This is the first in a series meant to let the Christian tradition speak for itself, the way it has carried Christians through long winters, confusion, and joy for centuries.
The crisis is not merely that people are leaving. The crisis is that we have relinquished what is uniquely Lutheran and deeply needed.
The ethos of the church’s worship is found in poor, needy, and desperate sinners finding solace and relief in the God of their salvation.

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The goal of Christian living isn't to gather in and store up two, three, four barn-fulls of good works for ourselves.
When our sense of alienation from God is underscored and exaggerated by daily life we behave like tropical fish when their tank is cleaned.
Christians argue about who's in charge of who, who's going to run things, who is the authority and who are the leaders that tell us on behalf of Jesus what to do next.
Christianity isn’t about our faith. It’s about God’s faithfulness to His promises.
Jesus is faithful even when we are faithless. He is our Strength, and Song, and Salvation. He's all this for us because He is God, and God is love.
True faith, saving faith that receives the good news about the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is a faith created in us by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel.
Likewise, when God says, "Do this and you will live," we go about under the illusion that we have the ability to accomplish what God demands of us.
Even a sinner who is crushed by the weight of her offenses, who feels in her bones the weight of judgment, shame, and doubt can expect to receive God's good word.
The angriest people I meet are former Christians.
Put to death by God's Word of Law, we are then raised to new life by God's Word of Gospel.
Like her Lord, the Church has dirt under her nails, the smell of coffin wood on her clothes, and a hunger in her belly.
Apart from bare, naked faith in Jesus' atoning work for us, no sinner is, or ever can be, holy.