Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, YouTube theologians. Welcome to the Q and A podcast. I'm Pastor Brian Wolfmuller, St. Paul Lutheran Church and Jesus Deaf Lutheran Churches in Austin, Texas, joined as always by Pastor Andrew Packer, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Collinsville, Illinois. Pastor Packer, I heard a rumor about you that three or four Q&A listeners have sent you Rogaine for Men, but you've returned it every time.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: I did have someone in the comments complain about my haircut, it was a guy.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: So I'm thinking, not that. Not the rogue to dye the beard. Right? You know, to just cover up.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah, wisdom.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: It's intimidating.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: All that I am giving to me 10 years ago.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Who knows if the Internet will be around or if Jesus won't come back, but you and I will both be completely white, probably bald. That'll be great.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Be amazing.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah. You got some questions. Oh, so you. We're answering your questions that you send in at Wolfmother co contact.
We're running low on those questions, I imagine. So, Cinnamon, you got something for us?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: I just looked and it's already back up to 500. And I tried to answer a bunch of them this last Friday. Anyway, don't let that stop you.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Keep those questions coming.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I may get to them in this next decade. All right. If Jesus was without sin, does that mean he was born immortal like Adam was in the beginning? Does that mean he only became mortal on the cross?
[00:01:28] Speaker A: This is interesting. So the.
Even Adam and Eve who were existing in a state of eternal life, who were to live forever and not die, still could die.
It's this. It's this wild little riddle about, like, if Adam and Eve couldn't die, why did they have to eat fruit from the garden? Or in. Specifically, why did they have to eat from the Tree of Life so that they could live forever?
So that even in a state of perfection, the gift of eternal life comes from outside of us.
So you could ask, well, could Adam and Eve have starved to death before the fall into sin? Which is a goofy thing, but maybe helpful to imagine. The answer is, well, yes, because they had to eat and they had to eat from the Tree of Life, but no, because they had everything that they needed to eat there.
And he said, well, could they have gone on a hunger strike or something? And the answer is no, because they weren't sinners. I mean, that's stupid.
So they would live forever, but even their eternal life was contingent. It was not like they were some. Like, Adam and Eve were like nuclear submarines and had, like, some sort of perpetual power that was going to propel them.
They still had a life that was provided for them by God.
Now would they have perhaps grown into a life of angelic existence? Seemingly that's what is hinted at when Jesus even says in the resurrection that we'll be like the angels, so there'll be this kind of life that is a sort of a life of light. But even then there's a contingency that we are not.
We are not immortal apart from the gifts and care of God.
So that's. Maybe I want to just kind of put that in there as the first correction.
Now, Jesus is without sin.
That means that. Oh, sorry, let me say one more thing there. That when sin enters the world and death through sin, death comes into the world as the punishment for sin. So that on the day that you eat of it, dying, you will die. Or as Paul states it, so clean the wages of sin is death.
So that death comes to us now not as just an effect of being part of creation or something, but it actually comes to us as a punishment for our sins. Jesus was not a sinner, so he did not deserve the punishment of death, and that's part of it.
But he took upon our humanity in such a way that he was subject to death so that he was not incarnate like Superman, who Remember that scene in one of the Superman movies where, like, the bullet hits Superman's eye and like, get and crushes because he was the man of steel, he was impervious to any sort of danger. Jesus is not like this. To avoid him being killed by the by Herod's soldiers, the holy family has to flee from Bethlehem to Egypt because presumably if the soldiers would have found Jesus, the sword would have gone through.
He could have been killed. He has to miraculously move through the crowds so that they don't stone him, because his hour had not yet come.
So Jesus takes into his divine nature our humanity in such a way that not only is the humanity subject to all of the afflictions of this life, including death, but now even God is subject to all of those things.
And this is not obvious. It seems to me like if you just said, pastor Packer, hey, there's this person over here, and this person is God and man.
And I've got my eyes closed and I'm going to open my eyes to see this person.
I would expect that the thing that would be obvious about this person is that he is God. And the thing that would be less obvious is that he was man.
But that is not the case with Jesus. If you explain that to me, and I open my eyes and I see Jesus. The thing that's obvious to me is that he's a man like me. It's not obvious that he's God.
And that not obvious being God is demonstrated by his mortality, his ability to die, even though he did not deserve it because of his sinlessness.
That's part of the miracle of the mystery of the incarnation, is that he is now subject to death, but it's his sinlessness and his divine existence that makes that death a death that wins the satisfaction for all sins for all people.
So.
So I think that's at least a couple of things to get the. To make sure we have the premises right for the question.
Your thoughts?
[00:06:53] Speaker B: I was thinking about it from a. From a different angle. I don't want to really add anything to that, those particular points, but in one sense, and I don't remember who said this, so whoever I'm ripping off, I apologize. I think it's someone who's dead anyway, so they probably don't care. But in one sense, all Christians. And this. This would apply to. To Christ as well.
We're immortal until it's our time to die.
Until. Until the Lord says it's your time to go, right? In one sense, you are. You are. Like, you're. You're going to keep living until the Lord says, all right, your days are up, right? So in one sense, you are immortal in the sense that God has your days numbered. He knows. He knows all these things. And so in that sense, you're going to live till then. With a caveat being, of course, right? We see with this, with Jesus, like, don't put the Lord, your God, to the. The test.
