What I Learned from the Lutherans

In a previous post, I mentioned that Eric and I attended a Lutheran church (ELCA) for two years when we lived in Michigan. Most of you know that I grew up in a Church of Christ, so this was quite a detour from the path on which I began my spiritual walk. We had a very difficult time finding a church when we moved to Michigan. We had just left Abilene and Highland, and we knew that we would be encountering a very different C of C environment in Michigan. But we wanted to try. I especially wanted to be committed to my heritage, so we agreed that we would try to find a congregation that we could agree to attend. So, we visited the two congregations in Jackson, the town in which we lived, and when we knew we wouldn't fit at either, we drove to East Lansing and Ann Arbor (both 60 minutes away) to visit the congregations there. Those didn't work either, so we decided to try the next closest thing, the Independent Christian Church. We attended there for about 6 weeks but we felt very unwelcome. It was a congregation of about 150, but no one other than the preacher had ever bothered to speak to us. So, one day on a whim, as we were on our way to the Independent Christian Church, we pulled into the parking lot of Immanuel Lutheran Church and decided to go in. We quickly came to love this congregation of 200 people. Here are just a few of the things I learned from my time at Immanuel:

1. The beauty of liturgy. I grew up in an anti-liturgical tradition, so this was completely new to me. It took a while to get used to it, but the predictable rhythm of worship was comforting for me as I was in a very hectic time of my life (working on my Ph.D.). I also grew to love the communal participation in worship. In the C of C, there are traditionally a few people providing the service for the rest of the congregation, but at Immanuel there was very little of the service in which the entire congregation was not involved. I loved hearing our voices in unison as we recited the Apostle's Creed or said the Prayers of the People.
2. The power of using others' words in prayer. I briefly mentioned this in an earlier post, but growing up in the C of C, I was taught that prayer should be spontaneous and come from the heart. This is noble, but I think if most people are honest, they will admit that they often do not have anything to say to God. It was while attending Immanuel that I was introduced to the rich, meaningful words of others' prayers.
3. The significance of amazing grace. If you're familiar with church history, you know that Martin Luther was first and foremost a proponent of God's grace and human unworthiness. As a result, the Lutherans emphasize grace above all else; there is nothing that humans can do to contribute to their own salvation. This is their explanation for infant baptism. Rather than believer's baptism being something that I can claim as a "work" by which I earn my salvation, infant baptism is a gift of grace given to a child by her parents and her church family. While I still prefer believer's baptism, there is a certain beauty in the symbolism of infant baptism.
4. The value of religious dialogue. Pastor Erick took an interest in Eric and I, most likely because no one from the C of C had ever darkened his doors, and we literally spent hours in his office discussing our different traditions. Before that, I had never experienced religious/theological dialogue in a church setting. Unfortunately, what I had experienced growing up when Christians disagreed was slandering and backbiting. Pastor Erick taught me that we could actually talk to one another, disagree with each other, and still be in communion with one another.
5. The joy of being invited into community. After we had been at Immanuel for a few months, Eric and I were asked to teach a young adult Bible class on Sunday mornings. I was absolutely shocked. We had been attending for just a short time, and we had never formally become members of the congregation (because I didn't feel comfortable becoming Lutheran). Eric was also invited to be a "lay minister," which meant he did anouncements, read the Prayers of the People, read the Scriptures, and helped serve communion. We talked in astonishment about this...did they realize we weren't "Lutheran"? Should we clarify to make sure they realized that we weren't technically part of them? We decided we would talk to Pastor Erick about this because we didn't want to be dishonest. He assured us that they were fully aware of our status, but they believed we had something valuable to offer the congregation. After all, we were Christians and that was really all that mattered.
6. The importance of looking "out" more than looking "in" (or, in Highland terms, being missional). The congregation at Immanuel had an outward focus and was always engaged in outreach. There were plenty of disagreements among the congregants but they were never distracted from their mission to share the light of Christ.

I was blessed to be a part of Immanuel Lutheran Church for those two years. They impacted my spiritual life significantly, and I learned things that I may have never learned elsewhere. If you get the opportunity to take a detour off of your typical beaten path, I hope you'll seriously consider taking it. You may be surprised by all that you'll learn.