Written by Sarah Wilson on 4/7/15, 6:09 PM.
Welcome to all our new members!
The LRC has been growing by leaps and bounds in the first weeks of its life, and we’ve just passed the 800 mark. Please continue to share it with your friends, colleagues, and acquaintances!
So far we’ve had three texts up for discussion: The 95 Theses, the Sermon on Indulgence and Grace, and the 1518 Theses on the Remission of Sins. Coming up next Monday is the Sermon on Two Kinds of Righteousness. We’re starting off slowly with one new text every two weeks, in order to give time for people to find us and join in. But soon we’ll be shifting to weekly texts. You’ll be notified every time a new text is posted.
If you’d like to learn a bit more about where the inspiration for the LRC came from, take a look at this short article.
One more item: not many of you have filled in your profile information yet. Please take just a couple of moments to add an image (use a church, a flower, a statue or something else if you’d rather not show your own face) and a few words about yourself. It’s a great way to get a sense of all the different readers of Luther who are “gathered” here at the LRC community.
Christ is risen!
1100 participants and still growing!
Written by Sarah Wilson on 4/16/15, 12:56 PM.
We had hoped, of course, that the LRC would be a huge hit. But never in our wildest dreams did we expect to surpass 1000 participants in the first month alone! Thanks to everyone for joining in and for offering your thoughts on the readings.
A good way to keep making the LRC better known is to join the Facebook page so your friends can learn about it. There’s also a brand-new Facebook page for the Institute, which is sponsoring the LRC.
Some quick tips about using the site:
1. Go to the “Read” page to see past and future readings
2. Go to the “Discuss” page to see the current reading
3. If you want to cite a specific paragraph in the reading, put the number of it inside curly brackets { }
This week’s reading is Luther’s wonderful early sermon on “Two Kinds of Righteousness.” It’s amazing how much wisdom he can pack into such a short space!
How soon till 1500?
Written by Sarah Wilson on 4/21/15, 12:31 PM.
Greetings to all! Our community continues to grow like crazy, surpassing 1250 participants already. Let’s aim for 1500 by next week! Keep spreading the word and help us get there.
Another way you can help is to fill out your profile information. Add a photo (of an animal or landscape if you don’t want to show your face!), your country, and one sentence about why you like to read Luther. We are a virtual community but we are still real people in real bodies living in real places! It’s good to “see” each other this way even if we can’t hear each other’s voices or shake hands.
Our text for this week is a short one, and even predates the 95 Theses—it’s a letter to a fellow Augustinian friar. But you can already see the distinctive Luther in it.
A Month of Freedom—and a Request for Volunteers
Written by Sarah Wilson 4 days ago.
For the next four weeks we’re taking our time with Luther’s “Freedom of a Christian,” strolling in a leisurely fashion through this rich and nuanced text. Besides teasing out of the implications of being lord over all and being servant under all, Luther drops in all kinds of great asides and little observations that make this treatise so rewarding.
In other news: those of you who would like to exercise your servanthood in Christian freedom, we are looking for a volunteer to run a Twitter feed for the Challenge. If you’re interested, drop a line to lutherreadingchallenge AT gmail dot com.
And—we’d also like to interview some of our participants! There’s an astonishing 1500 of you and we’re curious to learn the many and various reasons that lead busy people to take time out every week to read a little Luther. Same address as above, let us know if you’d answer a few questions to share with other participants.