One Big Family

I simply want to celebrate publicly the wonderful event in the life of our church family yesterday morning. We had our "One in Christ" worship service, cramming all of our weekly attendance into one worship time in two electronically connected rooms. It was a technological feat for us to pull off this rapidly changing two-way simulcast, but the technology only served the deeper challenge of helping our whole church worship and connect together as one big worshiping family.

Strong Fences

I can only think of a few childhood moments that struck me as so revelatory as the time that my increasingly reclusive grandmother admonished , "Strong fences make good neighbors." My grandmother had many wonderful qualities, but a healthy balance of extroversion was not one of them.

I'm afraid that side of my grandmother would be enjoying our culture more and more with every passing year.

We have so many fences between us. Here in Minnesota we are fast approaching that time of year when physical neighbors never see one another outside of their automatic garage doors. We know each other only by our tail lights. We have lots of relational fences, inhibitions that keep us from sharing our lives with each other in any meaningful way. Just a few nights ago I was running along one of my regular routes and tried to offer a simple "Good run" to another runner passing me in the opposite direction. But even that small effort fell victim to an iPod fence.

As our vision discernment conversations at First Lutheran have attempted to assess the needs of our external community, the need for friendships, connection, and a sense of community has frequently been identified as pressing. (I can't help but wonder, of course, if those of us in the church are really much better off in this regard. We've got a long way to go.) The more I look around, the more I agree and the more I realize how much fencing we will need to break down. This is not going to be easy. For some reason, we really resist getting closely connected with other people. Even though it brings deep joy to life, we seem to avoid it.

Would any of my readers like to chime in with their comments on the barriers that keep us from establishing genuine community with other people?

Disciple making

I blogged about this same topic on Saturday, but I got fired up about it again yesterday. What if we could design a simple, clear process for helping people to grow as disciples? Wouldn't that be great? (And, yes, I have read Simple Church, in case anyone is asking...)

The thing that got me thinking about this was Sunday's annual presentation of Bibles to third graders. This year we happened to have several (infant) baptisms scheduled right before the third graders got their Bibles. This created a very interesting sequence. First I stood up front with the parents and sponsors of the baptized children, asking them about their commitment to nurture the faith of this child that we were baptizing into the Christian community. Our baptismal service gives me the opportunity to charge them specifically to bring their children to corporate worship; to teach them the Lord's Prayer, the historic creeds of the church, and the 10 commandments; and to "place in their hands" the holy Scriptures. We as a congregation also promise to work with them and support them in this commitment to their children.

Then, right after the Baptism, the 3rd graders and their parents stood up to receive Bibles that our congregation purchased for them. My colleague, Pastor Angie, explained to the parents and children what these Bibles are and how to use them. And in this juxtaposition of events, even a dunce like me could see that we were doing something right. We parents and congregation members were honoring one of the promises we had made at the baptisms of these children 7-8 years ago. -- And we are working diligently to ensure that we consistently honor the rest of them too.

All this made me think about how great it would be to act just as intentionally for our whole community, and not just for our children and students. Being a Christian in a non-Christian world is no small thing. If we expect to grow together as disciples of Jesus, we really ought to invest some careful, strategic thought in a process that facilitates exactly that result. And then we ought to invest some disciplined, strategic effort in that process.

Make Disciples. Novel idea.

Themes Rising - Part 3 (Others)

The third theme that seems to me to have been rising in our study, conversation, and reflection is the need for First Lutheran to be a church for others. Perhaps I should find a way to say this more precisely or articulately, but let me just be plain for now.

Of the three themes that I've blogged about in this strand (including also church of substance and church of generations), this is the one that I think represents both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for us. At one level, of course, you have to ask, "Who doesn't want to be a church for others?" It sounds so obvious. But is it something that we're really ready to do?

