CrossTies

 
Volume 3, No. 1      

January 8, 2003
A NEW YEAR - Perhaps it has something to do with my age. Perhaps not. Nevertheless, I'm very conscious of the fact that many of my friends and relatives have left the Kingdom of Grace and moved on to the Kingdom of Glory in the final months of 2002. First it was a beloved aunt, then my sister, followed by the death of a retired pastor friend and finally a member of a congregation I helped to start over thirty years ago. As I ponder these events I'm drawn back again and again to the comforting words of John in The Revelation: "Then I heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.'"
 
This Beatitude of the Spirit is the second of seven beatitudes in The Revelation (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 20:6; 22:7,14). Note that it is "the dead who die in the Lord" who are blessed. This is an amazing and wonderful Word of comfort and strength. These dead have not ceased to exist. They continue to be "in the Lord," a phrase that refers to their faith relationship with our Savior and Good Shepherd. Their deeds follow along with them. This is reminiscent of our Lord's Words in Matthew 26: "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me," (v v.34-36).
 
We at CrossTies have made much of The Beatitudes of our Lord as recorded in St. Matthew's Gospel. Meditations on those Eight Beatitudes are found on the first page of our Website. Early in this new year we will publish those meditations in book form. It will be called The First Words of Jesus and will be available for purchase either directly from us or through www.Amazon.com. We plan to follow shortly with a workbook that will help believers to ponder the implications of our Lord's first teaching in the New Testament. The workbook also will be available for purchase. Keep checking our website for further news. And, may God give you a full measure of His grace and mercy in this new year of our Lord.
 
KEEPING LINKED TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY - If you are like me, you spent a considerable amount of time and money sending out Christmas greetings, letters and cards to friends old and new and family scattered around the world. This was the second year that I have attempted to send a Christmas letter via e-mail. It met with mixed success. Some said it was a wonderful way to receive greetings. Others said they simply couldn't open it. So we had to resort to the good services of the United States Postal Service. As a result, we're still getting back letters with the wrong addresses. My task of linking with these people will not be over for at least another week--maybe longer.  Nevertheless, I do feel it's important.
 
In like manner, we have just recently put up a page full of links we feel will be useful to you: http://www.crosstiesministries.org/links.asp.  This is a common procedure on most websites.  We've researched these links. Most of them you may want to add to your own list of favorites. Through these links you will be able to find information about the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod and most of the congregations affiliated with the Synod. We are hesitant to link to individual congregations ourselves. We'll let the Synodical and District websites do that for us.
 
You will also find access to many useful resources in those sites. Do you need books and teaching materials? Click on the Concordia Publishing House link. Do you want to discover information and resources for the Lutheran liturgy and for worship? Click on the Lutheran Hymnal, Gottesdienst and Liturgical congregations links.
 
I could go on and on. No need. Do your own exploring. It's there for your use. Also, if you have some recommended links, drop us a line. We'll examine them and see if we can add them to the list. Just this week I came across the link for news from Missouri Synod: http://www.lcms.org/news.asp. We'll be adding it to our page soon.
 
SPEAKING OF NEWS - We will soon be adding some new resources to our Church Leadership page: http://www.crosstiesministries.org/leadership.asp
Pastor Ron Bogs of St. Matthew Lutheran Church of Westfield, Texas (http://www.stmatthewlcms.com/) has written a series of Stewardship bulletin inserts  for the entire year. We'll have them on the page shortly. Meanwhile, if you'd like to contact Pastor Bogs about gaining access to them at once, write him at rabogs@ev1.net.
 
One more item, before I leave today. We received a great piece by Dr. Mike Snow (ccsnow@pdq.net), pastor of Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church of Houston (http://www.beautifulsaviorchurch.org/home.htm) last month. It's titled: Renewal Strategy for the Urban Missionary: Model for Transition of Ministry in Declining Congregations.  Pastor Snow offers some excellent counsel, especially for declining congregations in urban settings. I'll be telling you more about his paper next time. Perhaps, by then we'll also have it on the website.  Watch for it.
 
Dr. Alvin H. Franzmeier
CrossTies Theological Director. Write to me at   alandsyl@airmail.net
 
 
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