral Calendar for 2017

The new Gottesdienst sanctoral calendar for every Sunday of 2017 is out. It actually begins with Reformation 2016. This will be an insert in the next issue, but it is also available in living color at our web site.

Gottesdienst

. . . is out of the barn! Coming to a mailbox near you, unless you have not subscribed. In which case, here's how.

Why you should go to Oktoberfest

Why? Because it's

• Lutheran worship at its best; at St. Paul's in Kewanee, "where you know you've been to church"
• Lutheran theology at its best
• Lutheran preaching at its best
• Lutheran bratwurst at their best: Sheboygan style, prepared by a Sheboygan native
• a Lutheran banquet at its best
• Lutheran camaraderie at its best: plenty of opportunity to meet, chat, laugh, etc.
• a Lutheran seminar at its best: Dr. Ben Mayes on Gerhard and the Ministry
• unforgettable
• an education
• a reunion
• a venerable 21-year long tradition
• the "best party on the block"

Join us October 9-11 at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Kewanee, Illinois beginning with choral vespers at 5 p.m. on Sunday evening. Details are here. To register, send us an email.

Oktoberfest!

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Kewanee, Illinois will be hosting the Twenty-first Annual Oktoberfest! and Gottesdienst Central from Sunday afternoon, October 9^th, until Tuesday, October 11^th.

The event begins Sunday October 9th with Vespers at 5 p.m. Following the service is our annual bratwurst banquet. When everyone has had their fill of brats and beer, featured guest Rev. Dr. Benjamin Mayes, Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana will give a synopsis of his Monday seminar.

Following the banquet is the after-the-party party, at the home of Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt, the pastor at  St. Paul's.

On Monday, October 10th, Divine Service is at 9:00 a.m., with Rev. Michael Frese from Redeemer in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as special guest preacher. Following the service and a continental breakfast, Dr. Mayes will hold forth for the rest of the day, in two sessions running until about 2:45, followed by Vespers. 

Dr. Mayes will be speaking on 

“The Call and the Ministry according to Johann Gerhard.” 

Johann Gerhard has been called the “Arch-theologian of Lutheranism,” and was the most influential of seventeenth-century Lutheran theologians. He decisively influenced Protestant theologians to study the evangelical (i.e., Gospel-centered) character of pre-Reformation Christianity. Gerhard has been an area of particular interest for Dr. Mayes, who served until this fall as an editor of professional and academic books at Concordia Publishing House (CPH) in St. Louis. In particular he served as general editor for Gerhard’s Theological Commonplaces. Dr. Mayes still serves CPH as managing editor and co-general editor of Luther’s Works: American Edition.

On Tuesday, the conference will continue in the same format, with discussion of liturgical and theological ramifications of decisions made at this summer’s triannual convention of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, with Pastor Eckardt.

REGISTRATION: $50 per person, $70 per couple, students $25 — includes Sunday banquet and Monday continental; no charge for children with parents.  Send your name, address, and which days you plan to attend to b.f.eckardt@gmail.com, or call 309-852-2461. You may pay the registration fee when you arrive.

Recommended Lodging: 

AmericInn, 309-856-7200. Special rate $94.00 (mention Oktoberfest when you register, by September 12th); also Aunt Daisy’s B & B, 309-853-3300; Motel 6, 309-853-8800; Super 8 (Galva), 309-932-2841; Best Western (Annawan), 800-637-5958; Kewanee Motor Lodge, 309-853-4000.

Out of the Barn!

How long? cry the saints.

And the answer: no longer! At long last, the delayed Trinity issue of Gottesdienst is out of the barn, and on its way to a mailbox near you. Soon (if you are a subscriber) you will at last open that mailbox and upon opening this journal of the blessed Lutheran Liturgy may, if you wish, even see fit to repeat the words of Keats:

“Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
and hopes, and joys, and panting miseries,
Tonight if I may guess, thy beauty wears a smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright
As when with ravished, aching, nassal eyes,
Lost in a soft amaze
I gaze, I gaze”

The problem is not with your mailman

You might have noticed that the Trinity issue of Gottesdienst is delayed a bit. It's all ready to go, chomping at the bit, but we are holding the steed back for a couple more weeks, in order to tend to pressing LCMS convention matters at hand. No need to inquire about your subscription (unless, of course, you know you don't have one, in which case, well, you can easily do something about that). We do promise to get all caught up soon: the Michaelmas (late September) issue is still on schedule, which means that although Trinity is late, the next issue should be on time. That's the plan, anyhow. Sorry about the great chagrin this will no doubt cause among our eager and expectant readers, and thanks for your patience.

