Higher Things Blogosphere

Madre's Missives : I Kissed a Girl

Sandra Ostapowich — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:50:09 -0400

I Kissed a Girl
by Katy Perry

This was never the way I planned
Not my intention
I got so brave, drink in hand
Lost my discretion
It's not what, I'm used to
Just wanna try you on
I'm curious for you
Caught my attention

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

No, I don't even know your name
It doesn't matter
You're my experimental game
Just human nature
It's not what, good girls do
Not how they should behave
My head gets so confused
Hard to obey

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

Us girls we are so magical
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable
Hard to resist so touchable
Too good to deny it
Ain't no big deal, it's innocent

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chap stick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

It takes a lot to disturb me. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is what it is. I have been disturbed. And of all things, by a song I heard on the Top 20 station on my radio* between random errands the other day. I normally just listen to news or the 70's station, but I was actually trying to get an idea of what teens are listening to these days. Did I get an earful!

Just to make sure I wasn't imagining what I heard, I asked my youth group about it this week. Before I even finished asking my question, they named the song, the artist, and were singing the lyrics. Against their will, they say. They all hate the song, but its catchy tune has burned it into their memories. (If only I could get them to learn the catechism so quickly! Somehow I don't think Katy Perry will be on board with that plan.)

We have become such a hedonistic and disposable culture that it's perfectly normal - stuff of Top 20 pop music charts - for a young lady (and I use the term loosely here) to get drunk and make out with another young lady (and I use the term loosely here too). She hopes her boyfriend doesn't mind, but every girl today knows that making out with another girl is a great way to get a guy's attention and "safely" be a tease.

Now I know that a lot of people these days, even Christians, are cool with sexual experimentation, many of them even promote it. How else are you going to know if you're "compatible" for a long term relationship or marriage if you don't try things out ahead of time? (Don't get me started on the plug and socket speech...) Not only is there the usual boy-girl experimentation going on, but now we have pop music promoting same-sex experimentation too. It's not enough for to teach against and try to prevent "purpling", but apparently "pinking" and "bluing" is more common than ever.

"Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature..." (Romans 1:22-26)

The interesting thing about this song is that Miss Perry knows what she is doing is wrong. She's struggling internally with the decision. It demonstrates how, even though it is against our conscience, we are encouraged to overcome that voice and satiate our curiosity. Separate intimate actions from intimate relationships. It's all about random feelings and following our basest of urges. Even the personal interaction of a kiss has been depersonalized. This girl Miss Perry kissed may as well have been a lightpost for all the human interaction that was involved.

This just further goes to show the depth of sin in this world we live in, in our relationships with one another, and even our "relationships" with ourselves. This is not the way God created things for us, not the way He wants them to be for us. He has given us His Son to be our Bridegroom, to be the One who tends to us, loves us, gives Himself for us, puts us first, does not treat our bodies merely as objects of lust for his own pleasure and experimentation. How could He? He died to save us from this twisted world we live in, where our young ladies are encouraged to try out homosexuality on the radio. Come quickly, Lord!

* XM radio is REALLY cool - it's like cable TV for the radio!

Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere : Power

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:57:04 -0400

For my money, you can't beat the glass half empty folks over at Despair.com. For some reason, this one struck a chord with me this morning. I think I'm going to have this made into a t-shirt.

Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere : Reorganizing

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:47:58 -0400

It's time to sort things out and make some neat piles. I'm a piler, not a filer (ISTP, in case anyone's wondering). I have more blogs going than Rick Stuckwisch has eucharistic vestments, so I figure it's time to get organized. Here's what I've come up with; get ready to repoint your web browser.

Blogosphere is going to continue here in its petty pace from day to day at HIGHER THINGS with a few content changes. I'll be posting sermons only irregularly here from now on. Those of you who want to keep up with my homiletical ramblings on a weekly basis can go to the mother ship, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, where I'm actually called to preach. Imagine that. There are mp3 recordings, when available, along with a huge archive and killer search engine on a server that is faster than Kyle Busch pursuing the Nextel Cup. I won't be updating the Sermonator here any more, but you can find all of it and more over at the HTLC site. Table Talk will remain here at Blogosphere.

My podcast is moving as well, thanks to my tech squad of Ted, Jeff, and Chuck. You can find our new iTunes store listing here. The old one will still work, but will not be updated. Thanks a ton to Chris Rosebrough of Extreme Theology and the founder of Pirate Christian Radio for getting me into podcasting long before I knew what an XML feed was. (I still don't know how to modify one, but working on a Mac, I really don't have to.)

I want to return Blogosphere to the sort of "stuff I've been thinking about lately," with more of an accent on youth, youth ministry, and of course, HIGHER THINGS (which hosts this site), the greatest youth organization on the face of the planet. I'd like to revive the posts on Logical Fallacies, since fallacies tend to grow like crabgrass on the lawn of discourse, and otherwise generally pontificate on whatever else comes to mind in the spirit of Table Talk.

For things political, critical, and generally incendiary, you can wander at your own risk to Blogosphere Underground, my personal bunker and man-space where I write things that would otherwise get HIGHER THINGS or Holy Trinity in hot water. Being the prez has it's drawbacks.

