{"id":51,"date":"2005-05-24T12:01:03","date_gmt":"2005-05-24T19:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/?p=51"},"modified":"2005-05-24T12:05:46","modified_gmt":"2005-05-24T19:05:46","slug":"because-theyre-lutheran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/?p=51","title":{"rendered":"Because They’re Lutheran…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Found this in a newsletter that I get called Lutheran Forum. Its a quote from Christianity Today magazine, March 2005 by Eugene Peterson, the author of the great Bible paraphrase called The Message<\/a>. Gives you a glimpse in the hope I still have for established congregations – for all their faults, infighting, and stubbornness about change – most still know how to love.<\/p>\n

“In church last Sunday, there was a couple in front of us with two bratty kids. Two pews behind us there was another couple with their two bratty kids making a lot of noise. This is mostly an older congregation. So these people are set in their ways. Their kids have been gone a long time. And so it wasn’t a very nice service; it was just not very good worship. But afterwards I saw half a dozen of these elderly people come up and put their arms around the mother, touch the kids, sympathize with her. They could have been irritated.<\/p>\n

Now why do people go to a church like that when they can go to a church that has a nursery, is air conditioned, and all the rest? Well, because they’re Lutherans. They don’t mind being miserable! Norwegian Lutherans!<\/p>\n

And this same church recently welcomed a young woman with a baby and a three-year-old boy. The children were baptized a few weeks ago. But there was no man with her. She’s never married; each of the kids has a different father. She shows up at church and wants her children baptized. She’s a Christian and wants to follow in the Christian way. So a couple from the church acted as godparents. Now there are three or four couples in the church who every Sunday try to get together with her.<\/p>\n

Now, where is the “joy” in that church? These are dour Norwegians! But there’s a lot of joy. There’s an abundant life going, but it’s not abundant in the way a non-Christian would think. I think there’s a lot more going on in churches like this; they’re just totally anticultural. They’re full of joy and faithfulness and obedience and care. But you sure wouldn’t know it by reading the literature of church growth, would you? ”<\/p>\n

You can also find the article here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Found this in a newsletter that I get called Lutheran Forum. Its a quote from Christianity Today magazine, March 2005 by Eugene Peterson, the author of the great Bible paraphrase called The Message. Gives you a glimpse in the hope I still have for established congregations – for all their faults, infighting, and stubbornness about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-organized-church","category-wandering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wiredjesus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}