Don't be like, oh, if I'm not supposed to die today.
Because you don't know what day it is, so you shouldn't play this game. I'm gonna jump off this bridge and see if the Lord will save me. Like, that's not the way to think about it. But there's a sense in which, hey, when it's your time to go, it's. It is your time to go, right?
The one example I always think about this is Stonewall Jackson. I don't know if you've ever read his biography by. By Dabney. It's actually a fascinating biography. But, you know, he was called Stonewall because he would sit upright on his horse, like, in the midst of battle, and he always said, like, the Lord will be with me. And if. When's my time to go? It's My time to go. And then, of course, he dies. How?
By friendly fire at night. Right. Like, it was this random, seemingly random thing. He wasn't. He wasn't killed in an actual battle by the enemy, even though he was known for, like, not flinching in the face of all these things. So in one sense, when you're talking about. I was thinking about that. That. Well, in one sense, like, what did Christ keep saying? Like, it's necessary for these things to happen. It's necessary that Son of Man must do this. So in that sense, he's. He's immortal because he's not going to die until he has to die on the cross.
But in that same sense, I think every Christian kind of experiences the same thing. Like we here until the Lord says, okay, it's time for you to come home, whatever that looks like. And how all that works together with all the other things, I don't think I need to concern myself about too much, like how that all works in practice, but more trusting that, well, if it's my time to be here, then God has me here. Which has always enabled the Christians, right throughout the ages to be bold in the face of death, because they knew that if it was their time to die, then it was their time to die, that they'd go to be with Jesus and he would raise their bodies and it didn't really matter. Ultimately.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah, the worst.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: So the.
[00:09:27] Speaker A: The worst thing's always the best thing.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: So.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: Yeah, but it is, I mean, like, to hone in on this. So. And I think it's beautiful to think about. I mean, we live with this confidence that our days are in the Lord's hands. And that's, you know, if he wants us. If he wants us living, we're living. If. If he wants us living with him, we're living with Him. That's.
There is a beautiful freedom in that. There, there. The other thing, though, just on the, like, mortality of Jesus, just to say it, make sure we say it clearly, is that Jesus did not deserve death. And that sets his death apart. Death had a claim on every human because of sin, but not on Christ.
And when death went to devour Christ, it overstepped its bounds. It's part of the reason why the death of Jesus is the death of death and the destruction of the grave.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: All right, the next one, it's on growing cold.
What happens when your faith or your relationship with Jesus grows cold and what should you do about it?
Which I think is a question. Even the way it's framed it is related to so many other topics we've covered, right? About how people, emotions and worship, all kinds of things.
It does seem there's a lot of people that feel distant or far from God or feel like they're just going through the motions or whatever, which I think is what they mean by cold here. So what should they do?
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Something that happens. And so, all right, let me, Let me put on my pastor speculative hat, and then I'm going to go and read the Bible, which will be better. But that I.
I wonder if every Christian will experience this on purpose according to the Lord's will. In other words, there will be times when the Lord will in some ways step back so that our faith can be drawn closer to his words and promises.
So it's the common experience of Christians, especially, like if you become a Christian as an adult, you have this sort of rush of comfort and confidence, and it's almost like you can feel the warmth of the Spirit taking up residence in your own heart. Not everybody, but that's not an uncommon experience.
But then after a while, that the kind of excitement is missing and you wonder what it means.
It should at least mean this, that the Lord's promises are true if we feel them or not.
And one of the things that the Lord has to teach us in this life is not to trust our feelings. In fact, he wants our own feelings and emotions and desires to be under the constraint of His Word.
So the key text for this is 1 John 3, starting with verse 19, but it's verse 20 that we want to look at.
And by this we know that we're of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him.
But if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.
So John almost says, if our heart condemns us, we have confidence towards God. If our heart doesn't condemn us, we have confidence towards God. In other words, what our heart says doesn't matter. What matters is what God says.
And that heart has to do not only with our convictions and our decisions, but also with our desires and our emotions, which are all under the dominion of God's law. So that we can say, look, Pastor, this happens all the time. Pastor, I don't feel like I'm close to God. Well, what does God say about that? He says, jesus says, I'll never leave you or forsake you. I'm with you always to the end of the age. I do not leave you as orphans. That we dwell in Christ and Christ dwells in us, which means that your feelings are wrong and they're lying to you. Now, if your feelings tell you that Christ is with you, praise the Lord. We have confidence your feelings are right. But if your feelings tell you something different, then praise the Lord, your feelings are wrong and you can even repent of feeling the wrong way.
This is really important because we have this temptation, because oddly enough, the more internal the things are of us, the less control we have over them. Like, I've got pretty good control over my body. Like not 100% but, I don't know, 90% or something.
I've got a little bit less control over my lips and what I say. I don't know what the control factor is. Maybe it's like 65%. I don't know, maybe, hopefully a little bit higher. But you know what James says, no one can control your lips. So you go from what you do to what you say to what you think, and you actually have even less control, seemingly over what you think than what you say. You can think a lot of things and not say them.
Praise the Lord for that. And, you know, sometimes you can focus your mind and sometimes you can't. Sometimes you can remember things, sometimes you can't. Well, when we go to that fourth realm of our own being, from what we do to what we say to what we think to what we feel, we have even less control there. Seemingly. Like, it seems like we have.
