Monday, January 13, 2014

I have a game to catch


'The very abbreviated worship service'

14 comments:

Michael Haz said...

Ha! Leave it to the Lutherans to reform long church services on game day.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Looks like the lady that walked in front of the camera, at the beginning, imagined what was going to happen and left ahead of everybody.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Watch it again... as soon as she hears about "a game" she was out of there. lol

Fr Martin Fox said...

Is this for real? If it's a joke, it's in poor taste (given what I understand to be Lutheran beliefs); but if this pastor really did walk out, and that was the end of the service? Pretty shocking.

Do I have to explain this?

Amartel said...

That's our San Francisco Bay Area.
Sigh. I hope it's a joke.
There's some bread and some wine up here help yourselves.
If you're a preacher and it's Sunday then your game-viewing is going to be compromised.
Work around it. DVR it.
He's just so PROUD of his abbreviated service.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The problem is he's closing the barn doors after the ship has left the station.

Michael Haz said...

Shocking indeed.

I attended a Lutheran service because a friend's baby was being baptized at the end of the service. It was, to be polite, interesting.

Loud rock band, massive big screen TV, pastor wearing Orvis fishing hat and vest, a separate line for those who wanted gluten-free communion and non-alcoholic wine.

To each their own, but it didn't really feel like church. But then, I'm a cradle Catholic who usually attends a Latin Mass, so I have to make a leap of faith sometimes.

Fr Martin Fox said...

Obviously I'm not a Lutheran. I mean no disrespect to Lutherans, who--while I don't share their particular beliefs--I take to be people seriously seeking to follow Christ.

But if I went to that church, and the pastor came out and did that?

I'd be offended by him "dissing" the Scriptures, the need to preach the Gospel, and the need to worship--and in particular, the Eucharist, even in the fashion that Lutherans believe in it. (I mean, even though they don't take as high a view as Catholics, this is still pretty sacrilegious.)

And those in the congregation who aren't offended?

Why do you go to church? This pastor just made it clear none of it matters very much.

Again, I hope it's just a joke.

Paddy O said...

Seems like some kind of inside joke or creative illustration.

Synova said...

I donno... as a Lutheran brought up in a fundamentalist tradition I don't find it particularly disrespectful. Lutherans are sort of the Air Force of the church world... yes, we take ourselves very seriously, but don't get overly wound up about authority. It's all about the priesthood of the believer and the guy up front (even in the Missouri tradition that holds to an unbroken chain of annointing pastors from the Apostles... or so I'm told, I'm a bit lost on how they figured that out) isn't any better or different from the schmuck in the pew.

I'm not particularly familiar with the Evangelical Lutheran church. My guess is that it was a joke and he came back to finish the service.

Synova said...

The church has two services... the first is usually thin... the second full. It was probably a joke about the fact that the usually full service was all but empty.

If the pastor really wanted to watch the game as it happened, it would be a simple thing to just plan a single service on that Sunday with the excuse that almost no one shows up for the late service.

Michael Haz said...

The gentleman is the pastor of Gold Hill Evangelical Lutheran Church in Butte Montana.

Their website (which is not often updated, apparently) suggest the pastor is recently arrived.

The church's Facebook site has the video posted with this comment: "Not exactly a TYPICAL Sunday morning at Gold Hill, but John Christensen captured this brief and funny video. 'Share' as you wish and maybe his video goes viral. TOO FUNNY!"

The seventeenth comment on the Facebook page has a link to another article which includes this quote:

"It was just a little bit of a joke," a parish secretary who only identified as Mariam told Mashable on Monday. "The entire congregation knows he's a big 49ers fan, so they were in on it and he held a full service right after that."

Seems like a long way to go in order to find the truth of what happened.

Synova said...

The Lutheran church I grew up in makes the Missouri Synod look like Liberals... my brother managed to find the only Lutheran church that was even more strict than that.

The view of the "big" Lutheran churches is pretty much that they're social clubs, and you'd be better off going to a *gasp* Baptist church where they're *wrong* but at least they're serious about it.

sakredkow said...
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