First Lutheran has known decades of "success" and growth by being an excellent church to come to. We've had years and years of solid preaching, top-notch music, innovative children's and student ministries, and a whole plethora of other attractive programs and opportunities. Anyone looking for a good Lutheran church in the White Bear Lake area would have to think seriously about attending FLC. And, in some sense, much of this was done "for others." It was done to attract others to "our church," though one could be forgiven for wondering how often the "others" have been very other.

In 2008 much is still the same but much has also changed. Among the biggest changes is that the number of people who could be described as "anyone looking for a good Lutheran church" has gone drastically down. It is no longer enough to be a very "attractive" church when fewer and fewer people are interested in church at all - not if you want to reach non-Christians with the good news about Jesus.

Somehow we will have to grow from being a place people come to into a gathering of Christians that goes to the people. We'll need not only to speak Jesus-words in our pulpit and on our campus, but we'll need to live Jesus-lives in our communities and on our streets. In the 21st century, Christians have an awful lot of credibility to re-earn and we won't be able to do it talking to ourselves. (See also the comments, btw, on my church of substance post from a few days ago. Thanks to my readers for pushing on today's topic, and particularly on the importance of seeing this happen not just in church programming but as also as the spontaneous outworking of the lives of the Christians who call First Lutheran home.)

We have a lot to learn and probably a lot of experimenting to do as we figure out how to do this best, but I suspect that this issue is much more a matter of "how" than "if."

Themes Rising - Part 2 (Generations)

Thanks to those of you who engaged in conversation around the theme of being a "church of substance." We went off in some directions I hadn't expected on that topic in particular, but I'm really grateful for what you had to say.

The second theme that seems to me to have been rising to the surface in many of our congregations has to do with being a "church of generations." Especially in our listening groups, I heard lots of people expressing value and appreciation for the diversity of generations active in the life of First Lutheran. In recent years we've referred to this as our desire to be a "cradle to grave" Christian community.

On one hand, this almost seems like a no brainer. There's so much to be gained from the gifts of each generation, and it's a very natural fit to our past and present. On the other hand, this is also a real challenge. I'm sure at least some of my readers will know that quite a bit of current church leadership "wisdom" suggests that churches should pick a specific demographic target audience and try to reach that audience. I can think of churches I know that aim specifically for 30-somethings or younger families or boomers.

Biblically speaking, I think there's every reason in the world for us to strive to develop as a fully multi-generational community, and there are opportunities galore for growth, service and maturity that come with this kind of approach. But we should also probably acknowledge that following this road would (will?) present strategic challenges in areas such as program planning and resource deployment. Perhaps both the greatest challenge and the greatest virtue of growing as this kind of community is that all of us will have to learn to value the needs of others more highly than our own. And now that I say it that way, it sounds like a place I really want to be a part of.

Themes Rising - Part 1 (Substance)

First Lutheran is continuing to move toward greater clarity (and eventually implementation) of its calling. Our Vision Leadership Team met over the weekend to summarize our progress so far and to chart a course toward completing this discernment process. As we talked, I summarized three themes that seem to me to be rising to the top in our reading, talking, thinking, and praying. We are still intentionally refraining from any final evaluations or articulations yet, but just testing out some ideas on each other. Those of you who are following along here can test out these ideas in your comments if you'd like. In our group I suggested that we are discerning ourselves to be a church of substance, a church of generations, and a church for others.

By "church of substance," I mean many of the things that I said in our September 14 worship services. We have a long history of and a strong present commitment to spiritual depth and substance, including Biblical preaching, small group involvement, and a commitment to prayer. I don't think that many of us would want to see any of this change, except perhaps to see it grow stronger.

But "church of substance" also means something else to me. I'm also thinking about articulating and practicing this dimension of our church life in a way that is engaging to outsiders so that we offer them a substantial opportunity to engage with Jesus and his gospel. I want to see us make space and opportunity for people to ask their questions, no matter how challenging those questions might be, and trust that we can walk faithfully with them into real answers that are never glib and may rarely be quick or easy. It seems to me that First Lutheran may be uniquely equipped to share the hope of the gospel with people who have substantial reservations about the faith, and if that is true, then it is a calling from which we dare not shrink.

