My view Course correction
I keep hearing how the church is los- ing numbers compared to the glory days of the 1950s and ’60s. Our pastor cited a statistic that is well worth con- sidering: the rise in church attendance after World War II was a statistical blip, an unsustainable one, and everyone kept right on building churches as if that growth would go on forever. One wants to make plans based on faith in God’s work in the future, but I think what we’re looking at now is not so much a horrible drop in attendance but a correction to what it had been like
before the war. Keith E. Gatling Syracuse, N.Y.
Refresher course needed After discussing Mary (August, page18) with many references to Scriptures, why end the article glossily praising the Virgin of Guadalupe? Nei- ther the veneration of Our Lady of Guadalupe by Roman Catholics nor her idolization in secular Mexican culture adds anything to our under- standing of the biblical Mary. Luther- ans don’t use saints to intercede for them before God. Why imply that it’s OK?Maybe The Lutheran should have the theologians refresh our collective memories on the famous solas: sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fides, solus Christus (Scripture alone, grace alone,
faith alone, Christ alone). Anonymous (See box below)
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Cretsinger is an ELCA pastor on leave from call in the Central States Synod. She lives in St. Paul, Minn., where she attends Lutheran Church of the Redeemer.
I
By Trudy K. Cretsinger Great commission
matters to all Anything in way needs to go
shared synod Bishop Michael Rinehart’s article about outsiders and insiders on Facebook weeks before it appeared in The Lutheran (February, page 34). Although
his choice of worship, especially hymns, as an example may be offensive to some, he is mostly spot on. This is not to say that I’m in favor of dumping any- thing and everything just to catch the attention of the unchurched, dischurched or otherwise uninterested popu- lation. I don’t think the bishop is suggesting that either. But we have to evaluate every single thing we do in our congregations in terms of its eventual impact on the people who are not part of the faith community.
Before you react, allow me to elaborate: we can start with liturgies, hymns and creeds.
If the creeds help us understand our faith in the God
who has called us in baptism so we can explain what we believe to anyone who asks, keep them. If the hymns we sing fill us with joy and the love of God so this spills onto people around us Monday through Saturday, keep singing them. If our liturgy gives us such a solid vision of life as it is
under the reign and realm of God that we can go out and live by that vision, live in such a way to help bring that vision into everyday reality, then hang on to such liturgies. Let us cling to anything and everything that helps us
live as followers of Jesus in a world that desperately needs the good news. Jesus’ command to us is that we go out and make disci-
ples and teach what we have learned. That’s the main thing for us as the church. Whatever helps us to be disciples of Jesus who can share the good news of what God is up to in the world is worth doing. Whatever changes will help people around us to hear, understand and be drawn into this good news are worth making.
But anything and everything we do that creates a barrier between others and the gospel, that distorts and distracts from the good news of God, has to go—period. Sooner or later, somehow, some way, everything we do on the inside is going to touch those on the outside … at least, it should. How are we touching those around us, outside as well
as inside, with the good news? That’s what matters to Jesus, so it ought to matter to us.
October 2012 49
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