Immanuel Lutheran Church
The Lutheran Missouri Synod3000 W. Main Street
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49006
269-345-8090
Divine Service with Holy Communion
each Sunday at 10:00 a.m.
Sunday Evening Service at 6:00 p.m.
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Pastor's Letter -- Pastor's Notes I have become a bit of a "broken record" this past year. (Now that's a metaphor soon to become incomprehensible-what's a record?) I keep encouraging Immanuel and the churches and pastors of our Circuit to "get into 2012". Well, now it is, indeed, 2012. My thesis is simple: that each of our churches (including our own) tend to "get stuck" in some comfortable place in the past. Perhaps this can be described in terms of decades. It reminds me of an old joke about the sixties. The first old hippie says to the second, "Do you remember the sixties?" the second replies, "No way, man! If you can remember the sixties you weren't really there!" Well, all of our churches were there in the sixties-and many well before that. The challenge is to do ministry in the absolute present and not be stuck in some previous decade no matter where it is. Stuck in the eighties is no better than stuck in the sixties. Jesus has not called us to preach the Gospel in any other time but the exact here and now. It is just plain disobedient to attempt to live in the past and refuse to acknowledge the present. I know that it is tempting. To describe the changes that have occurred to the Christian Church, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and even our own congregation over our lifetimes would, of course take a book. I don't wish to do that now. I know the memories are great. But they are also faulty. Things were never quite as good as we remember and many times we also exaggerate the hurts. When a widow or widower sits in a pew, memories of the lost one are so present-as if time has returned. This is a normal human reaction to loss and is to be respected. But churches cannot afford to behave in such a manner. The buildings that we call our churches are just tools for the proclamation of the Gospel. The moment they get in the way of that proclamation they become idols that are better abandoned than worshipped. When our constitutions, by laws and traditions block the free flow of the Gospel they again have become the tools of Satan and not Christ. When we cannot emotionally get out of our pasts and into our future we have lost the very purpose that we exist for: to bring the good news of salvation found in Christ to the world. If you haven't noticed, the world and culture are very different places. The mission field that we are engaged in has only one thing in common with ten years ago (that would be 2002!): that people are sinners. Other than that the nature of the culture we are in ministry to has changed. Average church attendance in the United States is 17%. Half of all babies baptized in the LCMS are not confirmed. Half of those confirmed do not grow up to hold membership in the church. This is complete self-destruction by an institution of any type and cannot be accepted, particularly when the consequences are so dire. We are now finally, truly, one generation away from becoming too small to be effective at a national level. The solution must be a complete refusal to live in the past and to unsparingly evaluate what we do and why we do it. This is not change for change sake. It is not change according to false "church growth" principles. It is simply the reality that a church that cannot do ministry with its feet on the ground, in its ministry context, is simply a Laodicea with another name. It is lukewarm and the Ascended Christ has no option but to "spit it out of His mouth". I remember a time when I was having a deep theological discussion with Christie's cousin Shelley over the differences between Methodism and Lutheranism. I was contrasting the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral": scripture, tradition, reason and experience with the Lutheran principle of Scripture Alone. I said that for Lutherans, tradition can never be equivalent with Scripture. She laughed and retorted, "I have been to your church!" (Messiah, St. Peters, MO) Of course she had and she was right in so many ways. The institutional strength of our church body has always been its strength. This does not need to be forsaken but does need to be reinvigorated. Non-institutional means can also be developed. Our strengths in music and education can be emphasized and broadened. Our doctrinal stringency and expertise does not need to be lessened-but neither does it need to be fortified. In other words, we can be comfortable in our own skin and self-assured-but also look for opportunities to take new directions and seize new initiatives. As a historical "imported from Europe" church we have never actually spoken American English. Our theology is not congruent with American values of self-determination, voluntarism and independence. We do not go with the flow well and are often stubbornly un-pragmatic. Fundamentalist churches that are as conservative as we are have readily embraced "contemporary" worship forms. When most people hear "Lutheran" they associate the concept with the ELCA and homosexual and social justice issues. When people think of liturgical worship they associate its best practice as Episcopalian or Catholic. In the broader Christian culture there are only Evangelicals, Catholics or the dying Protestant "main line". To be a "main line" church body that describes itself as Evangelical and Catholic is to be confusing to our culture beyond recognition-in a media saturated culture to be confusing is to be dismissed and worse, ignored and irrelevant. Yet here we are. If we can be creative and innovative we can find ways to turn these weaknesses into strengths. We do not need to copy any one. We do not need to chase fads. Our strength is in the depth of our theological foundation and its resistance to false pragmatism. But this cannot harden in to a "dead orthodoxy". To be conservative in theology does not demand that one be conservative in mission-they are independent. We (as a church body) seem to be too afraid that becoming flexible in one will lead to the loss of another. Merely retreating and retrenching-fixing our churches in a comfortable time and space-will not preserve them but will ensure their death. It is false to use "faithfulness" as an excuse for incompetence or unwillingness to adapt to our mission contexts. The quest for one type of purity or another is now a poison to the church even as the desire for control amongst individuals or groups (and yes, pastors) ensures that the poison is drunk. How do we adapt, then? We should take comfort in that the movement of the Reformation indeed took root throughout the Christian world and that its fundamental dynamism remains. When we focus on the principles of Scripture Alone, Faith Alone and Grace Alone we re-discover that dynamism. There are more people seeking to find a church that can preach the Word and administer the Sacraments in a Biblical manner than we imagine. We can innovatively "tap into" their networks if we can get out of our "this isn't the worst church you're ever going to visit" reticence. These people are different. They don't necessarily look or sound like us. It is our job to learn about them and to learn how to communicate with them. We are the missionaries and it is our burden to "figure them out". The good news is that the Good News is still good news! The Word returns according to its promise and works according to the Spirit's will. It is my privilege to be a messenger with you. I love the Church and this church. I did not give my life to the Gospel to preserve the institution of the church but to serve the Church. The Church awaiting the Return of Christ is properly called the Church Militant. It is destined to be the Church Triumphant. In the meantime, as long as I am leading it, by God's grace, it will be working, praying, trying, failing, succeeding, arguing, worshipping, confirming, teaching, dying, living,… anything but doing nothing. Pastor David H. Sidwell 
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