I received this comment on another blog post and thought it was so poignant and powerful, you would want to read it too, as well as my response.

Pastor McCain, I want to thank you for your postings. I heard about you through Issues etc. and started reading your blog. I have to say that when I read your posts, I am often convicted of my sinful state, yet I also hear that Christ died for all of that. Being a southern Baptist all my life, I had no idea that the gospel really was this wonderful. When I read things like what Martin Luther said on our questioning God, it is as if he wrote it specifically for me. I was wondering if you could give me an idea on what I should read considering my evangelical background concerning Luther and Lutheranism. I don’t know how much longer I can live on the steady diet of “commit” more to Christ, ask Jesus into your heart week after week. All of this to say, thanks for the posts, especially this one.

My response:

Dear sister in Christ, thank you for your kind message. I want you to know, first of all, that your experience with Law and Gospel is precisely what the Holy Spirit wants you to be going through, and has led you to go through. You see and recognize your sin, you are led to know and love your Savior, whose blood covers all your sins (1 John 1:7). I understand where you are coming from, with the steady diet of “revivalism” and legalism that keeps pointing you back to what you can do, or should do, or shouldn’t have done, instead of leading you, always, to keep looking to the Crucified and Risen Lord, who loves you. In grateful response to that love, you live for Him, not because “you better or else you can never know you are a Christian” but because you have been crucified with Christ and the life you now live you live by faith in the Son of God, who loved you and gave himself up for you, as Paul puts it in Galatians 2:20.

Let me hasten to add that it is not “unique” by any means to Baptists to feel the way you are feeling. Many life-long Lutherans as well never really “get” the Gospel either, in fact, none of us ever “fully get” it. We now know in part, but are fully known and some day will see Him just as He is (1 Cor. 13:9-10). We are all sinners who struggle every day with the temptations we face, from our old sinful selves, from the world around us, and from the Devil himself who, as St. Peter warns us, prowls around like a roaring lion, just looking for a victim to devour (1 Peter 5:8). This is why we, with St. Paul, are always facing the reality of our sin, but rejoicing always in the reality of the Savior (Romans 7:15-25), for it is Christ who is always greater than our hearts that are often filled with doubt and fear (1 John 3:20). He is the Good Shepherd who leads us into the green pastures of His refreshing love, mercy and grace, which we receive through the concrete, reliable, and rock-solid means by which He touches our lives. We Lutherans refer to these gifts as the “means of grace” and by that we simply are referring to the work of God, outside of ourselves. God gets the credit and the glory. We do not have to keep wondering, “Did my decision for Christ really count? Was I sincere enough? Did I mean it? What happens when I do not “feel” like I fully gave my life to Jesus?” Instead, we can say, “God’s Word promises me that He loves me, through Christ, who died for me. He has claimed me as His own. I am baptized into Christ. I’ve been drowned and died and have been raised with Him (Romans 6:1-2).

All of which is to say, I rejoice with you in the work the Holy Spirit is doing in your heart, and mind and soul. He is faithful! He will do it! (1 Thess. 5:24).

I would recommend several books to you, in the following order.

Daniel Preus, Why I Am a Lutheran: Jesus at the Center. I know you will really be blessed by this book and I think it is perfect for where you find yourself at this moment.

Gene Edward Veith’s book, The Spirituality of the Cross, has made such a difference in the lives of so many Evangelicals/Baptists and life-long Lutherans too.

Scot Kinnaman, ed. Lutheranism 101. I would point you to this book after you read the first of these two books as a great overview of the Lutheran faith and confession. There are lots of recommended resources in it for further study. I think you will love it.

Harold Senkbeil’s book, Dying to Live, offers you a radically different, but deeply Biblical, understanding of what the Christian life is all about.

John Kleinig’s book, Grace Upon Grace, gives you an insight into spirituality and a devotional life anchored in Christ that will blow your mind.

I think you would enjoy the notes and helps that are provided in The Lutheran Study Bible. The focus there too is on the Law/Gospel experience you have been blessed by.

I would recommend then moving into, and on to, a reading of Luther’s Small and Large Catechism, and once you “catch the bug” to read the Lutheran Confessions, we publish a special edition of the Book of Concord called Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions.

I could recommend so many other resources to you, but perhaps I can simply refer you to a great web site, called “Lutheranism 101″ which is based on the book of the same name, and there you’ll find a guide to an excellent basic Christian library.

