Do you have the structure believe for you?

I'll begin this article with a bit of a confession. My mind often wanders when I worship in church. I don’t know about you, but I often find myself thinking about what I am going to be doing after church or just working through my to-do lists for the week while methodically running through the motions of worship on Sunday morning. Sorry pastor, but I'm being truthful.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself slipping into a bit of wondering and question during church, but this time it was different. The topic that was on my mind was actually my faith.

Just days before, my wife had shared with me an interesting conversation in the Pressure Points section of The Reporter (July 2009). In it, an LCMS teacher was writing of how his faith had changed over the years.

The Rev. Bruce M. Hartung, PhD., dean of ministerial formation at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, responded to this teacher.

“We teach and preach the facts of the faith as well as minister to others with the reality of the faith. But somewhere along the line, our own hearts have erected barriers to the personal application of the Gospel to our own lives. We become practitioners rather than penitents, lecturers rather than experiencers, objectifiers rather than personalizers. I think that this is a natural process, but it is not a healthy one…Regardless of how dead you feel in relationship to Christ, He lives always in relationship to you...”

Hartung’s response to this teacher sparked a connection in my mind to a question by one of the key note speakers at a recent conference I attended. He asked seriously,

“Does the structure believe for you?”

All of this hit my mind like a freight train in the middle of worship and hasn’t stopped travelling through my thoughts. I probably couldn’t tell you what the sermon that Sunday was about, nor much else from that service. I confess I had become lost in the world of structures. Sorry pastor, but I'm being truthful.

As I pondered the questions running through my mind, I thought of my own faith structure. From day one, my structure has almost always been Lutheranism. As any faith structure, it has presented me with many challenges. I enjoy meeting those challenges and learning from them because they instill in me a sense of responsibility and connection to those “like me” in my tradition and heritage.

I learned, as many of us did, about my structure while attending a Lutheran day school, high school and university. Those experiences helped to strengthen my commitments and beliefs in that structure. Over the years, it has also offered me opportunities to strengthen my character, motivate me, contribute to my inner strength, and has at times become a source of pride. Overall my structure has been a great foundation for my faith to spiritually form.

As my mind wandered further during that service, I continued to contemplate Hartung’s response and the question from the conference. I began to think of how often I have felt the same way as the teacher. How that same structure not only has caused me to feel dead, but has also limited or blocked me from seeing my faith and world from new or fresh perspectives.

From early on, many of us have been put in a so-called “Lutheran bubble.” Often faith seems spoon-fed, questions seem out of place, and discussion or dialog is simply intimidating which keeping us at an “I know the answers” level.

On many occasions I hear struggles with faith simply brushed aside with statements such as, “That is just what we believe as Lutherans” or “That is what the Book of Concord or Luther’s Small Catechism says.” These all lead quickly to the ease of letting the structure believe for us.

I have heard people say, “I no longer need to grow in my faith, study, or even attend church.” Or “I am Lutheran, that in itself says what I believe.”

Does it? Or does it leave us empty, questioning and looking for some real structure like the teacher with a lack of passion in his faith life?

In the past couple of years, I have found many 20- and 30-something friends with “sharp pointed objects” in their hands who want to pop their “Lutheran Bubble.” In some cases they are looking for new structures to believe for them. But often they are looking for Someone to believe in rather than a structure.

We have become so quick to give answers or offer a structure that we may have missed the opportunity to introduce another person to Jesus. Don’t miss understand me wrong, we all need structure, but we need Jesus more. If the structure leads us away from Jesus or to simply take Him for granted, it might be time to return and renew our relationship with Jesus. Sorry, pastor, but I'm being truthful. This may take a couple more services to work through.

By Rev. Robert Henry first published in The FWLutheran August 2009