I don't know, how much control do you think you have over what you feel and what you want?
Like, it seems like we're almost completely passive when it comes to those things.
And so we. So then we say, well, because I'm so passive over this part of my life, then it can't be wrong. It's not my fault anyways. Like, I didn't decide to say it, I didn't decide to think it, I didn't decide to do it. I just felt it, I just wanted it or whatever. But when the Ten Commandments say, you shall not covet your neighbors, whatever house or wife or whatever, whatever, then it's saying that even your wants and your desires and your feelings ought to come under the dominion of God's commands.
So that top to bottom, outside to inside, my whole realm of life belongs to the Lord.
Now, when that comes to us as law, it's particularly helpful. I mean, and it does a lot of.
There's a lot to repent of. But that also comes to us as a rightly ordering of our lives, which is going to be very which is going to give us this very profound freedom from being slaves to our feelings.
So that if I don't feel forgiven, then I repent of my false feeling. I don't have to believe that feeling.
In fact, I can know that that feeling is lying to me.
Because the Lord Jesus says, I forgive you all your sins. That the Son of Man came to seek and save that which is lost.
Neither do I condemn you.
There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Whoever sins, you forgive, they're forgiven. In other words, I have something greater than my own feelings, so I can be set free from that, from that belly thing.
So how do we apply this to the question of spiritual coldness?
Is to say, okay, if my heart and my kind of inner life is not confessing the truth and the joy of the Gospel of Jesus, then I just know that my heart is not to be trusted and I have to go to the Word, which is always trustworthy for me.
So this is always the diagnosis for any of the problems is to go to the Word. And I'd say especially go to the Psalms, go to the red letters, go to Paul in Philippians and Galatians and Romans, and let the Spirit work through the Word, trusting that those words are true.
My. My quick diagnosis.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: I was trying to look up some of the passages where that, that phrase is used. And one of them is Jesus warning about love growing cold. And then Lutheran Study Bible had a couple notes where it uses that phrase.
And it seems like from just a few things I glanced at quickly, that one of the things that indicates that you might actually have grown cold versus, like, just feeling it right is based on the passages is a lack of love for the neighbor.
Like, as you begin to despise the neighbor, it's evidence. It's like it's an outward warning sign that something is not right. Like your faith. There's a problem with your faith because one of the fruits of faith is love to the neighbor. And if that's gone wrong, then it's kind of indication maybe I am actually growing cold because now I'm treating people. We see this. I mentioned this in my sermon on.
On Sunday with the Pharisee and the tax collector right at the temple.
Isaiah 58 was one of the passages I mentioned where you've got this list of things God says, look, you guys do all these things. You offer the sacrifices and you go to worship and you praise me, you do all this stuff, but then you leave here and you despise your neighbor and you abuse the poor and you do all these wicked things towards others.
And he says, right, that's evidence. You don't actually, you don't actually have this faith that you came and professed. So that seems like it's at least one of the warning signs is when your love grows cold for the neighbor. It's probably evidence too that your actual faith is. There's a problem with faith and love for God and it's extending. Now you're seeing it visibly, right, versus what you were talking about, which is just you feel incorrectly about how it is, which has to be corrected. But there can be evidence, I think in your life that you actually are in danger of that thing because apostasy is a real thing. Right? These are real things people fall into and drift away and, and so love growing cold for the neighbor seems like one of the warning signs you have to take seriously.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Luther will talk about, in his letter to Peter the barber, he talks about kind of warming up the heart for prayer.
And so there is a whole process of meditating on the Lord's Word that helps us to kind of again warm up the heart for believing in God and also for serving the neighbor, as you mentioned. I mean, these are the two things that we live our lives in faith toward God and in fervent love toward one another.
So that we're.
So that as we put our attention on the Lord's Word, this is the Holy Spirit coming to bless us. And either way, if we feel cold or if we are cold in some ways, the solution is the same. To hear the promises of God and to serve our neighbor with the strength that the Lord has given to us. I think the other thing that's really important is to, is to be thankful.
I think there's a cold heartedness that grows out of thanklessness. I mean, I think thanklessness is the root of so many problems. And one of the reasons why this is so helpful is because while I like, if I can look at my heart and I'm like, man, my heart lacks joy, I can't joy.
Like I can't force myself into a state of rejoicing, but I can give thanks.
That's like the thing that's accessible to me. Even if I don't feel like giving thanks. I can give thanks and I could sit down and I could just even make a list of those things which I'm thankful for.
And so I think that that is in some ways the trigger point of fighting back against this.
Well, against the devil who's trying to tempt us to unbelief or despair to coldness of heart, etc.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Isn't that what Paul says in Romans 1, right. That he lists all these things he says because they did not acknowledge God or give him thanks.
Right. It's one of the key signs of unbelief is you won't give God thanks for his gifts.
That lack of gratitude because I mean the whole Christian life is really about receiving from God what he gives.
Right. Luther says the highest form of worship is faith, because why it receives God's gifts, believes him, trusts him, receives the promises. And so if we don't receive the things in thanksgiving, that's a clear sign that we're in, we're in trouble.