And don't forget the new venture called The God Whisperers, which is certain to get me in dutch with someone in high places just as soon as we have more than two or three listeners.

That's about the extent of it. This doesn't mean I'm going to be cranking out more stuff, but it will eliminate some needless redundancy. (Yes, Virginia, there is a such thing as "needful redundancy." Just ask scuba divers or NASA.)

Happy blogging. Always plan your dive and dive your plan. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited by law.

wmc

Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere : The God Whisperers

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:34:32 -0400

As if I haven't stirred up enough trouble lately, I've gotten involved in a little podcast adventure with a good buddy of mine, Pr. Craig Donofrio. Craig has a background in broadcasting and contempogelicalism and is the man in charge of programming over at Pirate Christian Radio, the new home of Issues, Etc. Craig and I have teamed up on a program called The God Whisperers, a kind of a cross between Luther's table talk and the "Tappet brothers" of NPR's Car Talk. We're going through Luther's small catechism at the moment, and having a high old time of it. The purpose of The God Whisperers is to engage in casual conversation about Scriptural, catechetical, and confessional topics without sounding too "religious." In other words, religious talk for the unreligious.

If you want to listen on web radio, you can catch us around 4:00 PM or so on Pirate Christian Radio. Our podcast site is at godwhisperers.com. You can also subscribe and download the show at the iTunes store.

If you have a question or topic you'd like us to kick around, send us an email at godwhisperers@gmail.com.

Bloghardt's Reflector : Two Thumbs Up for HT!

Bloghardt — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:39:44 -0400

Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere : Christian the Lion

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:04:11 -0400

OK, I'll be the first one to admit it. I'm a big sucker for this kind of story. As an animal lover, and especially a cat lover, I always enjoy it when our preconceived notions of what makes critters tick is turned completely upside down. This is an old film, but it's had a huge revival on You-Tube recently. Say whatever you want; I think this is cool.

Psalming Padawan : Pearl Ahoy!

Psalming Padawan — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:15:16 -0400

In the Pirates of the Caribbean movie the Black Pearl plays a pivotal role in the movie. Barbarossa mutinies Jack Sparrow for it, and Jack strives throughout the movie to take it back. There’s a treasure that is accursed and the final piece is also greatly sought after that the curse might be lifted. Both Sparrow and Barbarossa would give anything to attain that which they so desire.

In this coming Sunday’s Gospel Reading there’s a pearl and a treasure; these both elicit a response much like that in Pirates, and yet it is also completely different.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” - Matthew 13:44-46

From eternity God in heaven saw you, loved you, and wanted you to be his - chosen in Christ to be God’s sons and daughters. From our perspective it seemed that the devil had mutinied and won, but God already foreknew his purpose for us. God saw us from eternity, found us, and sent his Son to save us.

And Christ with joy freely gives himself up. He gave up his seat in heaven, his power by taking on our flesh. He continually gave up his time for sinners, for the sick, the dying, and dead. He finally gave up it all, and he, God in the flesh, gave up his life for us.

His blood purchased a ransom for the whole world, we his treasured possession, and it covers all of our sin. Now risen, Christ no longer gives himself up, but gives himself to… He gives himself to me, and he gives himself to you too. He gives himself in Holy Baptism, he gives himself in Holy Absolution, and he most certainly gives to you his body and blood in Holy Communion.

The devil fights so hard to grasp onto you and take you away from him who bought you. But we are Christ’s. We are his treasure, his pearl, his sheep, and his coin and nothing will take us out of his hand. Nothing can take away his gifts from us that make us his own. For the kingdom of heaven is like those things, and that means heaven. Heaven for us today, heaven for us this Sunday, heaven for us in word, water, bread and wine, and heaven for us when we die.

Amiga: Luvable lutheran's blog : Connections

mt1goal — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:01:46 -0400

Ever play the 6 degrees of separation or is it 7 to Kevin Bacon game? You make connections with people based on what movies they were in until you get to kevin Bacon. The idea is to get the fewest connections. Well this last week I went to several events where I felt like that. One event was a professional meeting that was held on a boat cruise. I began meeting one lady who is a health care administrative officer and she began introducing me to many of her colleagues that served within the professional organization and the healthcare organization in which she worked. It was very helpful in meeting people and networking within the organization. The second event I went to was an alumni club send off for students starting at that university next month. Again I was working the crowd so to say and introducing myself to folks. I met a doctor who did his residency training at the same time as one of my old roommates. In fact he recalled a fond memory during that time. Then I met a lawyer and we were chatting about alumni interviews so I can help out in my new town. I mentioned where I work and come to find out she's the niece of the organization's president! I didnt' realize that we all went to the same university at one time. Small world!

