1. “Good evening, Father. How are you?” It was the Kroger clerk manning the self-check lines. I’d forgotten to buy eggs on my visit the previous day. So, I was back again. The clerk, someone I’d never seen before, was a big guy. He spoke with what sounded like a Cajun accent.
2. “I’m doing well, thank you. How are you?”

“Good. Where is your parish?”

I explained that I’m pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church and told him where our buildings are situated.
3. “I’ve seen it. I’m Episcopal myself. There seem to be a lot more Lutheran congregations here than where I’m from.”

I asked where he was from and he explained that he was from Louisiana.

We chatted a bit longer. Then he asked, “What time are your services?”
4. After I told him, he said, “Ooh! I like 11 AM! I’ll try to worship with you sometime.” “You’re always welcome!”

I was wearing my collar, of course. But the big take-away, I think, is not to be afraid to own your identity as a child of Christ wherever you are.
5. There are lots of people around you who want to connect with the God revealed in Jesus Christ and Jesus’ people can help them do that.
6. The apostle Peter says: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...” (1 Peter 3:15)

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More from @MARKJDANIELS

18 Feb
1. #Prayer update: Members of the congregation our son serves as pastor in #Texas have taken in him, our daughter-in-law, and DiL's mom, who is with them. Their place has had no power, heat, or water since yesterday afternoon. Our daughter-in-law's due date is today.
2. The couple who has taken them all in are also without power or water, but have another source of heat, can cook, and stored drinking water. Our son says that the short drive to the couple's house was treacherous, but they're very grateful.
3. Please #pray for the people of #Texas, who are being subjected to a dangerous circumstance not really caused by the weather but by some questionable public and corporate decision-making. The past year has been hard for the whole country. But this is additional hardship 4 ppl.
Read 4 tweets
17 Feb
1. May God bless you this Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent. The word “Lent” originally meant “spring.” It’s a time to reflect on our Baptism and a time of spiritual rebirth and renewal.
2. The season of Lent lasts 40 days, excluding Sundays. In Church history, candidates for Baptism would fast during these 40 days leading to their Baptism at Easter.
3. As to Ash Wednesday itself, ashes, in a Jewish and Christian context, suggest three things: judgment and God’s condemnation of sin; our total dependence upon God for life; and repentance, joyful turning back to God.
Read 6 tweets
16 Feb
1. Here's a #prayer update on Brian, the 37yo who has been hospitalized with COVID-19 & its aftereffects for 17-weeks.

Surgeons were unable to put a wound vac in his back last Friday because the equipment used at the...
2. ...transition hospital where he's been a patient for some time is incompatible with the vac that would have been installed at the major hospital to which he went for the procedure.

However, a wound vac was installed at the transition hospital yesterday...
3. ...Also yesterday, Brian was running a temperature, apparently because of a new case of bacterial pneumonia. However, his temperature is down today.

He remains in the transition hospital ICU following last week's surgical procedure and is 80%-dependent on the ventilator...
Read 4 tweets
16 Feb
Rating our chief executives on #presidentsday2021 (up through 25 years ago).

Greatest: Washington, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower

Worst (worst to less worse): Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce
Most unsavory and impeachable: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton

Most surprising: Chester Alan Arthur

Most underrated: Eisenhower, Grant, Bush the Elder

Most overrated: Jefferson, Kennedy
Most tragic: All the assassinated presidents of course. But also Garfield (he could have been great), LBJohnson (pursued the Vietnam War although he knew it was unwinnable, undermining his good work)

Best writers: Lincoln, T Roosevelt, Wilson

Most racist: Andrew Johnson, Wilson
Read 4 tweets
4 Feb
There's nothing you can do
It's all outside of you

You cannot decide to follow Jesus for life with God. Such a decision is foreign to our human nature. Faith, salvation, new life, and sanctification come to us from outside ourselves, from the God revealed in Jesus, the Word...
...of God made flesh. Holy Spirit is on the loose in the shared Word about Jesus and woos us to repentance and faith in Jesus. "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." (Romans 10:17)
...I had been an atheist for a decade when I married a Lutheran Christian. I attended a Bible study to find out what this "nonsense" was all about. The Spirit wooed me into faith through the Word read, proclaimed, taught, shared...
Read 4 tweets
4 Feb
1. Late Wednesday/Early Thursday #prayer update on Brian, the 37yo battling the effects of COVID19: Today, I believe, marked fifteen weeks since Brian went to the hospital.

On Wednesday, Brian's fever was down...
2. ...But the infection in the back wound, caused by bedsores, remains. He continues to be on a ventilator.

He will soon be undergoing surgery on the wound, to clean it out and emplace a wound vac...
3. ...That will happen back at the hospital to which he originally went for COVID. (He's been in a transition hospital for some weeks now.) The doctors believe the only way the wound will heal is if this procedure is performed...
Read 5 tweets

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