I have a way easier question for you now.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: You set me up with that every time I got a super six year old question. I got a real kindergarten theology question for you.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: It's not even technically a theology question. Okay.
It is, what would you name a parish? So if you were put in the position of naming a Lutheran parish, I've got some great. What would you call it?
This is a great question because there's endless Trinity, St. Paul's Luke, John, etc. Or like my, my predecessor here, Pastor Walter, he, he would tell me when we're driving around, he's like, I can tell what year this church was built by its name. Right? So like if it's Zion or what, like whatever.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: If it had distractions like faith, hope, love, that's the, you know, 50s and 80s or whatever. Yeah.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: So they, they have these half joking, but they want to, they want, want to see our thoughts on these two names. Something like Church of the Apology of the augsburg Confession, Article 4 or Redeemer of properly divided law and Gospel.
So what, what are some names you would justify if you had to pray alone?
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Lutheran Church.
I've always wanted to call from, from Paul's address to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, where he says, you are a holy lump.
I thought that would be the best of all church names. Holy Lump, Lutheran Church.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: Holy Lump.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: You guys part of the holy lump?
Well, yeah.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Are there names other church bodies use that you, you think Lutherans?
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Mary, Those are, those are two. I mean there's a few Lutheran churches with those names, but we, we're always not very many pulling from the biblical saints, which is cool.
You know, all the churches in Colorado were of the hills, so it was shepherd of the hills and Christ of the hills and Redeemer in the mountains and all that sort of stuff.
So the geography Thing. I think that, you know who has the worst church namings is like the Baptist. Because they're just like, well, First Baptist, Second Baptist, 27th Baptist, or whatever. Like that lacks creativity, like the feel.
Well, this doesn't matter. But I was thinking about how that same sort of thing happens in the feels like temperature. Because it's like today it's 103, but it feels like 217 or whatever. I was like, what a boring synonym. You know, it's like. Feels like you just pick another number. Anyway, it's not very creative. I don't know what 230 feels like unless it's like this. So that doesn't actually help me. So we should be.
I don't know. It is funny that we actually name churches, though.
You know, I wonder when that conviction came from.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that wasn't.
Well, I mean, once.
Once you start having a split. Right. Like before, everyone's just going to church.
Right. Which is your point. Right. I'm just. I'm going to church.
And then once we have others, I looked up some more unusual Lutheran Church names.
Berea Lutheran Church, Emmaus.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: A bunch of Emmauses. Emmanuel is tricky because you don't know
[00:25:30] Speaker B: if it's an I. Shiloh.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Shiloh.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Patmos. Patmos is in church. That's a fun one.
I kind of. I kind of like that one.
It'd be better if you were on an island, though, with that one church.
Do we have any. Do we have very many names? Incarnation, I bet not.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Redemption.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Interesting one.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Redemption.
Redeemer. That's how we say. We don't say Redemption Lutheran Church.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: We say Redeemer. We usually. Yeah, we usually say Redempt.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: What about Resurrection Lutheran Churches? There's quite a few of those around.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: There's good ones.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: This is the. The. My deaf church is Jesus. Deaf Lutheran Church. That's kind of. It's just basically Jesus.
Jesus Church.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Jesus's Church.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Pretty cool.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: I wonder.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: I thought about Justification Alpha and Omega
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Church, which would be kind of cool, but we are the Church of the Augsburg Confession. So that original name that was suggested, I mean, that's.
That's probably.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Right. It's close.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: The. That's probably who we are. The Church of the Augsburg Confession or this language that I've heard recently, which I really appreciate. It was a bunch at the convention and President Harrison was talking about it and. But I don't know where. I don't think he made it up. I think he picked it up from someone, but picked it up hard. And that is. That We're Book of Concord Lutherans.
And that is a, that's not a phrase that. I mean we've, we talk about the Book of Concord all the time. But the idea that name Book of Concord Lutheran is really, is really helpful.
So I thought that was kind of cool.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: One, one suggestion I see here is St. Boniface, which fits very well with our Germanic roots. Although like here in town, the St. Boniface is a Roman Catholic church. Of course. So what do you think? I'm going to add to their question something that they didn't bring up at all. But.
So I know there's, there's a lot of debate in our circles about whether if you keep the name Lutheran in it or not.
If you're planting a church somewhere where Lutheranism is just unknown. No one knows what even the name Lutheran means or has any idea. Or maybe they just think that it's like a cult.
I've been in places where like that's, you know, people don't know what it is, don't understand it.
Would you ever de. Emphasize the, the Lutheran?
You know, this is such a.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Interesting question. I, No, I love it because at this I can, I can a hundred percent understand both impulses. The impulse to take out the name Lutheran for the sake of avoiding confusion for people. Because I mean, number one, people hear Lutheran and they think elca, you know, where you're, you know, basically required to be a communist before you or whatever. I mean they, you're not required, but you know, they don't believe anything and all sorts of nonsense. And so they see Lutheran and that's the first impression. Oh, you're a progressive. So we can avoid that by not using the name. I wish they would stop using the name. That would be more convenient because they're not E or L or C or A really for that matter. I mean, they just blah.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Yeah, they are in America.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: They hate it.
So the.
So, so there's that impulse. There's also that you like to avoid miscontrol.
