I hear the free-flowing frustration and sincere striving for solutions, such as more youth involvement, instruction in apologetics, help with evangelism, encouragement for larger families, more involvement from our leaders and culturally relevant instruction in the Word.

In all of these responses, I hear a genuine love for the Church.

Let's look at a couple more things.

We (including me!) need to be encouraged to frequently and fervently pray for the holy Christian Church, including the members of our local parish, both young and old.

Families (including my own), need training in Christian parenting. None of us parent as well as we could. Families (including my own), need instruction in modeling Christ and His beautiful Bride, the Church. If the home is the Church in miniature -- then the home is the ground zero of our attention.

In our Lutheran schools, our Lord has given us a wide-open door to homes and families -- not only to those in our parish, but also to those families in our community. By the grace of God, our local parish is able to support our small school enough so that we are able to offer grades K-8 tuition-free to any child, Lutheran or not, churched or not. The response of our community has been amazing. Unchurched families who cannot afford tuition are overjoyed that their children are learning about Jesus. We had five baptisms in the last few months, including one father. Sadly, we had to turn a few students away this past fall, because we had to limit class size.