Please let me know how I can be of further assistance and service to you. You will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Cordially, in Christ,

Pastor Paul T. McCain

Here are some thoughts from non-Lutherans dealing with the idea that the ideal condition for a Christian is “Me and my Bible.” Lutherans would want to add something that is not on the radar screen of these folks, “SACRAMENTS.” But the point here is to refute the notion that the “rugged individualist” is not the vision set forth in the Scriptures themselves. HT to Justin Taylor.

“It seems odd, that certain men who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves, should think so little of what he has revealed to others.”

—Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Commenting and Commentaries (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1876), 1.

“Tradition is the fruit of the Spirit’s teaching activity from the ages as God’s people have sought understanding of Scripture. It is not infallible, but neither is it negligible, and we impoverish ourselves if we disregard it.”

—J.I. Packer, “Upholding the Unity of Scripture Today,” JETS 25 (1982): 414

“The best way to guard a true interpretation of Scripture, the Reformers insisted, was neither to naively embrace the infallibility of tradition, or the infallibility of the individual, but to recognize the communal interpretation of Scripture. The best way to ensure faithfulness to the text is to read it together, not only with the churches of our own time and place, but with the wider ‘communion of saints’ down through the age.”

—Michael Horton, “What Still Keeps Us Apart?”

“There is rugged terrain ahead for those who are constitutionally incapable of referring to the paths marked out by wise and spirit-filled cartographers over the centuries.”

—Larry Woiwode, Acts (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).

(HT: Michael Haykin for the first two quotes)

We Lutherans would first put in the hands of a person looking for the Christian consensus about the Faith, a copy of the Book of Concord, and then guide them into reading other helpful church fathers and theologians.

Others practice a “gospel of niceness,” where faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers. The Christian call to take risks, witness and sacrifice for others is muted, she says. “If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation,” wrote Dean, a professor of youth and church culture at Princeton Theological Seminary. More teens may be drifting away from conventional Christianity. But their desire to help others has not diminished, another author says.

These words are part of a story I read today, and while it applies to teens, I’m convinced it applies to many Christians today. When we feed people pablum, they remain infants. When all they hear in their Christian congregation is a form of the “Precious Moments” Gospel that is more about feeling all warm and cozy about themselves, than the full-blooded, or should I say, “shed bloodedness” that is the Christian truth, then what results is what this article is talking all about.

Here is the story:

(CNN) — If you’re the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning:

Your child is following a “mutant” form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.

Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Translation: It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.

Dean is a minister, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of “Almost Christian,” a new book that argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on this self-serving strain of Christianity.

She says this “imposter” faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.

“If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust,” Dean says. “Churches don’t give them enough to be passionate about.”

What traits passionate teens share

Dean drew her conclusions from what she calls one of the most depressing summers of her life. She interviewed teens about their faith after helping conduct research for a controversial study called the National Study of Youth and Religion.

The study, which included in-depth interviews with at least 3,300 American teenagers between 13 and 17, found that most American teens who called themselves Christian were indifferent and inarticulate about their faith.

The study included Christians of all stripes — from Catholics to Protestants of both conservative and liberal denominations. Though three out of four American teenagers claim to be Christian, fewer than half practice their faith, only half deem it important, and most can’t talk coherently about their beliefs, the study found.

Many teenagers thought that God simply wanted them to feel good and do good — what the study’s researchers called “moralistic therapeutic deism.”

Some critics told Dean that most teenagers can’t talk coherently about any deep subject, but Dean says abundant research shows that’s not true.

“They have a lot to say,” Dean says. “They can talk about money, sex and their family relationships with nuance. Most people who work with teenagers know that they are not naturally inarticulate.”

In “Almost Christian,” Dean talks to the teens who are articulate about their faith. Most come from Mormon and evangelical churches, which tend to do a better job of instilling religious passion in teens, she says.

No matter their background, Dean says committed Christian teens share four traits: They have a personal story about God they can share, a deep connection to a faith community, a sense of purpose and a sense of hope about their future.

“There are countless studies that show that religious teenagers do better in school, have better relationships with their parents and engage in less high-risk behavior,” she says. “They do a lot of things that parents pray for.”

Dean, a United Methodist Church minister who says parents are the most important influence on their children’s faith, places the ultimate blame for teens’ religious apathy on adults.

