Happy Memorial Day!
Today I’m thinking about our lost relatives and our kids’ connection to the grandparents and great-grandparents and aunts and uncles that they’ve never met.
Who were these men and women, the generations of Buehring, Krinke, Brueggemann, Zierke, Hergenrader, Allen, Nolte, and Retzloff?
What would these lost loved ones think of our four kids? Would the long-passed great-great this and second-removed that see themselves in our kids’ faces and in their mannerisms?
In their blonde hair? In their deep and sweet personalities?
What dominant and recessive traits does our modern Hergenrader Family have from our lost genetic donors? What have the chromosomes held on to generation after generation?
Why do I care?
(Why these deep reflections and where are those funny stories about taking four kids to the bathroom?)
This is our family’s unique tradition: Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
While some families have a history of practicing law or a love of farming or studying politics, our family has a strong history as Lutherans. An impeccable history, perhaps? Have every direct ancestor been LCMS?
I think maybe so. On every branch of our family’s tree, a Luther’s Rose blooms. These ancient relatives with strange-sounding German and Scandinavian names, were baptized with the same words the pastor used for M and me, the same words the pastor used at the Baptism of our children.
How important is this heritage of a faith? Should my kids sing the same hymns their great-grandparents did? Will it be meaningful to them to know they’re speaking the same words of liturgy that their great-great-great grandpa did over a hundred years ago?
Or would that idea repulse our kids?
By attaching an ancient age to church will we guarantee that church will bore them?
Our current congregation guesses yes, it would.
Actually, most people seem to agree that the more relevant the church, the more meaningful it is for everyone.
Lots of people in my generation say that organs and ancient texts are not meaningful. Instead, loud music is meaningful. So are movie clips and slang. An interactive iPhone app for your church is meaningful. Performing secular songs during worship is meaningful. So are video announcements.
I’ve bought into all of that. I’ve read the statistics that the LCMS is an aging church body. I’ve heard the testimonies of those who have left the LCMS, saying they hated the stagnancy of it all. I’ve talked to teens who don’t go to their LCMS church at all because it’s not relevant.
I want my kids to go to church when they’re fourteen, so I take them to a loud and relevant church when they’re four.
But what have we lost?
Decades and decades of our ancestors have attended churches with the words “Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod” in the name. Our current congregation doesn’t include those words because they’re not missional. Do I agree? Or, if that’s part of our family’s unique family history then should I protect our identity by making sure those words are a firm part of our church’s name? Should I make sure that LCMS is a firm part of our church’s Divine Service?
Will teaching our kids the history of their family through the history of our church body resonate with them so strongly that they want to stay in church, even when they’re fourteen?
Maybe. Maybe not.
For that, I’m trusting God.
I’m trusting Him now too, as we deal with a difficult situation at our church.
Just like our family, those Lutherans, before me.
