A Reformation (Transformation) Message
Things tend to need reforming along about the time that we are most satisfied.
We have been Lutherans for nearly 500 years. We know how things should work.
- Every church should shall have a pastor.
- Every congregation should maintain a building.
- Every congregation should support an organ.
- Every viable church should have 150 supporting members.
- Members should tithe.
- Parents should place the scriptures in the hands of their children and bring them into the fellowship of the people of God.
- Christians should live in harmony.
The list used to be a little longer.
- Every pastor should be male.
- Women should wear hats in worship.
- Children should be confirmed before they are welcomed to the Communion Table.
Today, the “shoulds” of church life are not the reality. They may never again be reality. Maybe they never were. And they always bear reexamination.
And so the Church presents a new “should.”
You should transform.
Just how we are to do this while worshiping the “shoulds” of the past is left to us to figure out without much guidance.
Perhaps the first step in church transformation is to reexamine the list of “shoulds.”
Place that list next to Scripture to see which are mandated and which are manufactured for the convenience of leaders now or long, long ago.
That’s what Martin Luther did. We “should” emulate that!