A Year Later

Today marks the year anniversary of walking through the door of Lutheran church I now call home. Getting my family on board with the decision seemed like an insurmountable task. As I look back over the last year, I see each one of my 3 kids and my wife starting to see why I loved liturgy the first time I saw it. There was some hope by some of my family that we could enjoy worship at new church and still participate in activities at the old church. It seemed like all of the doors slammed shut at the old church because we were too open with what we were doing. I guess the door shutting with the old church was the clean break we needed.

It was great to endure an election year at a church where the political makeup is 50-50 instead of 100% faux news. No extreme position is safe as there is an educated contrarian to keep those types in check. I realize I may have been Lutheran all along and feel like I have found my tribe. From an anthropological standpoint we all need a place to go where we can find like minded people and retreat from the difficulties of our daily lives. In the mainline Lutheran world you are free to explore and take in new information.  There is no fear of other opinions and fear isn't used as a motivation to keep people in the fold.

There is also room in my new tradition to grow and see God as a larger entity than was possible in my evangelical past. The hardest part of growing is taking in new information and see if your previous worldview holds up in light of new knowledge. In Europe as evolution became  more popular academics used it irresponsibly to start eugenics programs and to further justify atheistic postmodern philosophy.  I guess being responsible with new information and processing in a responsible way is the moral of the story here.