~ Atlantic District - LCMS 

~ Lutheran Church Extension Fund

~ Lutheran Church Missouri Synod 

~ Concordia Theological Seminary 

~ Concordia Seminary 

~ Concordia College New York 

~ Thrivent Financial

~ Mill Neck 

~ Lutheran Counseling Center   

~ Lutheran Social Services of NY   

~The Lutheran Care Network

~Lutheran Schools Association

~Wheat Ridge Ministries

Back to school - one of the blessings I have enjoyed through the years is that as District President/Bishop/Pastor I am involved in the opening services and dedicatory activities of Lutheran educational endeavors from pre-school through college.  The real action is in the faces and lives of those young people.  There are the weeping, wailing little ones separated from mom for the first time, scared and feeling all alone, then slowly but surely running toward the door and the teacher and the new best friends as the new routine becomes the place where insight, fresh facts, and brand new experience energize.  The grade-schoolers, back-packed to the max, are pulling in data at rates rapid enough that many of us adults, myself included, purposely don't watch "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader" on TV due to the high embarrassment content.  High Schoolers are a blur of activities and attitudes as identity is firmed up and carried through the litany of courses opening up history, biology, math and science to investigation.  And in college, the goal is "commencement," the degree base from which "real life" and careers and lifetime relationships and all the big next steps commence. 

What we invariably offer in our Lutheran schools is the lifelong opportunity to learn of Jesus.  We offer that opportunity through song, through study, through worship, through catechesis, through teacher/student relationships, through friendships where Christ is at the center, through love in and for families, through tough times at home and tough times at school, through the very visible vocation of teaching even in the manner of Rabbi Jesus in the determination and commitment of teachers and assistants and staff and administrators, through the celebration of life that is never-ending because of the durable love of a faithful God in the gift of Christ Jesus unto death and eternity. 

As difficult as it has become to make the economic case for Lutheran schools in the last decade, as critically important to our very identity is the continuation of those schools.  For our schools reveal ourselves.  We are lifelong learners, all of us.  Once we were three, now we are thirty or forty or sixty-plus.  But we still and always will love to sing the songs that tell the story we know by heart.  It is the story of our true purpose, our true destiny, our truest and best Friend, the Light of our lives whose name is Jesus. 

May our pre-schools and grade schools and high schools and colleges, our Sunday Schools and homework help programs and catechetical instructions, all of our Christian education be a mighty blessing in September of 2013!