Conferences & Workshops
LAP Summer Conference!
July 18-20, 2008
Camp Lutherhaven, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom — Paul’s Vision for a Congregation:
We are most familiar with Luther’s personal journey through the book of Romans. It would transform him and his theology resulting in the whole movement which bears his name today, our movement, this Church we call home. But Paul wrote to a congregation in Rome, a place where real people struggled to live in genuine community. He wrote the Christians in Rome to ask for their support for his missionary journey to Spain, but Paul also had a vision for the congregation in Rome. He wanted them to be his sending congregation, the people who would commission him, pray for him, and support him. For that he needed a healthy, vibrant community of Christians gathered in the name of Jesus who could stand behind him. Romans can be read as the blue print for that community. Paul gives his vision for just what this Kingdom of God looks like here where the people of God gather.
Humans in the 21st century face an increasingly complex world. Our parents could hardly imagine that when we called for help with some gadget, our call is likely routed to India and we speak with a person in New Delhi or Bangalore? Who would have thought that cars would ever run on something other than gas or that a computer might fit in the palm of your hand? Yet for all this marvelous complexity, some human needs remain essentially the same. Paul speaks of a community that is authentically living in Christ’s love, united in the kingdom of God, radically transformed by the gracious rule of Christ.
There is no magic bullet which solves problems for congregations in this complex world. Changing our worship style or hiring a youth minister might all be good things to do, but there is no single key to successful ministry as a congregation. The one essential, however, is that the congregation authentically live out the calling that God has given to his Christian people, a calling Paul articulated to the Romans nearly 2000 years ago and which has not changed. In a world of tremendous change, people are also hungry for that which does not change. In a generation shaped by situational ethics, people are attracted to a community which lives by rules they do not make up. But most of all, they thirst for a place they can call home, people who know them and love them anyway.
Paul will challenge us to look at the basics of what makes our congregation a missional and welcoming sort of place for the people of the first century and the twenty-first century.
About the Presenter: Pastor Phillip Brandt is an Associate Professor of Theology at Concordia University, Portland, Oregon. He has taught LAP and MTC courses since 2002. He has also taught for the EIIT distance educational courses for Concordia Seminary and served as a guest lecturer for Concordia Seminary, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and Concordia Seminary, Nagercoil, India. Prior to joining the faculty in Portland, he served as parish pastor in Oregon and Utah. He is married to Stephanie Nordling Brandt and together they have three children, Samuel, Lydia, and Lucas.