Every year our congregation brings in a scholar for an in-depth, day-long seminar on some theological topic. Saturday we had the privilege of hearing from Professor John Pless from Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I was so proud of our little congregation that just about everybody showed up! I do so much speaking and teaching myself that it was a real joy and satisfaction to be a student again, to sit back and learn. The topic was Pastoral Care, which I had thought would be helpful to pastors, but what could it offer us laymen? In reality, of course, pastoral care involves everything we laypeople get from church. Prof. Pless’s presentation was wide-ranging, eye-opening, learned, and fascinating, helping me to appreciate my spiritual life in the church in ways I hadn’t thought of before. I’ll be posting some things I learned all this week.