Mount Olive Lutheran Church LCMS

09/07/2026

“Maybe you’ve wanted to be a missionary since a real, live one spoke to your first-grade class. Maybe it’s been on your heart for a few years; you’re just waiting for the right moment (ideally indicated in flashing neon). Maybe you’d never considered the possibility of living more than ten minutes from a Walmart until you recently had the chance to sing from a kuna hymnal or hear the crispy crackle of a celebratory Luzon lechon.”

Thinking about missionary service? Learn five practical, Christ-centered steps to help you pray, prepare, and discern God’s calling with confidence.

09/07/2026

EVENING
George Washington Doane

Softly now the light of day
Fades upon my sight away;
Free from care, from labor free,
Lord, I would commune with Thee:

Thou, whose all-pervading eye
Naught escapes, without, within,
Pardon each infirmity,
Open fault, and secret sin.

Soon, for me, the light of day
Shall for ever pass away;
Then, from sin and sorrow free,
Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee:

Thou, who, sinless, yet hast known
All of man's infirmity;
Then, from Thine eternal throne,
Jesus, look with pitying eye.

09/07/2026

“It would not perhaps be altogether surprising if, in this nominally Christian country, where the Creeds are daily recited, there were a number of people who knew all about Christian doctrine and disliked it. It is more startling to discover how many people there are who heartily dislike and despise Christianity without having the faintest notion what it is. If you tell them, they cannot believe you. I do not mean that they cannot believe the doctrine; that would be understandable enough since it takes some believing. I mean that they simply cannot believe that anything so interesting, so exciting, and so dramatic can be the orthodox creed of the Church.

“That this is really the case was made plain to me by the questions asked me, mostly by young men, about my Canterbury play, The Zeal of Thy House. The action of the play involves a dramatic presentation of a few fundamental Christian dogmas— in particular, the application to human affairs of the doctrine of the Incarnation. That the Church believed Christ to be in any real sense God, or that the eternal word was supposed to be associated in any way with the word of creation; that Christ was held to be at the same time man in any real sense of the word; that the doctrine of the Trinity could be considered to have any relation to fact or any bearing on psychological truth; that the Church considered pride to be sinful, or indeed took notice of any sin beyond the more disreputable sins of the flesh—all these things were looked upon as astonishing and revolutionary novelties, imported into the faith by the feverish imagination of a playwright. I protested in vain against this flattering tribute to my powers of invention, referring my inquirers to the creeds, to the gospels, and to the offices of the Church; I insisted that if my play were dramatic it was so, not in spite of the dogma, but because of it—that, in short, the dogma was the drama. The explanation was, however, not well received; it was felt that if there were anything attractive in Christian philosophy I must have put it there myself.” Dorothy L. Sayers, “The Dogma Is the Drama”

09/06/2026

Sermon on St. Matthew 18:1-20 for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

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09/06/2026

TODAY IN HISTORY: On September 4, 1531 Robert Barnes (d. 1540), who had fled England for his ardent Lutheran faith, courageously took Luther’s unfavorable reply concerning the divorce of King Henry VIII to the English monarch.

Robert Barnes was born around 1495 and educated in Cambridge. He became an Augustinian priest, eventually becoming prior of Austin Friary. (The English Bible translator Myles Coverdale also was a member of the friary.) By the mid-1520s, Barnes seems to have been engaging with Martin Luther's writings. Barnes was imprisoned after raising suspicion with a "Lutheran" sermon, however he escaped and fled to continental Europe in 1528.

Barnes visited Wittenberg and personally befriended Martin Luther during this time. He shows up occasionally in the Table Talks—their mutual knowledge of Latin allowed them to communicate in spite of the language barrier between the German and English theologians. In 1531, Robert Barnes published a work outlining Lutheran theology to Henry VIII entitled "A supplicatyon made by Robert Barnes doctoure in diuinitie, vnto the most excellent and redoubted prince kinge henrye the eyght" (usually referred to by contemporary scholars by the much more manageable "A Supplication"). He published other works around this time, some under the pseudonym Antonius Anglus ("Anthony Englishman"). It was the lucidity and strength of Barnes' writing, especially on political philosophy from a Lutheran perspective, that won him favor with Thomas Cromwell and allowed for his re-entry into England.

It was also about this time that Barnes was commissioned to ascertain Luther's opinions (as well as those of other churchmen in Europe) on Henry VIII's impending divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Luther's opinion was (unsurprisingly) unfavorable: He did not endorse the divorce and remarriage. This did not bode well for Barnes.

Because of Barnes' association with Thomas Cromwell, his uneasiness with Henry's marital flippancy, and his Lutheranism, Barnes eventually found himself on the wrong side of the infamous king. He, along with five other "religious dissidents," were executed by burning at the stake on 30 July, 1540. He is known as the first English Lutheran martyr.

You can read about Robert Barnes, his "Supplication," and his theology in this article available at JSTOR (If you are not affiliated with an institution that grants JSTOR access, you can create a free account and read up to 100 full-length articles a month at no charge.): https://www.jstor.org/stable/41154392

Photo source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Martin_Kronheim_-_Foxe%27s_Book_of_Martyrs_Plate_IV_-_Barnes_and_his_Fellow-Prisoners_Seeking_Forgiveness.jpg

09/05/2026

EVENING PRAYER
In the evening when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say:

In the name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Then, kneeling or standing, repeat the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose, you may also say this little prayer:

I thank You, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, Your dear Son, that You have graciously kept me this day; and I pray that You would forgive me all my sins where I have done wrong, and graciously keep me this night. For into Your hands I commend myself, my body and soul, and all things. Let Your holy angel be with me, that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen.

Then go to sleep at once and in good cheer.

Luther, Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation (St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2017), 31.

09/05/2026

THE INTROIT FOR THE FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST, YEAR A
(Psalm 92:1–4; antiphon: v. 5)

How great are your works, O Lord!
Your thoughts are very deep!
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen.

How great are your works, O Lord!
Your thoughts are very deep!