House for All Sinners and Saints

  • House for All Sinners and Saints
    I am the mission developer for House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. We are an urban liturgical community with a progressive yet deeply rooted theological imagination. Check out our site for more info.

Cafe Press store for HFASS merch

  • Buy House for All Sinners and Saints stuff!
    You can go to our Cafe Press store and buy t-shirts and other stuff with out Parchment with a nail at the top logo on the front - and "radical protestants; nailing sh*t to the church door since 1517" on the back.
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books and magazines i dig

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Folks

  • Chris Enstad
    The blog of a dad, husband, Lutheran pastor, emerging, failing, conversing, confessing.
  • Ian Mobsby
    Ian is the Anglican Priest at Moot in London.
  • Matt Stone
    This is a great blog from Down Under which explores Christianity and religious pluralism
  • Luther Punk
    Like Ward Cleaver with tattoos
  • Ian Adams
    Ian is the priest of the MayBe community in Oxford...I think he's pretty stinkin' cool.
  • Rachael
    cool chick...check her out
  • MayBe
    This is a great emerging church community we spent time with in Oxford. Their website is well worth a look, especially the page "the spirit of MayBe"
  • Mad Priest
    If I'm the Sarcastic Lutheran, he's certainly the Sarcastic Anglican...
  • Steve Collins
    Steve's an interesting and articulate emerging church brit.
  • The Mercy Seat
    This is a really groovey new church plant in NorthEast Minneapolis, amazing jazz liturgy. Their website is well worth checking out

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Comments

Oh my God. I have got to know your story. Email me please?

Pr. Nadia:

I heard the sermon from Minneapolis via the live feed. What a great event! Thanks for your wonderful words. And I like that the pic you posted shows your sneakers.

Tim Fisher

In those moments when I am weary of being a Christian or weary of being a pastor . . . in those moments when I say, "Even so, Lord Jesus, Come" and don't even know what it means anymore . . . in those moments I will remember this sermon. Thank you.

I also grew up in Churches of Christ. I'm now an Episcopalian. I enjoyed the sermon.

Beautiful words, Nadia. Thank you for sharing this here.

Dear one,
Way too often I find myself acting as the elder brother or the ones hired early. When I do that, I miss the clear, potent, gracious announcement of divine grace that comes from sisters like you. Thank you for speaking so clearly, so powerfully the words that witness to the fullness of life of God--in this sermon, but also reliably, again and again. I'm thinking that this sermon may be the starting place for my "Lutheran Heritage" course next January.
in gratitude,
DeAne

"My denomination changed its policy in August, now allowing GLBTQ clergy to be in life-long, monogamous, publicly accountable same-sex relationships." I have to remember that one!

Thanks for sharing your story.

"Because the kingdom of God, is founded not on the quality of the people in it but on the unrestrained and lavish mercy of the God who came and got us."

So thankful that it's not about us, it's ALL about HIM.

Beautiful as always!

I nearly cry (and sometimes actually do) everytime I read one of your sermons.

It has been a few years since I was last in church, and I think I may finally be ready to give it another chance.

I only pray that I can find a church that is as beautiful, open and grace-centered as your own.

Emily,
You can email me from my church's website. If you let me know what town you live in I may be able to guide you to a community if I know of one there.
Hope and peace on your journey.
N

nadia, you make my heart sing. the anglican church in south africa has a long way to go yet - but your church journey gives me hope. x eliza

Nadia, I am just now reading this, but the sermon was beautiful, and the entire worship experience sounds so meaningful and chilling. I've said that if I ever move to Denver, I am attending your church. In the meantime, I am in the far northern suburbs of Chicago, and inclusive, progressive Lutheran communities are hard to come by up here. Yet, I continue to hope.

Thank you for so clearly, gracefully and humorously articulating the Gospel. Our membership, our belonging has nothing to do with us but with Christ alone.

I've read this sermon numerous times since it was posted, and have shared it with a number of friends. I too was raised in a fundamentalist chuch and became a Lutheran as an adult (after nearly 20 years of being de-churched). Thank you for expressing the Gospel so eloquently!

Nadia, how beautiful and wonderful. What an honor to preach at such an auspicious moment. Keep sharing the good news of God's love. Yay!

I found Jesus growing up in the ALC as it was called then. I left when in the 70's a pastor dumbed down the story of the loaves and fishes by stating in so many words that Jesus most likely did not operate in the miraculous. There were many other reasons, but this was the proverbial straw. Since then I have worshiped in different churches. My love of the grace preached in the Lutheran church has always been a base I ran back to in my mind. Nevertheless, I have to say that sin is destructive and sin that is not labeled as sin is a treacherous poison. It is truly wonderful to know that all manner of sin can be confessed and forgiven. As Paul says "And such were some of you". Notice the "were". If grace doesn't make a transforming difference, then I question whether it is the grace of God.

"So when I was soon told that Ross Merkel had actually been removed from the clergy roster because of a policy in the ELCA prohibiting partnered gay folks from serving as pastors I was devastated. It felt like the rug of hope that the church might actually be something beautiful and redemptive was pulled out from under me. This Lutheran thing isn’t what I hoped after all. Because these Lutherans are just as bad as everyone else. Yet in his humble wisdom Pastor Merkle reminded me that God is still at work redeeming us and making all things new even in the midst of broken people and broken systems."

I find this a very odd comment. The law is as much a part of the the Lutheran project as the gospel. The law is regulative of the external person, whereas the gospel is only regulative for the inner person's conscience before God. The church's insistence on removing homosexual clergy (no unfortunately abrogated by August 2009 convention) is a proper move in that it has to do with the regulative principle of the law regarding the external person. This is in keeping with the criterion for active ministry set down in the Pastoral Epistles. The external person lives within the law and also the orders of creations (Family, Church, State). I would strongly encourage you to look at "Two Kinds of Righteousness" as well as Luther's Genesis commentary where he deals with the orders of creation.

Secondly, I'm curious- where was Jesus in this sermon? You seem to have much talk about a God who is so loving he will apparently not enforce the law (which is of not really what Luther or the Bible mean by grace)- but there is no discussion of Jesus here. Perhaps it is because you make the typical ELCA move and assume that Jesus merely reveals the love of God, he does no avert the wrath of God. God cannot very well forgive sins that he does not impute in them in first place now can he? At the end of the day, much of your preaching suggests to me a God who is merely nice and not one who is actually gracious.

Most ELCA preaching tends to go in this direction. Because God is already nice and Jesus merely reveals said niceness, then preaching does not change anything. It doesn't change our relationship with God from wrath to grace. Rather it just reveals an already existing graciousness. Hence as Werner Elert puts it, faith becomes a kind of enlightenment. At the end of the day, recognition of this "niceness" means getting us to do nice things, like work for "peace and justice" or some other political program. This is, as you might discern, simply more law.

Alas. Where is the gospel?

Nadia, I am totally missing your blog posts. Just sayin' -- you are missed on the interwebs.

"Nadia, how beautiful and wonderful. What an honor to preach at such an auspicious moment. Keep sharing the good news of God's love. Yay!"

Let me fix Nanette's mythology for you Nadia.

How tragic and shameful. What a disgrace to preach at such an egregious moment. Stop perverting the good news of God's Gospel. Repent!

You may think I don't love you; but Jesus knows, you'd be wrong.

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