Some adults don’t expect much from youth pastors. They simply want them to keep their children off drugs and away from premarital sex.

Others practice a “gospel of niceness,” where faith is simply doing good and not ruffling feathers. The Christian call to take risks, witness and sacrifice for others is muted, she says.

“If teenagers lack an articulate faith, it may be because the faith we show them is too spineless to merit much in the way of conversation,” wrote Dean, a professor of youth and church culture at Princeton Theological Seminary.

More teens may be drifting away from conventional Christianity. But their desire to help others has not diminished, another author says.

Barbara A. Lewis, author of “The Teen Guide to Global Action,” says Dean is right — more teens are embracing a nebulous belief in God.

Yet there’s been an “explosion” in youth service since 1995 that Lewis attributes to more schools emphasizing community service.

Teens that are less religious aren’t automatically less compassionate, she says.

“I see an increase in youth passion to make the world a better place,” she says. “I see young people reaching out to solve problems. They’re not waiting for adults.”

What religious teens say about their peers

Elizabeth Corrie meets some of these idealistic teens every summer. She has taken on the book’s central challenge: instilling religious passion in teens.

Corrie, who once taught high school religion, now directs a program called YTI — the Youth Theological Initiative at Emory University in Georgia.

YTI operates like a theological boot camp for teens. At least 36 rising high school juniors and seniors from across the country gather for three weeks of Christian training. They worship together, take pilgrimages to varying religious communities and participate in community projects.

Corrie says she sees no shortage of teenagers who want to be inspired and make the world better. But the Christianity some are taught doesn’t inspire them “to change anything that’s broken in the world.”

Teens want to be challenged; they want their tough questions taken on, she says.

“We think that they want cake, but they actually want steak and potatoes, and we keep giving them cake,” Corrie says.

David Wheaton, an Atlanta high school senior, says many of his peers aren’t excited about Christianity because they don’t see the payoff.

“If they can’t see benefits immediately, they stay away from it,” Wheaton says. “They don’t want to make sacrifices.”

How ‘radical’ parents instill religious passion in their children

Churches, not just parents, share some of the blame for teens’ religious apathy as well, says Corrie, the Emory professor.

She says pastors often preach a safe message that can bring in the largest number of congregants. The result: more people and yawning in the pews.

“If your church can’t survive without a certain number of members pledging, you might not want to preach a message that might make people mad,” Corrie says. “We can all agree that we should all be good and that God rewards those who are nice.”

Corrie, echoing the author of “Almost Christian,” says the gospel of niceness can’t teach teens how to confront tragedy.

“It can’t bear the weight of deeper questions: Why are my parents getting a divorce? Why did my best friend commit suicide? Why, in this economy, can’t I get the good job I was promised if I was a good kid?”

What can a parent do then?

Get “radical,” Dean says.

She says parents who perform one act of radical faith in front of their children convey more than a multitude of sermons and mission trips.

A parent’s radical act of faith could involve something as simple as spending a summer in Bolivia working on an agricultural renewal project or turning down a more lucrative job offer to stay at a struggling church, Dean says.

But it’s not enough to be radical — parents must explain “this is how Christians live,” she says.

“If you don’t say you’re doing it because of your faith, kids are going to say my parents are really nice people,” Dean says. “It doesn’t register that faith is supposed to make you live differently unless parents help their kids connect the dots.”

‘They called when all the cards stopped’

Anne Havard, an Atlanta teenager, might be considered radical. She’s a teen whose faith appears to be on fire.

Havard, who participated in the Emory program, bubbles over with energy when she talks about possibly teaching theology in the future and quotes heavy-duty scholars such as theologian Karl Barth.

She’s so fired up about her faith that after one question, Havard goes on a five-minute tear before stopping and chuckling: “Sorry, I just talked a long time.”

Havard says her faith has been nurtured by what Dean, the “Almost Christian” author, would call a significant faith community.

In 2006, Havard lost her father to a rare form of cancer. Then she lost one of her best friends — a young woman in the prime of life — to cancer as well. Her church and her pastor stepped in, she says.

“They called when all the cards stopped,” she says.

When asked how her faith held up after losing her father and friend, Havard didn’t fumble for words like some of the teens in “Almost Christian.”

She says God spoke the most to her when she felt alone — as Jesus must have felt on the cross.

