Ian Heinze

Years ago, I began a project of putting together a thread of the oldest Lutheran Church in every state. Now that I am back, I am reviving the project. Reminder: I can make mistakes at times. Some states are difficult to pinpoint exactly which parish is the oldest. Enjoy!

@TheDonStein @jeremylatzke You are so unfathomably wrong.

@jeremylatzke Nah.

It had been a couple years since we had it, because it was out of mind due to having other options nearby now. But the fact remains: Casey’s pizza hits. I said what I said.

Young Adult Lutheran Bible Study can get quite ruckus with these little ones afoot.

You can get much more exciting and perhaps tastier options, but I do not think anything can top a simple small twist-flavored ice cream in a sugar cone. Absolute peak ice cream experience.

Sometimes this is what prep for our Central Illinois District Pastors Conference looks like.

@WmWeedon I wonder, dis he write this after he resigned from presiding over the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople I after becoming fed up with the infighting?

And another that I find fascinating from Nazianzus: “Synods and Conventions I salute from afar, since I have experienced that most of them (to speak moderately) are but sorry affairs.” —Ep. CXXIV. (I feel naughtily compelled to post this every year Synod has a convention!)

Personage life is pretty great.

@andythegrate F.C.D. Wyneken would have loved these pants.

Alright pastors, let’s see your pants.

@Phil2icxcnika Volodymyr of Kyiv (958-1015 AD) sent emissaries to Constantinople. That quote was one of the remarks the men made when they returned after having witnessed a Divine Service in the Hagia Sophia.

@RuralLutheran Where is the quote from?

"We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth." That quote constantly rings in my head as I think about the conduct of the Divine Service. The Divine Service should look different than anything else in the world, because something utterly unique is taking place.

When we get to the Lord's Prayer in the Office of Evening Prayer, the older boy (4) instinctively climbs into my arms and snuggles up, ready for bed. I'll miss that tremendously whenever it is that it dawns upon him that he is too big for that anymore.

A Baptism, an Adult Confirmation, and a delicious breakfast on top of our overflowing joy at the Resurrection of Our Lord!

As the drops of blood are drying As His heart doth beating cease Jesus unto heav'n is crying Through death's bitter stormy seas: Father, in My dying end Soul and spirit I commend In Thy hands, and thus He dying Bows His head, God satisfying. Thomas Kingo (1634-1703)

"The birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus means that everything sad will one day come untrue." -J.R.R. Tolkien

@brownmp I think we're absolutely on the way to fully automated strike zones. Right now we're in the weird "in-between" stage. But the robotic strike zone is essentially like putting a metal sheet behind the plate. So long as it "tings" the metal, it's objectively a strike. That's ABS.

I'm sorry, but this can't continue. Either the Umpire is the Umpire and final word. Or the robot is the umpire and just dispense with the human. This is something completely different than the occasional "did he beat the throw" check. Those are simply questions of fact. Which often can't be answered even by the replay. And they say it. "The call stands." This ball/strike stuff is a conflict of ruling. Whose strike zone rules? And if it is robot, just make it all the robot.

There's something about a baseball field in a town of 250 people.

@ecceagnusdeii @timesnewemma Melanie has chosen chaos.

@timesnewemma The skin sister

Today I converted to eating the whole kiwi and I’m here to tell you that you need to as well

@HansFiene. A saint after your own heart.

Somehow, a descendent of the original Saxon Lutheran immigrants who formed the LCMS has ended up in our local healthcare center. She requested a visit, which I made today. The first question she asked when I walked in?: "Are you a German Lutheran? Not a Swedish Lutheran, right?"

Chemnitz's four beautiful questions to use for meditating upon the Lord's Prayer petitions: 1. What blessings are we to desire in this petition? 2. What evils are we to pray against? 3. For what benefits must we give thanks? 4. What contrary sins must we acknowledge and confess?

Tonight, at our meal and Bible Study for young families, I witnessed a very pious five-year-old announce that she was changing her Lenten fast so that she could eat ice cream tonight. God bless the little ones.