Gottesdienst St. Louis

Coming up this May, in anticipation of the 2016 LCMS Synodical Convention

Gottesdienst St. Louis

A one-day conference –

Removing the Asterisk:

Restoring an Unconditional Subscription to AC XIV in the LCMS 

Featuring

Rev. Matthew C. Harrison, MDiv, LLD, DD, LCMS President

Rev. Heath R. Curtis, MA, MDiv, Gottesdienst Online Editor and LCMS Coordinator for Stewardship

Rev. D. Richard Stuckwisch, MDiv, PhD, Gottesdienst Online Editor

Rev. David H. Petersen, MDiv, STM, Gottesdienst Departmental Editor

Rev. Jason M. Braaten, MDiv, Gottesdienst Online Editor and Development Officer

Rev. Burnell F. Eckardt Jr., MDiv, STM, PhD, Gottesdienst Editor-in-chief

Rev. Benjamin T. Ball, MDiv, Pastor loci at St. PaulTuesday, May 17^th                 

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

St. Paul Lutheran Church (Hamel)

6969 W. Frontage Rd.

Worden, IL 62097                  (about a half-hour drive up I-55 from the city)

Schedule:

8:30–9:00 am  Registration/coffee, donuts/

Holy Absolution available

9:00 am  Matins

9:40 am  Welcome

9:45–10:30 am

“How AC XIV Came to Be, and What Has Become of It in the LCMS”

Pr. Braaten

10:45 am  Divine Service

12:00 pm  Lunch

1:00-1:20

      Remarks from the Synodical President

            Pr. Harrison

1:20–2:05 pm

“In Favor of the Synod Task Force’s Recommendations to the Convention for July”

Pr. Curtis

2:05  Break

2:15–3:00 pm

“The Christological Character of the Ministry”

         Pr. Eckardt

3:00 pm  Break

3:10–3:45 pm

Panel Discussion: Quo vadis?: Our Challenge

          The Gottesdienst editors

4:15 pm  Vespers

5:00 pm  Gemütlichkeit

Lodging on your own.  Recommended: The Innkeeper Motel. 401 E. State St., Hamel, IL 62046. (618) 633-2111. www.innkeeperinn.com

Registration: $25.  BUT FREE FOR SYNODICAL DELEGATES. (Payable to Gottesdienst. Mail us this form or email it to us with “Gottesdienst” in the subject line).  You may pay the registration fee in advance or when you arrive. 

Registration form (if by email, please provide all this information):

Title: ______      Name:  _________________________

Parish: _______________________________

Email: _____________________________

Address:__________________________________

City:________________  State:______ZIP:_______

Phone:______________________ 

Will you be staying for the Gemütlichkeit? Yes__No__

For planning purposes, please register by May 10^th.

Out of the Barn!

The Easter issue of Gottesdienst is out of the barn, and running as fast as it can. No guarantees that it will arrive by Easter, since Easter is so early this year, but it is trying its best. If it doesn't reach your door by Easter, at least it should during Eastertide. That is, assuming you are a subscriber. Here are the highlights:

Gottesdienst Vol. 24, Number 1 (2016:1). 

Our 93rd issue.

Sermons

Ash Wednesday                 Raymond D. Parent II

Funeral Sermon                 Jeffrey B. Hemmer

Good Friday                        Jay W. Watson
Good Friday                        Chad D. Kendall

Easter Vigil                         Ronald A. Stephens

Liturgical Observer - Burnell F. Eckardt Jr.

Easter Sunday and Eastertide

TLH at Seventy-Five: A Response

On Unworthiness 

Commentary on the War - David H. Petersen

What Is Reverence?

Gracious Presiding, Part 2 

Taking Pains - Mark P. Braden

The Chancel Lamp 

Sabre Goes to Rev. Charles Wildner

Poems
   See Jesus

The Blessed Widowed Mother
For Jesus’ Sake
The Sign of Jonah
On the Seventh Day - Kathryn Ann Hill

Musing on the Mysteries - Karl F. Fabrizius

Sign of Death, Sign of Life

Genesis 9:8-17 

Insert: Gottesdienst St. Louis Coming Up May 17th. At press time we did not have confirmation that Synodical President Rev. Matthew Harrison would be attending, but now we do. Details here.

Sabre of Boldness goes to Wildner: full story and other nominees

Fort Wayne, Indiana, 21 January 2016.

