Lutheran Carnival posts are due this Friday. Email them to lutherancarnival AT gmail DOT com.

What fast food chain are you? Your Result: You are Dairy Queen!!! Deciding to offer the people the sweeter things in life, you provide the general public with a nice delicious flavor that is generally welcome only after the main event. Little do people know that you have sweetness in yourself, as well.
You are Subway!!!
You are Taco Bell!!!
You are Pizza Hut!!!
You are KFC!!!
You are McDonald's!!!
What fast food chain are you?

Which Pirate are you most like? Your Result: You Are Most Like Barbossa!! Not always the greatest to hang around with, but you have a presence about you that makes people want to know you. You are a born leader, even if you do sometimes abuse that power.
You Are Most Like Jack Sparrow!!
You Are Most Like Will Turner!!
You Are Most Like Elizabeth Swann!!
Which Pirate are you most like?

You have a 26% chance of going postal!

Good news! You're not very likely to kill your coworkers. You seem very well adjusted. You rock! Talk about those feelings!

How Likely Are You to Go Postal?
Create Your Own Quiz

Lutheran Carnival XXX is now up at the home site.

I eliminated a link because, lo and behold, it is no longer a personal website but an advertisement for porn. Those guys swoop in and use any website they can get their hands on.

I have been reading some about WELS and worship and trying to figure out how the synod ended up where it is now and what might be done to improve the situation as it stands. It's not that WELS is in a bad place. I just think things could be made better. If I were on the WELS Commission of Worship, these are the changes I would make.

The Common Service (aka pg 5 & 15 (TLH) or DS I (LW))

First thing is make sure to show one is allowed to make the sign of the cross on oneself when invoking the triune name of God without being Catholic. It is OK to make the sign of the cross. I do it all the time at my new church. Fire and brimstone doesn't fall on my head when I do it. Purgatory doesn't swallow me up. They do have the right idea having the pastor face the altar rather than facing the congregation and making the sign of the cross.

The second thing is moving the Kyrie into the confession of sins. It shows that the liturgists in WELS need to do a better job of educating their people and pastors as to what the Kyrie is and why it is in the liturgy. The Kyrie is always one of those parts where the temptation to move it is there. We shouldn't.

Third, the verse is an opportunity for the congregation to sing praise to God. The pastor says it instead. I miss singing the verse.

Fourth, get rid of the translation of the Nicene Creed. It's bumbling, doesn't read well, and is gender neutral, which I dislike. There is no reason for our synod to use an ecumenical translation when we're not all that ecumenical.

Fifth, why did they move the offertory to before the offering? That's putting the cart before the horse.

Sixth, The Lord's Prayer is in the same place, communion or no communion. It's placed after the general prayer. It needs to be moved back to its proper role before the verba in the communion setting.

Finally, they need to bring back the majestic language in the Proper Preface. Singing "with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven" is better than "with all the saints on earth and the hosts of heaven."

Anyway, many of the complaints I have for the common service also hold for the other services. In the Service of Word and Sacrament, the Kyrie is where it is supposed to be. I just wish they had used the traditional language of the liturgy rather than inventing something new.

I just want to remind everyone that Lutheran Carnival XXX posts are due 7:00 pm CDT Friday. You really need to get them in on time because I will be busy this weekend. Then again, I have been busy every weekend as of late. And weekday.

I looked for the ELCA carnival this week. It seems to have failed. That actually saddens me. Believe it or not, I thought Walking the Midway had a lot of potential. If the circumstances were better, it might have taken off.

I hate allergies.

Kansas is hot this time of year.

Confessional Lutherans can become fundamentalists if we are not careful. People of all stripes can become fundamentalists. I believe there is such a thing as a progressive fundamentalist.

I need sleep.

Another excellent season of Music Theater Wichita is in the books, and another season of trying to watch the shows around women's big hair. What in the world possesses women to create the huge obnoxious hairstyles that block the views of those behind them. We're already a million miles from the stage in the balcony, and asking me to try to watch the action around that gigantic dome of hair you probably spent hours teasing into place is just that last straw. Ladies, if you don't want half you hair burned off your head, leave the hair down.

It appears the lawsuit is back on, at least according to Concord. Kieshnick may have opened himself up to this by settling the former lawsuit. This new twist has four members of the BOD taking count II of the original lawsuit and intervening. It appears they have the high-powered attorneys of Brian Cave, the group that put out the controversial opinion that started this in the first place. Knowing that both parties are dreadful sinners, there are one of two things that happened. The first is a little perplexing, but the second is, in military terms, beauitiful and yet so uttelry devious. The first explanation is that they saw the lawsuit failing and decided the second point was not solved to their satisfaction. This is the charitable explanation.

The second explanation is not charitable in the least. What it says is that the lawsuit filed by the Lutheran Concerns Association was a diversionary tactic in order to force a settlement on the part of Kiechnick. Once he settled, he opened himself to another lawsuit. He took the bait and led himself right into an ambush. This opinion is also held Concord (from whom I admittedly stole it).

The AC got fixed Monday afternoon. The stupid fan fell apart.

I am hosting the Lutheran Carnival over at the home site. If you have any submissions (we have a whole whopping one at the moment), send them to lutherancarnival AT gmail DOT com and we'll make sure to put them up. Participation has been down as of late, and I would love to see many of you who used to submit but now don't begin to submit posts again. Anyway, use the format and remember you can submit posts from other blogs (as long as the writers are Confessional Lutherans).

As wedding bells get slowly but surely closer, I thought about my past two churches and what happened. I realized that the past two churches I was a member of had problems meeting my admittedly low expectations. What kind of expectations should we have of our pastors? I don't know about you, but I expect two simple things. First, the pastor must divide the Word of God rightly. Second, he must administer the sacraments rightly. In my first Church, they had problems with both, and in my second church, they had problems with the latter. That wasn't so much the female elder as the open communion.

By the way, I got a thing in the mail today from my old church. They are inviting me to a dinner. Thanks, but no thanks.

Anyway, I need to go to bed. I haven't gotten any sleep the last couple of nights because the A/C in the house went caplut.