It would probably also be well to talk about substantial love and service to our community, but I'll save that for part 3.

Good News

That's been the theme at First Lutheran this last week. Good news. The NT book of Galatians is shaping our community life at FLC right now. It is being taught and studied in our Bible study groups and it is providing the themes for our worship and messages on Sunday morning. I don't think a day goes by right now that I'm not reading or studying this book somehow. That, in itself, is good news of a kind. It's good to be shaped deeply and consistently by the words of Scripture, and this book in particular has a history of potency in fueling the church's commitment to the Gospel and to life that is consistent with the Gospel.

One topic I'd like to think more about, however, is the relationship between "the gospel" as that term is used, for example, in Matthew, Mark, or Luke and "the gospel" as that term is used by Paul in Galatians or other letters. The audiences who heard Jesus proclaim the good news and who read Matthew's account of it had a lot of context in which to understand "the good news of the Kingdom of God." That wouldn't have meant much, at least at first, to a bunch of Greeks at Thessalonica or to the various audiences in Galatia.

We want First Lutheran to be and to speak good news to our community. I think it would be helpful to think about the ways that Paul translated this message to Mediterranean towns to which he traveled. It might help us think about faithful and applicable articulations of the gospel in 21st century, Midwestern, suburban North America.

Consequences of Clarity

"If nobody's left your church recently, then your vision is probably too broad."

I read that quotation a few years ago in a book called Simply Strategic Stuff by Tim Stevens and Tony Morgan. I wasn't really comfortable with it at the time, and I probably do still have some questions about it.

But just this last week I had a conversation with a friend from our church (not officially a member, but active) who shall remain anonymous in this post, who's probably going to go look for a different church. We've been talking a lot about reaching the non-Christians in our community recently (as I preached about last weekend), and this person was worried that we would stop "feeding the believers" if we did too much of that.

I'm sympathetic to this person's concern, and I'm glad they raised it with me. First Lutheran has a history of real Biblical substance, and I certainly want that to be our future too. So, friend, if you're reading this post, thank you for prodding me on this point.

At the same time, however, we are also discerning our calling to engage our unchurched world with the good news of the Kingdom of God dawning in Jesus, and I just can't imagine shrinking back from that call. We're still in this process of discernment, but that feature seems to be rising rapidly to the front. We've got to navigate the challenge of doing this without turning Jesus into a product to be sold or simply reducing our proclamation down to whatever is easy and palatable to the greatest number of people. Certainly there are temptations to do that.

It's sad to lose a friend and ministry partner from this church, but I also know that there are lots of churches doing various pieces of God's work in the world. Not every church can be everything, and, dear friend, you will be a blessing, no doubt, to another church. And if God leads our mutual callings closer to each other again, I shall be glad for the reunion.

Meals Create Communities

First Lutheran hosted the last of the summer picnics that we scheduled off-site at Stellmacher park today, and it was awesome!

It's good for our church community to eat together and play together and be a family, but we could do that at our place. We held these picnics "off campus" so that we could share the love with our neighbors and make them feel like a welcome part of the family.

At each of these three summer community picnics, but especially today, I've been so delighted to see this dream coming true. Members of First Lutheran were mingling with new found friends at every picnic table in the park and showing simple, genuine Christian care for our neighbors.

This is only the beginning, but it has been a wonderful beginning. We know that Jesus loves our entire community, and we are committed to following Him as he leads us more and more to love our (literal) neighbors.

Depth

We are deep into the "listening group" process at First Lutheran right now, and I'm loving every minute of it! It's so great sitting down with other folks in the FLC community and hearing what's on your hearts and minds. Because we're still in process on this, I don't want to prejudice the future groups or short circuit the conversations at all, but I do want to celebrate one thing that I keep hearing.

We have a deep well from which to draw water.

It might be easy for us or other churches to get obsessed with how we should market, package, or present ourselves to our community and call that outreach or mission or evangelism. (And I do know how important marketing is.) But then there's always the danger of becoming a beautifully wrapped empty box. Or a dry well with a big, useless pump.

