Last Night for the third night in a row Peggy and I were part of a Hispanic Church retreat at a retreat house in Elgin.
We even needed a private English translator since all of it was in Spanish.
BUT THE WORSHIP.
And the presence of God.
Magnificent.
Prophet Hernandez ministered again.
I was thinking this morning in the shower how much I loved the evening. I then was thinking about some very traditional (ie Confessional) Lutheran services I have been in during the past few months.
I was blessed by them too. I can go to any worship service anywhere and enjoy and worship in spirit and truth. Heck, I can go to a Catholic mass and enjoy myself. I understand diversity. I'm not married to any form or function. I don't like dry. I don't like wrot. Most of the time the services I have been part of are not that.
So in a way I can go both ways worship wise and do so without finding fault. Amusement perhaps sometimes, but not fault.
I think of this because of the very nasty "Discussion" I dipped into and then out of with a bunch of Confessional Lutherans in the last week.
I promise you these folks could not come to a good old fashioned pentecostal church service and enter in with a spirit of worship.
So, then who is right and wrong? What is the spirit of worship if there are times you can't worship?
I don't know what that means but if you can only find fault (not holy discontent) fault with the style of a church service you are not a true worshiper.
I think some of these people need to have their paradigms stretched. My friend Barry ministers in Angola Prison. There they don't worship according to the book of Concord. The Augsburg confession is no where to be found. Yet he is as Lutheran as Jesus is. (hat tip to Ben)
OK, Rant finished. I just think it's terribly sad that over style not fundamental belief that the divide is so great. I believe it to be irreparable and a stain on the capacity of the church to reach the world for Jesus.
I just wonder if the confessional Lutherans will approve of the song of the Lamb when they are standing on the glassy sea in white robes and people's hands are raised in worship and others are falling down and others are throwing crowns at His feet and the sound is like the sound of many waters and the roar of people of every nation every tongue join in singing in a common tongue.
It will have to be speaking in tongues won't it, a heavenly language, since I don't think it will be English or Spanish.
Course it could be German.
HMMMM>
We'll see............
3 comments:
Your so down on Lutherans why the heck do you insist on being involved big time in a Lutheran church? Why not go "where you can get some?"
Well, I have not had an answer/response to my question on why you continue to try to "turn-around" a Lutheran Church. Is it just because the church is so close to your home? Your not willing to drive a bit to get what you need, you'd rather make the church that you feel your entitled to? Or is it because this church is a weak church, not of it's own accord but by the doings of the past and PRESENT leadership, or lack thereof????? What sayest thou?
I don't know that I am guilty of trying to "Turn Around" a Lutheran Church.
I am trying to be of all the assistance I can be to help that Church and others like them become the kind of Church that meets needs in the community and beyond.
I have been part of such a Lutheran Church. The largest LCMS church in the world is King of Kings in Omaha NE. If you or anyone were to attend there you would find that the worship, preaching and ministry looks and feels like home. It's contemporary, prophetic, hopeful, meet's children's needs, great musicality and growing every day.
It is a prototype LCMS church that if I am guilty of anything I am trying to help our Church become.
I don't see it as turn around, I see it as moving forward. Leaving behind the pain and deadness of the past. I am hopeful. Yes it's close, I have for a long time known I am far more effective if I am part of a local church than if I drive 50 miles to something and not be part of it.
We very nearly moved just so we could be part of a Church in Rockford we dearly love.
Am I entitiled? NO, But the Fox Valley is, we don't have a work that looks like I believe this can and like King of Kings does.
If horribly the Lutheran confessionals won out I would have to walk away. I don't think they will.
I am a man of hope and faith and still have some. Hope with me.
God long ago gave me a vision of the Church he wants here. It looks like what I have seen, even at King of Kings.
Let's see what God can do.
Post a Comment