They (I) Never Saw It Coming!!

According to St. Peter Lutheran Church's attendance record, I've become a Christmas-Easter attendee. That's not really true in the broader spectrum, I've gone to church elsewhere. I kind of broke my ties with the Lutheran church once I started college. At this point I started a new job and the load of college swamped me to the point that I stopped attending church for a few months. I found a wonderful church - Restoration Church - a few months ago that has taken the place of my church attendance at St. Pete's. I had a number of reasons that I didn't like the Lutheran worship service, which made finding a new church so much better, i.e. no more yawner hymnal songs, repeating the same 10 creeds every Sunday, having someone tell the congregation that only "confirmed members" are allowed to receive forgiveness through Holy Communion sacrament, and the list goes on.

Sunday morning was Easter Sunday. My family was going to church at St. Pete's so I figured I'd tag along anyhow to be with them. Going into it I was confident that it was going to be another morning of "playing church": getting dressed up and doing the "routine" church things (10 creeds, hymn songs and a choir I can't seem to understand because they're more concerned with how loud their voices get than how clear I can hear their praises..) Anyways, I thought it was going to be just another Sunday recite-ship at the Lutheran church.

The sermon was titled "They Never Saw It Coming", referring to the people finding Jesus' tomb empty on Easter morn. To be quite frank, I never had once listened to a sermon in full at St. Pete's. One because I normally sat with my friends and had better things to discuss than listening to the good news of Christ, two because I never was that strong in my faith to realize the importance of the message and three because the pastor's never appealed to me as good story tellers. This Sunday I decided to change things up. I sat isolated with my family and payed close attention to the message.

God worked in me like none other. The meaning of the Easter message was clearly stated but that's beside the point here. The title of the message and the illustrations used in it made me realize that although I think the whole realm of the Lutheran church is plain and boring, if I actually pay close attention to the message maybe I'd get something out of it.

I still don't like the hymn sings or the idea of reciting the same creeds every Sunday. I like praising in music I enjoy more, like the type played at Restoration Church. However, I've realized it wasn't the church that made me fall away from it, it was my sinful nature. I had never had a faith as strong as mine is today while I was a regular attendee at St. Peter's. In fact, I was dead when I attended there.

I feel very strongly that God used Easter Sunday to invite me back into my Lutheran church home. I'm not sure how it's going to work out exactly. I'm going to give the "contemporary worship service" a try next weekend to see if the praise music gets me more involved in worshipping my Lord that so dearly deserves it.

I'm excited! "I Never Saw It Coming"