Here am I in Seward, NE; no corn jokes please; for the "Institute on Liturgy, Preaching, & Church music. It's been fun so far--okay, one day. I've seen many people, learned a few things, had some mammoth choir rehearsals, and the like. The opening worship service was fantastic. The music, the singing; and the sermon was pretty good. I'm sure some would have not liked it. Ah, such is life.
It's interesting hearing other folks' conversations. I'm not eavesdropping when they speak loudly enough for others to hear. Perspectives are always fascinating.
This is not a complaint post, as much of what I have seen so far has been positive, but there were a few things that set me on edge. Such as the liturgical dancer at the evening service. I'm sorry, but I don't find it worshipful when it was much like what I saw at the Muny a couple nights ago for their 90th anniversary show. I'm not exaggerating, either. The ballet dancer at the Muny for the reprise of "If I Loved You" had movements very similar to the liturgical dancer. No joke.
The thing that quite irked me was this, however: My roommate for this conference is a nice lady from a midwestern state. She is "typical" Lutheran. Listening to her, I see she is an average churchgoing woman. She is in a seminar (I'm not sure how she ended up in it) which unsettled her after the first day. There are 2 more sessions left. The presenter was essentially advocating church growth and not calling new plants Lutheran to be more sensitive to people's biases. This did not sit well with her. She is "forward thinking" (some would call it church growth or liberal), but she didn't like the idea of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. It bothered her. I imagine there are many in our church who would not go for this. Average member Joe wants church to be recognizable. Lutheran is our identity, our heritage, and yes, our future. When we don't want to say who we are, who are we. In the summarized words of Romeo, without a name, who are we? Without our heritage, we are no one. Sorry guys, we can't be Lutheran and Rick Warren too.
And it looks like it’s coming soon!
4 days ago
1 comment:
In my travels, I've noted that the Lutheran churches that don't call themselves Lutheran are actually just practicing "truth in advertizing!"
And I don't mean this out of some sort of "Liturgical Correctness". Rather, there is simply a genuine lack of Lutheran piety and practice in these congregations.
So at least I'll give them points for honesty. When I go to churches that don't sing God's word, abandon a receptive spirituality in favor of a "purpose-driven" one, confess heterodox creeds, and have altar-call communion, I wish they'd take the name "Lutheran" off of their signs as well!
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