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Sunday, October 7, 2012

Lutheran Visit


If you wish, you can read:

Part 1 From Thought to Action
Part 2 Wonderful Christian Women
Part 3 United Methodist Visit
Part 4 Non Denominational Visit
and 
Part 5 Presbyterian Visit

Recently I was watching Dr. David Jeremiah on TV and he pointed out that one cure for immaturity in faith is "exposure to teaching that goes beyond the basics."

Yes.

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We were driving through town and Wonderful Husband pointed at a Lutheran church saying, "We haven't visited there yet." So our next visit was to the local Lutheran church.

The first service was at 8:00 a.m., earlier than we are used to yet we arrived in time for the beginning of the service.

My thoughts:
  • The simple beauty of the sanctuary with sun streaming through the small stained glass windows and refracting onto the opposite wall.
  • The sermon was about putting on the full amour of God. 
  • Battles, technology and 3 references to Presbyterians. 
  • The pastor quoted authors, movie stars, newspaper articles, NPR, and deceased preachers. 
  • We sang "Onward Christian Soldiers." A song remembered from my childhood.
  • The organist and trumpeter were unseen (somewhere behind).
  • Picked up a visitor's welcome bag and the surprise of a loaf of homemade bread inside.
  • Afterward I told Wonderful Husband that I had felt absolutely battered by words
  • A very intellectual preacher with not much spiritual nourishment included. 
  • Not a soothing worship experience to say the least. 
  • Not going back for sure. 
But it gave me a lot to think about since I had unknowingly sat beside a couple where the wife was fidgeting and murmuring to her husband. He would shush her and she would go silent for a bit.

It was not terribly disruptive, yet it made me think about the future. The husband that brings his (early dementia) wife to church to worship, and how much longer he'll be able to do that. Was he able to enjoy his worship time? Was she?

I've been thinking about our future of maybe facing that one day. 

The fear of the unknown perhaps.

Time to pull my mind off that "slippery slope."

I am thankful we visited this church.

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The reasons we began this adventure to find a new church were:
I need life application from the sermon, stronger leadership, more Christ, and a need/desire to be a part of a faith community.

to be continued....

2 comments:

  1. I'm just curious...were the 3 references to Presbyterians negative comments? If so, I can see why it wasn't very uplifting!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for asking Amelia. No, they weren't negative comments. One reference was about the different denominations which had removed "Onward Christian Soldiers" from their hymnals. Another reference was a historic Presbyterian church in Charleston and the third was about a professor who attended a Methodist church service where of the twenty present, 18 were Methodist and 2 were Presbyterian.
    It was interesting that Wonderful Husband and I heard "Presbyterian" 3 times at a Lutheran church.

    ReplyDelete

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