A Bundle of Myrrh

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Since it’s October and all, I thought this a good time to sit down and write a bit on being Lutheran. Well, not on being Lutheran but on how I became one and why. I just want to tell my story, my journey. I feel strange doing this, but I am writing it down for my own memory and for my children who might be curious someday. It’s hard to write something like this and it’s hard to keep it short! I’ve broken it into 3 parts, just 3 don’t worry.

I write this not to “bash” any other Christian denominations. Also you need to know I don’t believe that Christians in other denominations are not saved. A lot of what we believe is very different but God’s Grace is still manifest despite this. His Word is powerful and life giving. Where His Gospel is preached and believed in Faith there is Salvation.

First some history:

I was raised as a Baptist. But as I learned more about other Baptist churches I realized my church was of a different sort of Baptist. My pastor was a Baptist who dabbled in Calvinism. I think because of that we had a Calvinism with altar calls, Grace mixed with decisions for Jesus. I’ve recently learned that he was early to a party that is just starting to get bigger in the Baptist church.

A wave called “New Calvinism” is beginning. You can learn more about that HERE. As I listened to that interview I realized that it was pretty much my own story out of the Baptist church.

I wasn’t preached to growing up as much as I was indoctrinated. I don’t use that word in a negative way, that’s just the best way to state how my pastor preached, verse by verse through a book in the Bible, teaching our congregation Scripture and doctrines.

I was in church on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday nights. I attended the AWANA program for children (basically Scouts organization for the church.) And for this I am thankful!

While I don’t believe now some of the doctrines I was raised with I’m thankful that I was raised in church and that I learned Scripture. I knew every Bible story, I had loads of Scripture verses memorized, I knew all the books of the Bible and I could find them lightening fast!

I loved church, I lived church. I served and I worked in church. It was my life. I would have told you I loved Jesus, I shared Jesus on street corners, I knew what I believed, every doctrine and I was eager to tell anyone who’d listen. I had my mind set for life as a missionary. If I had to go to college it would Moody Bible Institute to prepare for the life I had laid out in my mind.

But after High School these things began to change. I began to get to know young people, newer members at my church, who all had questions. Over tacos and chicken fried steak they’d speak up about their questions, asking each other what they understood about the Second Coming, about Universal Atonement, Calvinism, about the Lord’s Supper, about Israel and something called Amillinalism.

For the first time I started to hear different interpretations of what I’d been taught, of what I understood of all these teachings of my church. My friends had been given just enough information to have a lot of questions but were coming up short on answers.

I had a vague knowledge of other denominations, of Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans. I didn’t really know much of what any of them taught, but I knew they were all wrong! My church was it, the rock of teaching, period. But here was something new from friends of mine. From people I respected. If they had these questions why didn’t I?

Some time passed. I became less and less sure of my path, less sure of what to do about college. I began courses at the University of Texas. I still attended my Baptist church but for various reasons, some of the persecution that had begun there turned on my family. One by one we all started to leave.

One of my brothers had attended UT before me and landed in the Presbyterian church (PCA) via a campus group called Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). As a small fish in the huge huge ocean of UT, I was so thankful to have this group and thankful that my brother had been “The Man” while there so that I was an instant hit, “Scot’s sister!”

RUF became a lifeline for me at that school. Here I made friends that I still have today. And it was in this group that things really began to change for me.

I had no idea what “Reformed” meant, I had only heard of John Calvin a few times and I was shocked at myself for falling in with Presbyterians! They used words like “Creeds” and “Liturgy” and they baptized babies!

They had communion every week, they sang hymns, really old ones, and they spoke highly of Martin Luther, “The Great Reformer.” I remember often wondering why if they loved Luther so much, they weren’t Lutheran?

But there was something here, something I couldn’t get away from and I didn’t want to. I sensed a richness, a depth I hadn’t really known. And I was surrounded by young people who like my friends in the Baptist church, had questions, lots of them and they weren’t shunned, they were engaged and they were given answers.

In these early college years it was normal to sit around for hours talking “theology” with groups of friends. Friends that had mostly all grown up Baptists. Everyone talking about this book they’d read, this question they had. It was also normal for arguments to erupt, for people to come and go. We were all trying to figure out what it was we believed, which teaching was the true one. It was slow and painful but good to know I wasn’t alone with my questions. Because I certainly had them now!

I was happy to start attending the Presbyterian church near campus regularly but I was reluctant to actually become a member. I still wasn’t sure about all the doctrines here, I was intimidated by their lengthy membership course and interview process. I couldn’t put my finger on it–while I liked a lot of people there, I couldn’t identify with them. I didn’t know why. To be honest, I just didn’t feel Stuart Smalley enough.

Things in my mind were shifting and my time there was coming to an end. Another ending, but what would be next for me? I couldn’t say.

To Be Continued.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2014 at 2:14 pm and is filed under Being Lutheran, Church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.