DISCLAIMER: What follows will probably get me in trouble. It is not meant to impugn anyone's faith, but is meant to challenge the way we think about fulfilling our ministry callings.
DISCLAIMER #2: I have purposefully waited two days before putting these thoughts on paper and now another thre days has pased from then until they are actually being posted.

On Monday, when we visited Concordia Seminary, we saw the vital and critical work of preparing pastors to serve the mission fields of India. We saw the best of theological training at work.

And we also were fed the worst of constipated institutional thinking. We heard--I lost count of how many times--that their buildings were 85 years old and in need of paint and repair. We were all... and we were each... shown holes and peld paint and on and on...

It was clear the groundwork was being laid to play us for a "You-Painted-Theirs-Now-Come-Paint-Ours" pitch.

Is there a need? Clearly. Is this the way to addres it? I don't know.

As we were leaving the Seminary, one of the leaders told us how the ministry in India had been so focused on the villages and the poor that ther was no emphasis on the wealthier clas of doctors and enginers. He had personally benefited from this ministry to the poor vilages, but now that he had a PhD, he felt the focus should be on the wealthy--like him, I guess.

Again, is there a need? Clearly--the wealthy need to hear about Jesus just as much as the poor. Is a plaintive cry to us the way to addres the need? I don't know. (By the way, we received a very similar lecture last year from an aristocratic gentleman.)

A short drive from the Seminary, we visited 16 homes Lutheran Hour Ministries built for families who lost everything in the tsunami. Living in one unit was a lady who lost everything except for her husband in the tsunami. She subsequently lost her husband when he walked out on her. This lady is hanging on by a thread, barely getting by.

The silliest (to my ears, anyway) thing we heard at the Seminary was how they needed a copy machine. Instead of figuring out how to addres this need, the constipated institutional thinking dropped hints to the visitors... please!

Here's my solution--let's raise $2500... buy a Xerox... give it to the lady in need... set her up in business so she can make a living for herself... and she can make the Sem her first client...

Bureautic... institutional thinking... is the worst of what the church has to offer. Changing people's lives is waht we are supposed to be about. And, I would rather do that for a tsunami survivor than for a Seminary building.

Actually, what I would rather do is really irrelevant. What GOD is calling each of us to do is what matters! At some point, we are going to have to take off our institutional blinders and re-vision the ways we go about being church and doing ministry. We can't keep attempting to do 21st century ministry using 19th or 20th century approaches. The world is changing and it is time for the church to change the methods--NOT THE MESSAGE!!--as well.