The 2016 Sabre of Boldness went to Rev. Charles Wildner, now of Abingdon, Maryland, formerly of Baltimore. Rev. Wildner was faithful pastor at St. Thomas in Baltimore for three decades, serving in an inner city parish whose members often had drug addiction problems. He was a Christ figure in the inner city, welcoming the homeless and aimless into his home. When he got married, he developed “Concordia House,” a place for these people to go, to recover, and to receive the Gospel. Recently, while he was away on business, he was, accused of sexual misconduct by a drug addict who didn’t like him. This outrageous and utterly baseless charge has resulted in his suspension from office after a brief investigation interviewing only a few antagonists who had no evidence.  Pastor Wildner served faithfully and tirelessly for well over three decades in the inner city, a veritable picture of Christ among some of the most forgotten people in the land: drug addicts, homeless, destitute people. The baseless charge of impropriety has led suddenly to Pastor Wildner's shameless suspension from office. The editors gladly attest to this man's character and Christian humility, being saddened by the political forces that unjustly took advantage of the situation. We are honored to have the opportunity to burnish his reputation with our own. 

The nearby photo shows, from left to right: Rev. Dr. Burnell Eckardt, editor-in-chief of Gottesdienst; Rev. Charles McClean of Baltimore, who received the award on Rev. Wildner's behalf; Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer; Dr. Daniel Johansson from the Lutheran School of Theology in Gothenburg, Sweden; Dr. Chris Barnekov of Scandanavia House in Fort Wayne (both of these men representing the Scandanavian nominees), and Chaplain (Colonel) Jonathan Shaw, who is Gottesdienst's Sabre of Boldness editor.  There were seven other nominees, each of whom we also count worthy of honor for their dedication to duty and boldness in the face of evil. They were:

Rev. Michael Kearney, Pastor at St. Paul’s in Alden, Iowa. He has only served  for about a year and a half, but when he arrived, he immediately had to deal with some cohabitation problems in his parish. He dealt with them pastorally and clearly, stating that a cohabitating couple must not think they could simply rectify their impropriety by getting married, but by repenting of their sin. This led to some unsavory treatment of the young pastor, but, we have been advised, has also led to some God-pleasing repentance.

Rev. Annsi Simojoki of Finland. Rev. Dr. Anssi Simojoki, together with four other pastors, was defrocked by the Cathedral Chapter (the governing body) of the Archdiocese of Turku in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. His crime: participation in the life and work of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland. They are not seen in a favorable light by the Cathedral Chapter in Finland because they do not support the ordination of women, and they uphold the vows of their own ordination into the Pastoral Office.

Rev. Rogner Block of Sweden. Similarly to Rev Simojoki, Rev. Block was defrocked in Sweden because of his participation in the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese, and also, similarly, because he could not support the ordination of women, a matter the State Churches could not tolerate. He and Rev. Simojoki have preached the Gospel, administered the Sacrament, heard confessions in congregations which had no pastors.

Rev. Dr. Peter Scaer of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Dr. Scaer has worked tirelessly in support of the unborn, both within and outside the church, lobbying politically for the upholding of their right to life, and preaching within the church on the need to do so. His efforts have been ceaseless for several years now, and he is recognized as one of our clearest voices on behalf of the unborn who have no voice of their own.

Rev. Brian Hamer, formerly of Flushing, New York. UPDATE (our original information was not entirely accurate): Rev. Hamer, a faithful pastor for over a decade in New York, was recently removed from serving as chaplain to his own congregation's school without cause, by district officials working behind his back and in collusion with congregational antagonists, as part of an ongoing effort to run him out of town. He never wavered in his commitment to his call, but last year he finally  took a call from the LCMS Board for International Mission to full-time military chaplaincy in the Navy.

Rev. President Terry Forke, Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Harowtown, Montana, and President of the Montana District. President Forke was instrumental in finally bringing a resolution to the flagrant false teachings of Dr. Matthew Becker of Valparaiso. Dr. Becker, still unrepentant, has at last been removed from the LCMS.

Rev. Gottfried Martens of Berlin, Germany.  Rev. Martens has been pastor of St. Mary’s Lutheran Church in Berlin for many years, a church which has seen hundreds of refugees come in, Muslims seeking the truth and finding it under his preaching and catechesis, being baptized and brought into his congregation. His success among the immigrants has put his name in the German news, and so has put him personally at risk, due to the violence that so easily attaches itself to the Muslim extremists who do not take kindly to losing nearly a thousand converts to Christianity. Yet his efforts continue unabated.