Reformation 2003

• C-R is for Christian Re-foundation
  The visible appearance of Christian lives was not altered much by Luther's Reformation. To be sure, his rambunctious colleague Karlstadt "purified" churches of images, statues, vestments, etc. But Luther rebuked him sharply not only for unpastoral haste, but even more for missing the point, for emphasizing externals just as much as the Roman church did: the other side of the same, counterfeit coin.

• O-S-S-I is for On Saints' Secular Industry
  I had a large sheet of newsprint on an easel in the narthex and as people entered asked them to list their present or past vocations and how they spend their days on the large sheet of paper.

• N is for Newness
  Now, how does that re-founding actually take place? What happens to make it happen? Do the resources for so fundamental a change come from within us? Or don't we need outside help?

• G-S is for Grace as Source
  But when we hit the ELCA National Youth Gathering in Atlanta, we ran into a very different approach. From the first evening's mass gathering of 25,000 in the Georgia Dome, from the very first music, through all the days and all the music and the videos and speakers and skits, the dominant message was of God's grace.