Perhap at Higher Things conferences you feel like that too as you meet people who know people you know. I feel like singing it's a small Lutheran world after all. I visited a congregation and noticed one of my best friends had signed the visitor's book, as well as another pastor from where I moved from. I figured if it's good enough for them, it'll be good enough for me. Think of it as sort of the best friend's recommendation that distinguishes a place or person above the rest. I also meet a HT person in person finally after working with them in some capacity for last year's conferences when I visited their church. It'll probably be too far for me to drive to their congregation, but it was nice to visit. A few folks I met virtually on the HT forums contacted me offlist and began a conversation of sorts. I have yet to meet these people in person, but they attended conferences this year and worked with many of the friends I've already met through HT. My Lutheran circle of friends keeps expanding.

That is a good thing, but have you ever thought how big it really is? I mean those of you who are on the same page theologically? When you comunion with the whole company of heaven and earth, there are all those saints who have gone before us. I mean I think of my grandmother and a pastor who passed from cancer, but there are thousands of saints in heaven. There are quite a few here on earth too. Think of how awesome it is to worship with 1300 of your friends, some of whom you havent' even met yet at a Higher Things conference. It is amazing! We are all on the same page theologically, worshipping together. We all are Lutheran. Sometimes it seems at times that there are few who share the same beliefs, especially if you are in an area where there aren't many Lutherans or have a small congregation. However, when brought together we reaffirm the faith and lift each other up. It is utterly amazing. Know that you aren't alone, but joined in the same confession of faith with the saints of heaven and earth whenever you partake of communion, that is the community in union. Furthermore you are connected vertically with the Holy Trinity by eating Christ's Body and Blood and receiving His gifts of forgiveness and salvation. Membership does have it's priviledges! We are priveledges to be children of God and saints. It doesn't get much better than that!

Latest News : Board of Directors - Elections Announcement

Sandra Ostapowich — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:52:43 -0400

Last week, during the Amen - Irvine conference, the Higher Things Board of Directors and Executives met for our annual Summit meeting. One of the most important orders of business for this annual meeting are our elections. The HT Board of Directors is comprised of 9 members. Directors serve three-year terms, and three director seats are up for election each year.

This year, incumbents Pr. William Cwirla and Pr. Bruce Keseman were both re-elected to serve another term and we are pleased to have elected a new-comer to the Board, Pr. David Kind. Pr. Kind has served as a conference Chaplain at both For You - Minneapolis and Amen - Poconos, and has been involved with HT's Christ on Campus as the pastor of University Lutheran Chapel in Minneapolis, MN.

Also during the annual meeting, the HT Board of Directors elects Officers to serve one-year terms. The Board of Directors Officers for the coming year are as follows:

President: Pr. William Cwirla
Vice-President: Pr. Brent Kuhlman
Treasurer: Lynn Fredericksen
Secretary: Sandra Ostapowich

All new terms will begin on September 1, 2008.

Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere : Petersen/Cwirla - A Dialogue

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:32:52 -0400

Note: I reset the date of our dialogue to bring it to the top of the Blogosphere heap. My webmaster Stan has reminded me that readers can subscribe to rss/atom feeds to follow the comments at:

http://blog.higherthings.org/wcwirla/rss/comments.xml
http://blog.higherthings.org/wcwirla/atom/comments.xml

__________________________

A few months ago, Dave Petersen and I got into a little discussion at his blog Cyberstones over something he wrote there about the Word and the Office. After getting hopelessly tangled in his nested comment stream, we agreed to bring the conversation over to Blogosphere where the comments are linear, the women are strong, and the children are above average. At long last, we are able to bring you the Petersen/Cwirla dialogue.

(crowd noise)

First, the ground rules. Normally, I don't interfere with my comment stream. Shoot, usually I don't even read it. But in this case, I'm making an exception. Only Dave and I are allowed to comment. That means if you aren't Dave Petersen or Bill Cwirla, I delete you faster than you can say "genus majestaticum." Got it? You can lurk and listen, but if you want to comment, do it on your own space.

Second, expect this dialogue to creep in its petty pace from day to day until the last syllable of recorded time because both of us have day jobs. And no email either. I won't answer it. I can't speak for Dave. We'll add to the discussion as time, strength, and sanity permit.

OK, so here's the issue at hand. A while back, Dave posted this brief note on his blog:

"The Word of God is valid and effective when confessed by His people one to another or to lost. The Word of God is not dependent upon the Office of the Holy Ministry and does not derives its power or authority from the Office. Thus lay confessions and testimonies are good, valid, effective, nice, right, salutary, meet, helpful, and worthy. But those confessions and testimonies do not have the same authority as the preached Word preached by the called and ordained ministers of the Word. The preached Word enjoys unique authority and promise because Christ Our Lord has instituted this Holy Office for this distinct purpose: to preach. To say that the Word of God is the same in every way whether it is a)preached by a pastor, b) confessed by a layman, c) read in a book, d) spoken by a donkey, or e) on the lips of an unbeliever makes the Word of God an abstract and magical power and also denies the reality of the Office of the Holy Ministry. If everyone is a minister: no one is a minister. In our current situation I think it worthy of our time to consider such things and to confess that we do in fact believe that Christ has instituted the Office for the sake of His Church and that the Church and the Office are not synonymous. " (Cyberstones, April 15, 2008)

This lead me to ask the question:

Is the Word of God the same Word when it is spoken by a lay person and by a pastor?

I say yes, it is.

Let the conversation begin.