I appreciate a comment on my Facebook page about a series of posts I'm writing to tell my story.
I wrote a post on my personal blog DailyGrit about how I feel that my faith in God survived my sixty-plus years in the Lutheran church. I was born and raised in the church, went to Sunday School, went to services every Sunday, went to a Lutheran grade school, married a Lutheran school teacher in a Lutheran Church, served on many committees and boards.
My struggle was trying to find the relevance of God to everyday living. I got the great news about what happens when you die and go to heaven. But, what about everyday life.
Pastors never seemed to preach about the everyday stuff of life, like when the bottom seems to fall out of everything, you lose somebody or the bad guy seems to win in every situation. Then there's everything else like relationships, marriage, jobs and stuff like that.
My Facebook commenter said, it's not the job of the Lutheran church to connect the dots from God's Word to everyday life. The relevance is supposed to come from reading the Word during the liturgy and from taking the Lord's Supper. He seems to be saying that's all you need.
Because of this lack of connection to everyday life, I started take notes from sermons at a very young age. I found myself asking at the end of a sermon, so what? What is this guy saying? Why is it important to me? Every Sunday, it was always the same. I heard the Gospel which is the source of all hope. Amen!
But, the Gospel got stuck at Gologotha and was not tied to life in Bay City or whever? What would it look like to live out the Gospel in northern Michigan? How would it affect in the way I relate to the circumstances of my life as a student, as an adult, as a married person, as a dad and as a son?
The Lutheran church seems to be telling only part of the story. The Word of God is relevant to everything. I'm learning that and I see more of the light than I did before.
I wish I would have learned this earlier in my life, but as I get ready to turn 66, I'm glad that I've recalibrated my thinking and my focus.
It would be great if my old denomination did the same. It would be wonderful to see Lutheran churches packed out on Sunday mornings and Saturday nights.
Back to my Facebook commenter, yes, I firmly believe it's the church's job to connect the dots between the Word of God and everyday life and beyond.