“When Jesus was on the cross crying out, ‘My God, why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus was part of God,” she says. “Then God knows what it means to doubt.

“It’s OK to be in a storm, to be in a doubt,” she says, “because God was there, too.”

Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/27/almost.christian/index.html?hpt=C1

I know some people do not like the style of these videos, but I think they are really quite powerful, for a certain demographic that most older folks simply “don’t get.” Check this latest video from the Wretched Network. Yes, the man singing the song was serious.

This is the best, and most thorough-going critique of Rick Warren’s Purpose Drive Life I’ve read, to date, from anyone. In light of the fact of how any number of Lutheran congregations picked up and ran with the “Purpose Driven” craze, in spite of it being quite thoroughly contrary to the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, it is important that this kind of critique be as thoroughly promulgated as possible (I don’t get to use that word ‘promulgated’ too much, try saying it out loud, it’s fun!).

Here’s the paper: WarrenCritique

NOTE: Click the link once, then click on it again, in the next window, and allow time for the PDF file to download to your computer.

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, here’s a snippet.

As a 27-year-old evangelical myself, I understand the concern. My peers, many of whom grew up in the church, are losing interest in the Christian establishment.

Recent statistics have shown an increasing exodus of young people from churches, especially after they leave home and live on their own. In a 2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant adults between 18-22 stop attending church regularly.

Statistics like these have created something of a mania in recent years, as baby-boomer evangelical leaders frantically assess what they have done wrong (why didn’t megachurches work to attract youth in the long term?) and scramble to figure out a plan to keep young members engaged in the life of the church.

Increasingly, the “plan” has taken the form of a total image overhaul, where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural, relevant. As a result, in the early 2000s, we got something called “the emerging church”—a sort of postmodern stab at an evangelical reform movement. Perhaps because it was too “let’s rethink everything” radical, it fizzled quickly. But the impulse behind it—to rehabilitate Christianity’s image and make it “cool”—remains.

I read this first on Dr. Gene Edward Veith’s blog, who read it at Joe Carter’s blog, who in turn found it on the Internet. OK, now that we have the hat tips out of the way, here is a great interview with Rodney Stark.

Read this interview with sociologist Rodney Stark on how the so-called “mainline” liberal denominations have dwindled into irrelevance: Are Evangelicals the New Mainline?. Among the many interesting points he makes is that the only congregations in those traditions that are doing well are those with conservative pastors. And when “evangelicals” decide to go liberal, as in the emergent church or progressive evangelical movement, they decline too. He goes into the history of this phenomenon and finds that it goes way, way back.

I’m not sure who this guy is, but I enjoyed his video. You may too, there is a high-def version, just click on through to the original at YouTube for that:

“The fact is that there simply is no neutral, undogmatic, generic Gospel, which may then be flavored to taste with denominational additives, say a dash of delicate Anglican mint sauce here, and hearty Lutheran sauerkraut or Baptist okra there. Every confession of the Gospel is at once and inevitably dogmatic or ‘denominational.’ For no honest presentation of the Gospel can escape the necessity of saying yes or no to basic evangelical ingredients like the power of Baptism, grace alone, universal grace, the Gospel as means of grace or the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Holy Supper for our salvation.”

Kurt Marquart, “Central Lutheran Thrusts For Today,” Concordia Journal. Vol. 18, Number 3, (May 1982), p. 87.

A thought-provoking post from “Gospel-Driven Church” blog. I think this is spot-on true. What do you think?

Your Church May Not be A Church If . . .

You rarely, if ever, hear the word “sin” there.

When you do hear the word “sin,” it is only only briefly mentioned, or redefined as “mistakes.”

You can’t remember when you last heard the name of Jesus in a message.

The Easter message isn’t about the resurrection but “new opportunities” in your life or turning over a new leaf.

On patriotic holiday weekends, the message is about how great America is.

On the other weekends, the message is about how great you are.

There are more videos than prayers.

People don’t sing during “worship,” but watch.

The pastors’ chief responsibilities are things foreign to Scripture.

There is more money budgeted for advertising than for mission.

The majority of the small groups are oriented around sports or leisure, not study or service.

You always feel comfortable there.

Church membership just appears to be a recruiting system for volunteers.

You only see other church people on Sunday mornings at church.

