I wondered if writing blog posts for our church website had any value, so I looked up the top 10 most viewed posts during 2023. Maybe you’re curious about the list too!

1. Alphabet Bible Verses—4,902 views
   • Your life depends on remaining in Jesus. How will you accomplish that? Read Scripture. A lot. You can read it with your eyeballs, but you can also read it with your memory. Here’s a video of a four year old boy who memorized a verse for each letter of the alphabet. You could do this too! Go for it!
2. What about fasting during Lent?—1,772 views
   • It’s hard to avoid the subject of fasting when Lent comes around every year. Should we give up Facebook or chocolate or eating meat on Fridays?
3. How do I tell my friends about Jesus?—1,459 views
   • Urging Christians on a Sunday morning, “Tell your friends about Jesus!” probably just makes them feel guilty, overwhelmed, and disheartened. How can you do it?
4. What is an Advent wreath?—1,309 views
   • Many different meanings have been given to the four candles and the other parts of the wreath. None are right or wrong. Here is one common interpretation of the meaning of the various parts of the Advent wreath.
5. The symbol of the Reformation: Luther’s rose—1,262 views
   • The Luther seal or Luther rose has become familiar to almost all Lutherans. The seal is important because it is a depiction of Luther’s theology. Luther gave this explanation of it in a letter dated July 8, 1530.
6. The church season of Epiphany—895 views
   • If Christmas celebrates the fact that the Father gave his only-begotten Son to the world, then Epiphany is the unwrapping of this gift. The Festival of Epiphany is the second-oldest festival of the Christian church. It marks the start of the next season of the church year after Christmas.
7. A blood debt has to be paid by blood—679 views
   • “A blood debt has to be paid by blood” is the Bible truth! But thank God it doesn’t have to be accomplished the way humans do it in the movies.
8. The Festival of Pentecost—525 views
   • Pentecost Day is the famous event of the tongues of fire and speaking in languages. But those things aren’t the true gift of Pentecost. The true gift of the Holy Spirit happens every day.
9. Liturgy: confession of sins and absolution—445 views
   • There is a wide gulf between God in his holiness and us in our sinfulness. We put on clean clothes in the morning to come to church, but more importantly we need a clean heart in the presence of the Lord. So at the very beginning of our worship services, we need to lay our sins on Jesus and be assured that God does not condemn us for our sins, but forgives and forgets. We need to “lay down our burdens at the doorway before entering upon the praises of God.”
10. The apocalypse isn’t the end of the world—404 views
    • The most common perception of the final book of the Bible is that it’s about the catastrophic destruction of the world. But do you realize that there is a cosmos that endures the final destruction at the end of the book of Revelation? “Post-apocalyptic” is a great place to be, not a terrible place.