SoulCare for the Church
1 Peter 5:10b

† Iesou, Huios, Soter †

Deacon Charles Zetzman from the Concordia was laid to rest on September 17. Despite battling type 1 Diabetes for over 70 years and dementia for at least 15,  he went through the deacon program in order to help his crazy pastor. This was while he was fighting health problems and dementia. Miraculously, he could handle the courses… struggled with them, but he handled them

He became a spectacular practical theologian; he boiled down everything to two simple thoughts. He thought if we “got these things” we would find that God has and is restoring, supporting, and strengthening you, as our key verse said He would.

Sing Chuck’s first profound theological statement with me.

“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”

Hey, wait, you guys kept going—and those words weren’t on the slide! Sigh… just like Monday night—where you all were on autopilot during confession and absolution! I did that, by the way—so you would think through the rest of the service before assuming what would be said!

Chuck’s second theological statement, which would change the world, is on the next slide.

The Lord is with you!

Just curious. Did anyone notice the difference between my version?

Instead of the Lord BE with you, I have there the LORD Is with you and periods are replaced with proper exclamation points! Think on that later.

For Chuck, Jesus is the answer. Simple

Jesus loved Chuck and spent a lot of time with Chuck.

He got that—through all the darkness of dementia, through all the challenges… and he wanted to help me tell others about it.
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I want you to this to these words from Tozer,

In what I have to say I may not be joined by any ground swell of public opinion, but I have a charge to make against the church. We are not consciously aware of God in our midst. We do not seem to sense the tragedy of having almost completely lost the awareness of His presence.…

Those words come from 1986, but are still relevant today.

Sorry guys, our worship isn’t doing what its supposed to do…

WORSHIP MUST REVEAL CHRIST’S PRESENCE!

And if we are going to care for the souls of our church, then we must change how we do what we do–we have to help our people to realize that they live in the presence of God.

Helping them experience the loving presence of God begins on Sunday morning, or Saturday night when your people gather to hear you…and maybe sing some songs or listen to them, and maybe suffer through the liturgy.

You want to make their lives easier, reveal Jesus to them in those 75 minutes. You have a portion of their attention, and realize everything you do in that service reveals Jesus in an incarnation way in your life first, and then you can help them see Him in theirs

Worship needs to reveal this – every part of it.

I don’t care if you wear robes and do DS4 from LSB or page 15 from TLH ( I might have a problem if you do page 5 – your people need the Lord’s Supper!)  I don’t care if you do contemporary music wrapped around baptism, absolution, the reading of the Word and the Lord’s Supper.

What I care about is this – did you realize that every part of worship is a revelation of the presence of Jesus. Everything!

Those words you say… you need to know they reveal Christ, His presence and His love.

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In the stead and by the command – you are forgiven!

The Lord is with you!

Some of you may notice I replaced the Period there with an exclamation point, If you read that… blah… proclaim it!

Your reading of the gospel

The Lord is with you!

The peace of the Lord is with you!

What have you said to them?

That’s why I moved the Lord’s prayer in our service – to end the general prayer with it. With words like these:

And for all the things we don’t know how to pray for, for those things that burden us, stress us out, and keep us awake all night; for the prayers where we don’t even have the words to say, hear those prayers as we pray as the Lord Jesus taught us…

How does that change how we say/sing the Lord’s prayer?

What about the things you do?

For example–what is in your hand on Sunday mornings?

Is it just water, or bread and wine? Or “just” the theological body and blood.

Or is it really Christ, broken and given for them?

It all reveals Jesus, and therefore, it needs to be savored and said with the weight and joy of what you are giving them! Believe those words you are saying, be confident in what you are doing and the sacraments you administer!

If the church is to revive—it must be because we realize our lives are lived on ground as holy as that Moses stood upon.

By the way, this has always been the purpose of every part of the Liturgy – going back to the patristic age, through Luther’s reformation, an Walther’s time. The purpose after all – of all worship is to teach people what they need to know about Jesus Christ.

Every era of the church saw worship as this, if you don’t believe me – there is a dissertation about Liturgical Worship and Soul Care presently be written with 180 quotes out of those time periods to this very concept of worship being the foundation of soul care.

Quotes like this:

“The people are also reminded about the dignity and use of the sacrament—how it offers great consolation to anxious consciences—so that they may learn to believe in God and expect and ask for all that is good from God.” (article XXIV, Augsburg Confession

Change consolation to comfort.

But we’ve forgotten it – and we’ve forgotten the tie between what we do on Sunday morning, and what happens at the dying person’s bedside, or with the couple working toward divorce, or the youth struggling with the gender issues, or the person wanting to grow in their faith – and they are looking for somewhere to “start?”

Dr. Meier started this week by stating that he had some dissonance with the Easter Acclimation  You know it well

Alleluia! He is Risen!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Let me share what the real Concordia adds to this liturgical gem.

Alleluia! He is Risen!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

And Therefore

WE are risen indeed! Alleluia!

The Lord, who reigns over the world and the church, has drawn us into His death, and we have been raised with Him.

That fact is where all healing of the soul begins, it nurtured as we pour water over heads, as we proclaim forgiveness

Since we are talking about Petrine literature – I would say this – The reason, the apologia that you have hope, the reason you are supposed to be always ready to share is this…

The Lord is with you!

Let’s pray!