—
WARNING: If your church meets one or more of these, it might be a spiritual pep rally, a religious performance center, a Christian social club, or something else entirely, but it is probably not, biblically speaking, a gathering of the Church.

There is a powerful little statement made by a Lutheran theologian, who, in signing his agreement to one of the documents in the Lutheran Confessions, captured the very essence of what, precisely, the Lutheran Confessions are. He wrote: “I judge that all these agree with Holy Scripture and with the belief of the true and genuine catholic Church.” — John Brentz, Minister of Halle, Smalcald, 1537. The true and genuine catholic Church — this is that the Lutheran Confessions represent. Nothing more, nothing less.

A little detail almost always is overlooked when we talk about the Book of Concord:the “Lutheran” confessions really aren’t (just) “Lutheran!” It is important to highlight this in our relativistic, subjectivistic culture where everybody seems to have their truth — and so, why shouldn’t (some in) the Lutheran church have their Lutheran confessions (so long as the Reformed get to have their confessions and the Catholics their Council of Trent — and non-denominational groups their bible)? But that understates the ecumenical claim of the “Lutheran” Confessions. The “Lutheran” confessions are not interested in formulating some particular truths (really then: “truths”); they’re interested in reasserting the catholic, universal, Christian truths of Scripture. In other words, on the one hand, it does make sense to call the Book of Concord the “Lutheran Confessions” to distinguish them from the, say, Anglican Confession or the Reformed Confessions. Yet that only touches on one aspect.

Even though it historically emerged out of inner-Lutheran arguments after Luther’s death in 1546, the 1580 Book of Concord was not originally entitled: Lutheran Book of Concord (then the Catholics would have won: “Ha! See? You Lutherans only run after Luther’s private opinions — the “ecumenical councils” are us!”).

It is entitled: Christian Book of Concord (as can be seen on the beautiful title page of the German Book of Concord: the German word “Christliche” (Christian) is the largest, most ornate word on that page — and that is so for a very good reason!). It gave an account of correct Christian, catholic, universal teaching of the Church precisely because it was drawn from the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures. Building on the three “ecumenical creeds,” the Book of Concord now formulates the standard of what is considered Christian in the Christian church. That is, at least, the assertion of the churches bearing Luther’s name. This claim is indeed controversial, as everybody can easily understand. But since we are now in the time of the church militant — which truth / interpretation of Scripture is really uncontroversial?

In fact, if there’s any reason for there being a distinct Lutheran church, then it can only be found in the catholicity of this church’s doctrine, once confessed in the Christian Book of Concord of 1580. So we’re really saying: even though it sounds very parochial and particular, this one confession defines what is Christian to this day because it correctly expounds Scripture, God’s word. Many, no doubt, will call this “sectarianism” (as opposed to the “ecumenical” denominationalism where every “denomination” is just a different, but equally valid denomination, kind of like different dollar bills in your wallet).

But in the church of the Crucified, truth is not found in generalizations and abstractions many can agree on “by their own reason or strength”. It is found in the in agreeing on what God’s word actually means.

How do we teach the faithful what it means to be a genuinely small-c “catholic” Christian who is pledged, at the very least, to Luther’s Small Catechism, and that their pastors and other church workers are pledged to the Book of Concord?

In what sense is the Book of Concord “Lutheran”? And in what sense is it “Christian”? What’s the difference? How do we avoid sectarianism while maintaining an unconditional subscription to the Lutheran Confessions?

“Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

You’ve got to read/see this one to believe it. What a great example of everything that is so desperately and totally wrong with many Christians’ view of worship, and of what the Church is. Lord, have mercy. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.

 

Raised by post-church boomers, or by children of boomers, it should come as no surprise that the so-called “Millennials” are hazy, to say the least, about all things religious. Here is an interesting story in USA Today about it.

Here is a snippet from the story:

Key findings in the phone survey, conducted in August and released today:

•65% rarely or never pray with others, and 38% almost never pray by themselves either.

•65% rarely or never attend worship services.

•67% don’t read the Bible or sacred texts.

Many are unsure Jesus is the only path to heaven: Half say yes, half no.

Here is the more complete report directly from LifeWay. LifeWay reports:

“Millennials are the most religiously diverse generation in our culture’s history,” Rainer said. “Unsure of the afterlife and the life of Jesus, Millennials present the church with a great opportunity to engage them in conversations dealing with the nature of truth and its authority as God.”

