HCLM BLOG

Last week I spent three days in Madison, Wisconsin and then this week three days in St. Louis, Missouri. You know that I was very cold in both of those places and I was very glad that it got back up to 66 yesterday. So I am glad to be home!

The first trip was to hear how the LCMS may restructure to try and work more efficiently. There were about 200 people from the LCMS there and we had a lot of discussion over the three days. I heard people talking about all kinds of things that they did not want to change! We have been losing members every year in the LCMS for the last 50 years! I think that it might be time to think about CHANGE!

The St. Louis trip was for a Theological discussion of Worship in our church body. There was about 350 people there for the discussion and every table that I was a part of talked about how we are going to promote the Traditional Liturgy and Worship style and how bad contemporary worship is. The one thing that they all seemed to agree with was that we should try to avoid any kind of CHANGE!

That is the real reason that I am glad to be home, not the weather, but the climate at Holy Cross. We live in a climate of CHANGE. We look for ways to change, we strive to find new ways to worship and new ways to serve.   We strive to find new ways to show people that a life lived with Christ is better than a life lived with out Him! Stay tuned as we march through the new doors that our Lord opens each day.

Paul

So as I write this, it is 32 degrees, this promises to be the coldest week of the year for the country, it is cold everywhere! That is why the Missouri Synod decided that this week would be a good time to send the executives of each district to a conference in MADISON WISCONSIN!!!!!! What where they thinking?

But as I made my way to the temperature control of the house and tried to see just how warm I could make it, I was reminded of something. We pump up the temp and somehow think that if we set it higher it will get hotter faster, so we crank it up to 90. The truth is that it will raise the temp at the same rate no matter how high you have it set. You simply over work the system when you set ridiculous temperatures.

As we start a new year and we think about resolutions, we do the same thing. I am going to lose weight and so I go on the most restrictive diet that I can find, no carbs, no fats, no food that has any flavor! Then I wonder why I go off the diet so fast. Perhaps you make the reslove to get in shape, so you start working out for an hour everyday!!! Soon you don't go at all. You pledge to watch less TV and so you reduce down to 1 hour a day that you watch the news!!! You are unable to continue that either.

All of these things are just like the temperature in your house, they will only go so fast and moving to the extreme will only frustrate you. The same is true of our Christian Walk! We resolve to get closer to God and so we decide that we will read through the whole Bible this year, pray for an hour each day and never miss a church service. Surprise we last about a week! We need to realize that growing as a child of God is a gradual thing, we move closer and closer to Him as we ease into a closer relationship with the Heavenly Creator!

Let's resolve to simply be the children that our Creator would want us to be and know that this is going to take time and effort. Have a great 2010 as we live for the Lord!!

It was almost 2 months ago that I was encouraging Jon to blog more, and as you can see he is talking with you all on a regular basis. However, I have fallen off of the face of the earth!

 Tonight is Christmas Eve and it is 9:45pm. We have finished three services and we have the 11:00pm service to go. A boat load of people have been here already tonight. For some reason the 6:30 service was HUUUUGE way over 500 people! But then we had less than 200 at the 8:30 service. I can't figure it out and I doubt that there is any good reason for the fluctuation. It will be interesting to see what the 11:00pm service brings.

The other interesting thing is the way the Spirit of the Lord moves in our Worship services. We prepared like crazy for the services tonight and we rehearsed and we prayed and we worked and worked, then it is here and I watch for what the Lord will do. It was in the 8:30 service, that I really saw Him start to move among the people present. From the songs and right into the sermon I could see God 's Holy Spirit moving across the faces of His people. In the 6:30 service I am sure that the Evil One was at work to try and push back the Spirit. In the song set the band struggled on a song that had not given them trouble before and I had a cough that I have not had at all through out the rest of today! The Devil was doing whatever he could to distrupt the people of God in Worship. But then came Silent Night and the Spirit of the Lord FILLED this place.

 We have a great God who is waiting to give you His Peace that Passes all understanding, I pray that on this Christmas day you will know Him in a more intimate way than any Christmas before. May God bless you and your family on the Christmas day.

In Christ,

Paul Hoyer

So this year's Thanksgiving was a little different. Yes, it was the first one that Margaret and I celebrated as husband and wife. And it was the first one where we used our fine china for the first time. We also had the opportunity to host to Margaret's father who was down for a few days visiting from Lake City. He hadn't been feeling well and by Friday morning, we were on our way to the VA and from there to the hospital. He had to have his gallbladder removed. We were so glad that he was with us. I would have hated to think about how long he would have waited in pain before he took himself. I was also very thankful for the doctors, nurses and all the equipment, tests, lab work that goes on when you bring someone in. It was amazing how it can put your mind, at least a little more, at ease.

In the time waiting in the hospital, I was thinking about another book I had just finished, Fearless by Max Lucado. Life, death, economy, violence (need I go on?) permeate our thoughts. One of Max's thoughts really gave me pause. He spoke of pregnancy and all the things that are happening to a child in the womb. They are growing hair, a nose, a tongue and many other things that, from the perspective of the womb, are totally useless. It's not until we are out to we realize their benefit. Could this life have some of the same features? Could there be some things in our life that seem meaningless now but will show to be of great benefit in eternity? It's worth thinking about. And while the weather is cold (at least by Florida standards), it's worth curling up with a good book. If you struggle with fear, this would be a good book to get you on the road to freedom.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! And Margaret's dad is doing much better now.

I finished reading "The e-myth revisited" by Michael Gerber. I heard about the book on a podcast that I was listening to and because I was on-line at the time, was able to check out the Seminole County Library and put a book on hold (what a great idea). The book is essentially a business book talking about how to take a business from infancy through adolescence to adulthood. As I was listening to it, I realized that there are a lot of connections with the church and even life itself. It is far too easy to get passionate about an idea only to have that idea soon control you. (How many small business owners do you know that own a job rather than a business?) Jesus has a much better model for life...and it is summed up in a word...freedom. So many reasons to give thanks, a beautiful wife, a great home (thanks to the dedication and decorating skills of the aforementioned wife), authentic relationships with friends and a mind that craves to understand the mysteries of God.

Many thanks to a member who after the service this past weekend went to Home Depot and replaced my stolen weed trimmer. I am often just humbled by the generosity of the people here. Did you hear that Holy Cross gave out over 300 Thanksgiving Baskets? Judging by how it all came together, it was truly a new version of a few loaves and fish. So what a great gift to give the community, over $12000 worth of food. I am so proud of what God is doing in the hearts and the lives of people. I can really see people maturing spiritually (infancy through adulthood). Which brings me back to the book...if you have found yourself in a rut where life seems to be controlling you, pick it up. It's worth a read.

Happy Thanksgiving!