You know, for evangelicalism, we, we follow Christ, not a man. And so that they're offended by that, that name Luther. And it needs to be taught. And so to give a chance to teach it. I'm so, I'm, I'm. I, I 100% understand the impulse.
On the other hand, I 100% understand the criticism that if you have that name Lutheran and you take it off that that is an indication of some sort of shame. At least it presents itself that way.
And I think the big distinction, the kind of Two ways to frame out what's going on in the, in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod are the people who are leaning into our Lutheran teaching and the people who are leaning away from it.
And to take out the name Luther is like the quickest way to indicate that you're leaning away from that.
So keep the name and teach. This is the 100%, I think, way forward.
So the answer is, I don't know.
Again, you don't have to have Lutheran in the name. That's not, that's not some sort of biblical or even confessional requirement.
Is it possible to not have the name Lutheran, but to be pushing our Lutheran doctrine and distinctives out there as fiercely as possible?
I just don't see that. I think I can imagine that being possible. Like, you have a very Lutheran church that doesn't have Lutheran in the name. I think it's possible, but I just, I'm not sure it actually exists.
So it always seems like taking out the name is an indication of the opposite of kind of trying to blur those distinctions.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: All right, this next one is actually a little bit related to what you were just talking about.
I think, at least it's a very long one. I'm going to summarize it because it's a long question.
Essentially, how should Lutherans approach those who are uncomfortable with some of our traditions?
Right. And so specifically, someone comes to your church and the vestments, maybe the liturgy things, remind them of painful experiences they had with the church of their past, perhaps, or they just have, for whatever reason.
It just, it makes them uncomfortable.
It feels, I don't know, maybe too much like church. I don't know. They gave some examples. I'm trying to summarize those examples.
So it made them wonder, are some people resistant to traditional worship because of hostility, Christianity itself, or is it unfamiliarity? Maybe these painful associations they mentioned with a family member that had come to church and that seemed to be part of it for them.
But they say they've had the opposite experience. Right, with the immense wisdom, beauty and comforts, and the liturgy and the hymns. So their question is. This is the question.
What is the church's responsibility towards people who are genuinely unmoved or even alienated by traditional liturgical forms?
How should confessional Lutherans think about those who find contemporary churches approachable and life giving, while finding the historic liturgy difficult to enter into?
So they're not asking, they clarify, they're not really asking whether contemporary worship is preferable to traditional worship. They're just wondering how pastorally you deal with this Issue, especially as regards perhaps things like evangelism.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Great question.
This was a theme of actually a couple of pastoral conversations just yesterday. So we're kind of working through this.
It's the, I think the, like the, the knee jerk reaction with, for a lot of people is to amplify this disdain for historic practice and then to be able to offer alternative forms of worship as the solution that I think is putting the cart before the horse, because there's something else going on.
And I think my suggestion would be to, if a person is.
So let's just assume that what we're working with is a Christian. Like, best case scenario, if we have a Christian who is suffering from some traumatic abuse from churches with liturgical expression. Okay, like, I think that would be like the toughest case.
So someone who wants to receive the gifts of God, who wants to hear the Word preached, who wants to be a faithful Christian and rejoice in the wisdom and comfort of the Lord, who wants to receive the sacraments according to the Lord's institution, but who is, who is genuinely troubled by the ancient forms of worship.
I think that the way that I would want to address that pastorally is by putting a focus on those persons Christian relationship.
In other words, I say, well, look, let's go and have lunch together with the pastor and his, and his wife.
Like, let's, let's get to know the people that are sitting next to you in a, in a, in a real way that's more than just a hello, but, but you actually have a connection to the people's lives.
Because when there are, when there are genuine friendships, and when you recognize that the people involved in, in these more formal settings are in fact real people, then it takes away this feeling of alienation that can be brought up by the formality of the liturgy.
So when you've gone out to lunch with the pastor and his wife, or when you've gone over to their house, or when they've come to visit your house and you've heard them, you know, tell jokes and talk about the difficulty of having a family and, and so you're able to see the preacher and the one up there conducting the liturgy as a, as like a real human being who recognizes you when he sees you and who you recognize when you see him. I think that had. That makes huge strides in, in tearing away the sense that the liturgy is alienating.
I mean, that's what the people who tear down the liturgy and try to replace it with the praise service are doing. They're trying to introduce informality in place of formality, familiarity in place of infamiliarity.
And the problem is that we don't want to destroy. What we don't want to destroy is the sense of holiness and reverence.
But to have a familiarity with the word of God and with the person preaching the word of God is actually helpful in engaging in the service in this way.
So that would be my first kind of pastoral line of attack is can we build up those relationships in such a way that to be in the liturgy is both familiar and.
And also maybe safe, you know what I mean? So that there's a. There's can be a comfort that's there. At least that's my. As I hear the question, that's my. The kind of first pastoral tact at addressing it.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: And I think we have to realize, too, that I don't know what you do with people who just won't give you a chance because of that, right? Like, there's people that.
I'm just not gonna go there, and I don't know. I don't know if there's any way to.
To reach those people if they're not gonna give you a chance. I have had, I don't know, some success. I don't know what you want to call it. I'm really honest with people in adult instruction class, you know, new members classes. I basically just say, look, if you're unfamiliar with this style of worship or if you're coming, you know, even from a non Christian background, I understand that this can be hard, it can be difficult. It's gonna take time for you to learn these things, but it's worth the effort, right? Like, and then once you get into it, I think you will grow to love it.
