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Lined Notebook

The Frozen Chosen

Writer's picture: Kenny ChampagneKenny Champagne

There is a joke that you are probably familiar with...

How many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb? CHANGE!! Lutherans don't change!

It is good that we can laugh at ourselves but there is a sliver of truth in this joke. Let's be clear, its not just Lutherans, many, if not most, Christian denominations struggle with change. Church is supposed to be a safe space and many of us have deep history with our relationship to church that brings comfort. The hymns we sing, the liturgy, the flow of worship all bring comfort and that familiarity allows for us to just be present and not think to deeply about what is coming next. There is also the connection to the historic church, reading scripture and reciting liturgy that Christians from thousands of years ago recited. Our tradition is beautiful and comforting!


However, It has always been odd to me that Lutherans, of all people, are so resistant to change. The Lutheran faith is established because of MASSIVE change and upheaval brought to the Catholic Church during the Reformation! The foundation of our faith is built on the idea that God is always at work creating and that scripture is a living document that speaks to every time and place differently. Luther argued that because of this, we are free to realize that certain traditions and rituals might no longer bring life to the church or guide people to transformation, that our understanding of scripture might change over time and provide new opportunities and new ways of being the church.


While we think that the traditions we follow in worship are ancient, the truth is, much of our "traditional" worship comes out of post-World War II cultural shifts, only about 75 years ago (the church most of us grew up in!). Many of the things we hold near and dear to our hearts are either more recent changes to the church or were things people in the church railed against at some point. Would you believe that the organ was considered an instrument of the world and the devil by reformers like John Calvin in the 1500s! Our red Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal (ELW) is only 18 years old and replaced the green Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW) which came out in 1978. I recall when my home congregation was changing the hymnals and the uproar there was about losing the tradition of the green hymnal!


The church has always made it through change but unfortunately, the resistance to change and the conflicts that arise out of those changes has impacted the way people view the church to the point of chasing people out of the church altogether. We wonder why younger generations have fled the church and while there is a laundry list of why this is the case, one clear reason is the resistance to change and the conflict that arises from that resistance. Younger generations are much more concerned about how a church is caring for the poor than they are the color of the hymnal that is being used or the instrument the music is played on. If a church is spending more time talking about what color the carpet should be or the formation of the chairs than it is loving other people, we have a problem! And unfortunately, this is all too often the case.


I know that this congregation has had it's fair share of change over the past 2-3 years. When there is pastoral transition and a new pastor, change is inevitable. I am grateful for the ways this congregation has taking the changes in stride, even when they didn't work or it felt uncomfortable. We try to avoid change for the sake of change but often also lose sight of explaining the "why" behind the change. Often the explanation of why the change is happening helps us understand and role with the change. It is my hope to do better about those communications. As seasons change, our worship changes with it and we plan to share with you all in our weekly bulletins what those changes look like and why we do what we do. So keep an eye out as we head into a time of year where the seasons change quickly (Christ the King to Advent to Christmas, to Epiphany, to Lent, to Easter)!


Let us not be like so many churches who look back and go, "why did we fight about that silly thing?" and instead continue to be a place where we are open to experimenting. Let us remember our roots from the Reformation and constantly be discerning the ways God is calling us to new things. Let us be a community whose primary focus is on reaching more people for the sake of the gospel and loving our neighbors more than our own personal desires and comforts. My experience is this is already who we are! So may this be one of the traditions that never changes about this place!



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