Here are a couple of charts from the story:

A thought-provoking article by Pastor Peters, for your consideration and reflection.

On another on-line forum is the question “Why Lutherans Can’t Evangelize.” It is a striking question born of a time when Lutherans have borrowed the evangelism methods of others and found themselves without a voice of their own to speak the Gospel to their neighbor. I cannot always have been true because there was a point in the 1950s when Lutherans were growing at astounding rates. TIME magazine noted this in April of 1958 with the prediction that if things continue everyone in America will be Lutheran by 2000. We know how that turned out. Perhaps TIME jinxed our forward momentum since the last year we saw substantial growth in the LCMS was 1963.

I think we lost our voice. The boats stopped coming from Europe, America changed and suburbia brought with it additional cultural changes, our own shift from a largely rural to mostly urban and suburban church body made us turn inward to figure out what this meant for us, and we found ourselves without a voice to speak to those around us.

So we did what Lutherans are wont to do. We went shopping in the religious marketplace. We looked at the denominations that were growing (Southern Baptist) and began shaping our approach in their terminology and from their perspective. But it was a little like those who speak another language from a phrase book. It was not our native tongue.

Then came Evangelism Explosion and D. James Kennedy. We Lutheranized it into Dialog Evangelism (ala BZ) and suddenly there were people showing up on the front porches of America asking “What would happen to you if you died tonight?” Again, with all our tweaking, it was a foreign language to us and the decision theology part of it all left a taste in our mouth that diluted our enthusiasm.

In the end what this did is transfer the responsibility to an Evangelism Committee. Remember that before this Luthern congregational structures did not even have an evangelism group or committee or deacon. Don Abdon came along to help us with this restructuring need and with a list of those who were “evangelists” and we decided that evangelism was best done by those with its gift. All of this distanced the average Lutheran Christian from the task and purpose of sharing the faith.

Advance a few years and we were shopping at Willow Creek or Saddle Creek or CCM radio stations in the hopes that if we looked different and sounded different people would be attracted to us. Never mind the fact that our sanctuaries were architecturally unsuited for this style and our heart was not fully convinced (hence the traditional services that kept us Lutheran in identity at least at 7 am on Sunday morning).

Our mission execs began shopping for those churches that were growing and they shifted our paradigms and made us more missional and insisted that everything we were or did had to be negotiable if we were really to grow. Their hearts were in the right place — they daily faced statistics that most people in the pew choose to ignore… but the result has been a great division between those congregations that are LINO (Lutheran in name only), those who have abandoned even the name but exist within the denomination, AND those who turn to page 151 on LSB on Sunday morning and the worship wars past and pressent.

Now our Lutheran evangelistic zeal is part of the angst of who we are and what we are. If we did bring people to worship, would they feel at home? Would they like it? Would they find us friendly? Would they come back? Can we do this? Will it (giving up who we are) be worth it all in the end? Instead we should have been thinking Isaiah 55 — My Word will not return to me empty handed… Instead we should have been confident that where the Word and Sacraments are and the baptized people gathered around them and their Pastor, there is the Church with the fullness of the Spirit who IS the one who grows the Church.

Our parish grows because the people invite people to come with them. Our outreach is through the people in the pew who daily witness and share their faith and not through an evangelism committee. People hear about our work in the community or find out about us through our highly regarded preschool or come to one of our Music at Grace concerts or are brought by those who have confidence in the Word and Sacraments, the means of grace. We do try to be deliberately welcoming, we have a welcome desk at the door and people stationed to identify and welcome visitors. We have signs and lots of parking. We have a well maintained building. But we sing the liturgy on Sunday morning and use the full resources of the hymnal for the Divine Service. We have good teaching for all ages and good Biblical preaching that keeps the Law and Gospel distinct but together. We do everything wrong in this regard and next week we will receive nearly 40 new members (through baptism, instruction, adult confirmation, affirmation of faith, and transfer). What happens on Sunday morning and who we are during the week is the same. The result is that people know who they are in the pews and feel confident about bringing people with them, sharing the faith with their neighbors and co-workers, and they know what people will experience on Sunday morning. Even kids do this.

We must know who we are before we know our voice in evangelism and outreach. It must be authentic and real, positive and genuine… Identity is what helps us welcome… confidence in that identity gives us confidence to invite and welcome… it really does work.