But I understand if you. You don't love it right now, and that's okay.
And I think sometimes we just have to be honest with people. Like, you may.
You may come into this, and you may not really love this. This style of worship or whatever you want to call may seem very foreign to you in a variety of ways, but that's okay.
Like, lots of things are hard and foreign at first, and then you, You. You get used to it, right?
Maybe there's language used you don't understand yet, but you will. Maybe the flow of the service you don't get yet, but you will the more you do it. Just like anything, right? No one's ever started anything brand new and ever just, like, gotten it right away, except for very talented, gifted people who are just good at everything. But for most, the Rest of us, like, when we do something new, it's awkward at first, and we have to grow into it, and that's okay, right? And, you know, all kinds of analogies have been used over the years. Whether it's dancing, it's a pretty good one, right?
Or even, you know, comparing it to, like, fast food versus going home and making yourself a steak. Like, one's much more quick and convenient, but the other one's going to be objectively better, right? Both tasting and for you. If you do it, do it yourself. So there's lots of things that you could. Ways you could approach it, but I think just being honest, hey, this. This may be hard for you. You may not like this.
That's okay. Because I usually tell people, look, I promise you, if you stick with this, you will grow to love this, and you will realize that this is good for you.
But it may take some time. And for some of you, you know, some people, it takes like a year or two.
But a year or two, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that long, right? It's like, we just want everything to happen right now.
But then after that, you'll talk to people and like, they couldn't imagine having anything else, right? Because now they see the beauty of it. Now they've. Now it's been internalized. Now they see the flow of it week in and week out, and they get it.
And I think we just have to be upfront with people about that. And not. Because I think sometimes the way we present it is, oh, it's just so great and lovely and beautiful that everyone's just gonna love it if they come, or that you're just, well, how can you not love this? Everybody loves this, right? We all love this. How come you don't love it? Just be honest that. No, not everyone does at first. And it's. It's a timing issue, and it's okay. But I genuinely think most people, if they give it a shot and grow with it, that they will. They will genuinely love it. Not.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: I do think just on a practical level, there's a good thing to emphasize the pastor's Bible class as an optional entry point, because the pastor's Bible class is probably more like the evangelical service. It's a more casual. People are drinking coffee, you're talking about the Bible. There's some back and forth. It's just a more casual and comfortable spot. And so some people say, just come to Bible class for a few weeks. Don't even worry about coming to the liturgy. Come to Bible class and work your way into it. But there's something else here, Pastor Packer, and this is. It's related to this. It might be slightly off topic, but there is a way that.
We need to transition from being confirmands, new Christians, new Lutherans, to being bored Lutherans. In other words, there's a. Like, at first, when I'm becoming Lutheran, all this stuff is so exciting, and all this stuff is so new, and so many things are changing. My convictions, my understanding of the world, my understanding of God, my reading, it's all. So it's the thing that's changing in my life.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: But.
[00:41:04] Speaker A: And I'm going through catechism class, I'm getting confirmed. It's all great.
But then I settle in and I'm like, oh, I've heard that before. I've heard that song before. I've heard that liturgy. And it becomes normal.
And that's on purpose. It's supposed to be. So at first, the thing that's changing is your theological convictions, but those then enter into an unchanging state in order to help you manage all of the other chaos that's in your life.
So in a way, it's supposed. The liturgy is supposed to turn into.
For you and for me, the liturgy is supposed to turn into that kind of point of stability which helps me to sanctify and be a faithful steward of all the chaos that's everywhere else in the world.
But that transition is pretty tough because it's all new and exciting. But then at some point, it's like, okay, okay, it becomes normal.
But it's normal on purpose so that it can help you manage all the other crazy stuff. It's kind of like dating and getting engaged and getting married. Everything's changing. And then you're married, and you've been married for a few years, and it's. It doesn't get boring, but it gets get. It gets normal. Like, that's what's normal for you. But it's supposed to be normal so that you and your bride can look at each other and say, I'm glad we're in this together, going, managing all the other craziness.
And so the liturgy becomes like that. Like, this is my normal now.
And it's normal for me. And it's not just normal for me, but for the next generation and the next generation. This is especially important as all these people are becoming Lutheran now, which is great, praise the Lord, but that they're changing not just their own lives, but the lives of their children and their grandchildren. Now there's all these pioneers that have crafted all these new Lutheran for generations.
And that stability of the, of the church, especially as it shows up in liturgical worship, is providing a, I don't know, a kind of a steady hand for managing the difficulties of life that are on the way.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: All right, we're at our last question, but it's building off this one, but I want to make it a separate one. It's not actually one sent in mean some like it have been sent in, but it's some things you said I think be worth exploring.
So Pastor Stecker on, on the Line on a variety of topics he's covered, has mentioned that we need as Lutherans to figure out more on ramps, easier entry level things for people to come to to get connected to our churches because of some of those barriers that you just talked about. So you mentioned Bible study as being like perhaps for some people an easier in. Right. Or maybe if you have like a men's Bible study and a women's Bible studies at your church, like those kind of things bring people in maybe at a it's a less stressful entry point than maybe just coming to the service for the first time. What do you think are some other things besides those kind of Bible studies? What are some other things you think we can do as churches to have more of these, what he refers to as onramps, but they think it's a really helpful term.
