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You are here: Home / Archives for Nicholas Zook

Articles by Nicholas Zook

Nicholas Zook is Pastor of Concordia Lutheran Church in Chicago.

To Lead a Godly Life

June 6, 2016 by Nicholas Zook

Bioethics: A Primer for Christians by Gilbert Meilaender, Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1996. Reviewed by Nicholas J. Zook In 1966, Max Scheler published “Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik,” later translated into English under the title, “Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values,” in which he applied the phenomenological […]

Filed Under: Justice

A Statement that Leaves Us Wanting More

May 27, 2016 by Nicholas Zook

This August, the ELCA Assembly in Philadelphia will consider adopting the latest document on worship in the ELCA, The Use of the Means of Grace: a Proposed Statement on the Practice of Word and Sacrament. The Preamble states the purpose of the document: This statement seeks to root common sacramental practice in the Lutheran Confessions […]

Filed Under: Reflecting Faith in Worship: The Use of the Means of Grace

The Lifting of Condemnations

May 20, 2016 by Nicholas Zook

The Ecumenical proposal receiving the least debate and attention leading up to the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in 1997 is the lifting of the 16th century condemnations exchanged by Lutherans and Catholics on the article of Justification. There are several reasons for this: The implications of this proposal will not involve any significant changes in either […]

Filed Under: Ecumenism

Witness and Unity in Lutheran-Reformed Relationships

May 20, 2016 by Nicholas Zook

Far be it from us to raise barriers to the unity of churches for our greater common witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. After all, it is our Lord’s prayer “that they may be one” precisely for the sake of witness to the truth of the gospel. Just so, it is necessary that we […]

Filed Under: Ecumenism

Concordia Avondale Campus: A Community Ministry of Concordia Lutheran Church

February 11, 2015 by Nicholas Zook

Our History, Mission and Objectives Concordia Lutheran Church, a small, urban congregation of some 60 families, enacts its faith in Jesus Christ through vital ministries directed not only to our members, but also to the community around us. Concordia Lutheran Church created the ministry of Concordia Avondale Campus out of its belief that the vitality […]

Filed Under: Ministries of Word and Service

Economic Downturn and the Church’s Mission to Serve

February 10, 2015 by Nicholas Zook

Imagine if you will, a double pendulum suspended from a great height. At the end of a long wire is a large spherical mass. From the bottom of that sphere another wire of some length, shorter than the first, extends to another smaller sphere. The first mass is moved a distance away from the center […]

Filed Under: The Church's Mission in Financial Recession

Let’s Talk Survey on Worship Attendance

February 6, 2015 by Nicholas Zook

The pastor stands up at the annual meeting to give the demographic and statistics report on the state of the congregation. “I’ve got bad news and good news”, she tells the members as she begins her report “our membership is down by 12% this past year. But the good news is that the Methodists across […]

Filed Under: Keeping the Sabbath

20.1 Lent 2015

The Catechumenate

19.4: Advent 2014

Communion and Community

19.3: Ordinary Time 2014

Green coffee beans (top left), Nicaraguan red beans (top right), corn (bottom left) and millet, vital Nicaraguan crops, held in women farmers’ hands

Food and Justice

19.2: Pentecost 2014

Latvian Wheat by Dace Kiršpile

Growing Leaders

19.1: Epiphany 2014

archangel gabriel

Religion and the Arts

1996 – 2013

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