So I'm going to stick with it here. But what kind of things do you see us doing that can be that thing that helps get people connected to the church, but may not be a Bible study or even a church service itself, but maybe just be something that gets them connected to people in the church, which then Lord willing, can lead to them actually attending those great questions.
[00:44:37] Speaker A: So here's so maybe a couple of kind of loose observations which are not going to answer your question, but I think are going to give a context for thinking about it. So the first is one of the interesting things that we've seen happen now like in the last 20 years is that our Lutheran theology has become an on ramp.
And this is we need to change our mind to recognize that this is happening. When I realized that it was down in Puerto Rico and the missionaries there were talking about how they're used to like their outreach setups were mostly focused around mercy. So the on ramp and the front door of the church was the mercy work, the food bank and the after school programs and these other ways that they were doing kind of charitable work to connect to the community, to bring people into the church.
But something started to happen, and that is that people started showing up to church because they were listening to Pastor Packer and Pastor Flammy's podcast, and they're like, oh, we learned law and gospel from pastor.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: That's what happened.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Or we saw Jordan Cooper on YouTube or Chris Roseborough kind of helped us see the dangers of the church or some of the online stuff that's going on.
And.
And they started studying our Lutheran theology before they ever met a Lutheran or showed up to a Lutheran church.
So the capacity of the Internet to be a teaching tool and to spread the Lutheran doctrine is actually transforming the way that we probably need to think about evangelism, because we have, all of a sudden, a new front door.
I remember the first time this happened to me with the Williams. It was so great. They came to visit Hope in Aurora, and I followed up with a call, and I said, can I come by for a visit? I went by the house, and they have there at the house, the small catechism, the Book of Concord, the Lutheran hymnal, Gene Vieth's Spirituality of the Cross. They've got a whole Lutheran library. They've read the whole thing. They're, like, more catechized than anybody that I had catechized. And this was the first time they'd ever made contact with a real live Lutheran. Like, it's amazing. And that's happening now more and more and more. So we have a theological front door, which is really helpful. I mean, it's super helpful, because for the people that are out there asking these tough questions, like, where did everything come from? And why did everything go wrong? And what's the solution? And where are we headed? And does the Bible have something helpful to say to these real important questions of life? Like, what's my purpose? What's my meaning?
What am I to God and what am I to my neighbor? And all these questions.
So that. That is a kind of important recognition for the church. And what it means is that the church itself needs to be a theological place.
That doesn't mean it needs to be a loveless place or a cold place or a distant place or an academic place.
It needs to be a theological place. That's what. That's what people are looking for. So I think that's an important thing to note for on ramp. The other thing to set the context.
Oh, and the guys in Puerto Rico noted, interestingly, that when people show up for the theology, it's easier.
Like, we can do that. Like, if people show up and they need help, like with breakfast. We're not quite set up for that. But if they come, if they show up and they. They need help, like clarifying the doctrine of the two natures. Yeah, we're built for that. So that's good. So it's our nature to deliver those good gifts. The other thing that's super important, this is for pastors, for church members, especially for elders, for ushers, for deacons, is to recognize that everybody who shows up to church for the first time is at the point of some sort of trauma.
Like, I don't think we think about this enough, but, like, why would it happen?
Like, why would a person. Fred.
Why would Fred, his whole life not come to church and then this morning come to church?
Now, the least traumatic reason for that is that Fred is visiting Austin because he wants to go to the F1 race. And he's a huge fan of theology Q and A, and he wants to say hi and hear the gospel before he goes to church. There's no trauma there. It's great. But just about every other reason for Fred to all of a sudden show up at church is something. I mean, maybe it's just that he's moved to town. That's something. Maybe he's left home and come here for college. That's a huge thing. Maybe he's graduated from college and now he's ready for his first job. That's a huge thing.
Maybe he lives in town and he goes to another church. Maybe he's going to the Catholic church or the Methodist church. But something has got him wondering if he should visit the Lutheran church. That's a big deal.
And he probably thought about it for weeks. He probably even drove to church during the week to think about and sat in the parking lot and prayed and asked God for wisdom. Or maybe he used to go to a different Lutheran church, but something happened there with the pastor, the preaching, or with the person that he was sitting next to or something.
Maybe Fred has been living a totally pagan life, but he was listening to Jordan Peterson and now wonders if he ought to give the Bible a chance. But this is a huge change for him. Or maybe his friends got him drunk and he had a trip and he did some drugs and he. And he got to talk to the devil, and now he realizes that spiritual things are real, but he doesn't want that side or whatever. I mean, in other words, whatever prompted him to show up is a pretty serious thing.
And if we as Christian people can have an awareness of that when we're greeting visitors and when we're welcoming people, that is going to go an incredibly long way.
It's not just the strangeness of the liturgy and the service. Everything is weird here.
I mean, everything is different, everything is new. And I'm pretty sure I don't want to be here, but I'm being pushed here, and I don't quite understand it. And so for the congregation to recognize this and for when someone shows up and say, all right, you're with us now.
You're in. Here's your spot. Let's do this thing. To have this hospitality that just is going to grab ahold of people.
I think this is the real engine that drives the welcoming people into church. Much more than, like, trying to shape the liturgy to meet felt needs or whatever, to have that human awareness and spiritual insight that something's going on, and I might never know what it is, but something's going on, and I want to recognize that and honor that person for being here and sit with them and grab ahold of them and bring them in. That is, I think, the context in which we need to answer this question.
[00:52:10] Speaker B: What do you think about the idea of building off of that?
But a very different application would be.
A lot of people talk about the. The church providing, like, a third space, right? So people have home, they have work, slash school. And then people used to hang out outside of those places much more. Right. They used to hang out at bars or coffee shops or whatever. And it seems like that happens a lot less now. So people have talked about opening up your church for events, whether it's like, you know, a class on finance or just a place for people to hang out and just whether play games or talk or whatever, just like providing a space where people can gather to do just like things people would have done before in other places, but don't often do that anymore, whether it's on site or off site. Right. Maybe you schedule something off site to try to gather people. What do you think about the idea of using having, like, third spaces for people to. To kind of get connected to people in your church, especially people that aren't necessarily watching, you know, Cooper or Wolfmuller or whoever. Like, they're not. They're not into any. They're not online listening to theology, but they are having trauma in life or whatever, and they're just trying to find people and a community. Like, how do you. I think it's. What do you think about those ideas?
[00:53:27] Speaker A: I. I think that I personally am more interested in the inverse, and that is to Take the theology into the other third spaces that are there.
So like, hey, and just imagine like what does it look like if we do the theology on tap at the brew pub up the street? Or what does it look like if we do like an ask anything in the, in the library or, or I'm trying to get this thing set up where I can do like a Don't become Catholic lunch down at the University of Austin once a month to like that'll be really good. I think that should be the name of it.
Don't become Roman cause the ca. Anyway, so to go, so to go down to that and to do something in that space. So to find those common spaces and to bring the theological conversation into them. That's in some ways that's what we're doing here on the theology Q and A is bringing the theology conversation into YouTube. So where's that other space and how can we bring the theology there?
But I think it's great, I mean to open up the space of the church for the non theological things as much as we can with the constraints that are there and with a good conscience is good and all those connections the Lord will use. I mean he, he's. He's always working through all of these things to, to draw us to himself.
So, so that's, so that's great. I think we also need to be, I think we need to be producing resources that can be shared.
I think we need to be better at that because a lot of times I, you know, I have something that I want to say to someone but I don't have time to explain it or I don't have the relationship to explain it or, or it's a hard thing. And so I don't want to put my relationship at risk by explaining it. But if I can give someone a resource that's helpful in that time, then that's going to be really good. So I think we need to be probably thinking more about that. Like what can we give that will be a seed that's planted for people to wrestle with the Scriptures and the grace of God.
You're muted for some reason.
[00:55:48] Speaker B: I'm done. That's all.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: 5. What does stacker think we should do?
[00:55:52] Speaker B: That's fine.
[00:55:52] Speaker A: I can't listen to that podcast. It's too long.
Keep it snappy, Brian.
[00:55:58] Speaker B: They've come on.
They haven't gotten to a lot of deal. They've just, they've mentioned it in passing. I mean there hasn't been a lot of like specifics just mentioned the need for for more kinds of things that. That again, like you've talked about before, like lower entry point, like whether it's a Bible study or whatever, there's getting people in connected with people that may not want to come to church. I think sometimes we forget how scary it is for people to go to church for the first time, especially if they're not in the habit of going to church. Those of us who have been there most of our lives or our whole lives or whatever, we just. I think we have a hard time understanding the level of fear they have. Even for somebody who maybe is one of your members who's drifted off and hasn't come back in a long time, the fear they have about like just stepping through the building for the first time and how long they've thought about it. Like you mentioned someone thinking about it quite a bit.
Those people, people go every week. I just don't think comprehend that or even I've talked to people that said, I didn't know I was allowed to just come to your church.
Right. They thought they had some kind of special invitation or something because they're just not familiar with how it works. I think we don't understand these things.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: If we knew the number of people who drove to church and sat in the parking lot and didn't come in, or who drove by the church for three weeks in a row, you know that that's happening.
We have a men's fire pit. That's kind of the space that we're. And that's a great little. We do it once a month on Sunday night. And the guys get together and they just talk about whatever. Then they have compline at the end. It's very.
It's like the beginning of Genesis. It's without form and void. It's just. I mean, there's. They're just, you know, social at time and it's all ends up being theological and hardly ever as a pastor there. And it's a great.
That's so easy for the guys to invite their friends from work. Hey, we got this men's group. And yeah, stuff like that is really. Is really good.
And then to get into those theology questions, it's great. So may God grant us wisdom as we sort out what that looks like in our different places.
[00:57:58] Speaker B: Hey, Patrick Bakker, thank you.
[00:57:59] Speaker A: Thanks for the questions. Thanks for everyone who sent in questions for the questions, please send some more. I'm looking here. 490. We're down to 492 in the inbox here.
47 on deck. We should get to those by Christmas time. That looks pretty good. But keep them coming. It's really great to even just get that theological curiosity, a churning in your own mind. Keep in touch. We'll see you soon. God's peace be with you.