First Lutheran isn't perfect, and there's a lot of mistakes we can and do make. But we have a long history and a deeply formed culture of spiritual growth and maturity. We have great resources for hearing and answering God's call. And, perhaps most importantly, we have a deep, unbreakable connection to a Living Well, from which to draw and share the water of life.

Face to Face

Yesterday evening, First Lutheran had its first "listening group," and it was fantastic. Thanks to all of you who were there.

Readers of this blog will know that our church community is trying to clarify its identity and calling. Just exactly who are we and what exactly are we supposed to do?

Last night we asked ourselves these and related questions and had some good heart to heart talking about it. I value these conversations at one level just because they are good venues for articulating great ideas. But, even more, I value these conversations because they allow us to build ownership and partnership together. We can look each other in the eye and build our team together.

If any of you haven't signed up for one of our listening group opportunities yet, please do. You'll be glad you did, and so will I!

Make...Disciples

I just got back from a three-week vacation, during which time I decided to take a break from blogging too. To any of you who have been following along...sorry for the delay.

Our church-wide process of vision discernment is still underway, and I'm really looking forward to our listening groups. I'll probably blog some more about that in the next few days. Today I just want to say something brief about a book that I read yesterday, Growing and Engaged Church by Albert Winseman. Other than sometimes feeling a bit like an advertisement for Gallup Research (it was published by Gallup Press), it was a very engaging (!) book.

What I have to say about the book, however, is really something that I've been thinking about all throughout this process. I am being reminded that the Great Commission of Jesus is to make disciples. That sounds obvious, and it is. But what I've been seeing more and more clearly is that there is no equation between "make disciples" and "make big churches." They might be related, and often they are. As a church succeeds in helping people who don't follow Jesus become followers of Jesus, there will often naturally be an increase in that church's membership or attendance. But so many churches and church leaders have seen church growth as being nearly equal to making disciples that we have sometimes confused the symptom for the cause.

As we discern more clearly the kind of calling that God has for us at First Lutheran, I know it will remain important for us to make and nurture disciples of Jesus and not necessarily to pursue numerical growth. We will preach the good news of the Kingdom of God and teach the Bible and help people discover their individual giftedness and help them to grow and mature in their relationship with God.

I do hope that God will help us reach more and more people and that more and more people will join in the work to which God calls us, but those results are more symptoms of faithfulness on our part than they are goals in themselves. They are vital signs, not actual congregational or spiritual health. I'd rather pursue health than the signs of it.

A service of prayer

I didn't get a chance to blog this until just now, but yesterday morning's service of prayer was an important moment in the life of our congregation. I count myself as very blessed to have the opportunity to be a pastor of this wonderful, prayerful, Christ-full congregation.

I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to have lots more conversation among our members about the ways that God is leading us to be a part of His mission to reach our world.
For any of you who are following along with our vision discernment process via this blog, feel free to chime in with your comments as a way to start those conversations even now.

One specific thought from my end:
I wrote more about this for the cover of the July newsletter, but one of the main things that God reinforced for me yesterday is my appreciation for First Lutheran's past. As we look forward to the paths that God is calling us to walk in the future, I am struck by the value of the roads that have lead us to this point. Without God's leading and without the faith and obedience of members in First Lutheran's past, we would never be where we are now and our options for moving forward would be far more limited.



As we contemplate the steps of our journey forward, thanks be to God for the steps that have brought us this far.

Round 2 (Part 2)

[Warning: this post is a little long. I apologize, but this topic is too important to abbreviate any more than I already am.]

(2) The second major topic that our vision leadership team discussed this week was the changing nature of our mission field and the rapidly changing relationship between "the church" and "the world."

Not all that long ago the church in America enjoyed a sort of home field advantage in the world. Our message was basically comprehensible to and even respected by the average person, even those who would not have called themselves Christians. Secular organizations wouldn't have dreamed of scheduling activities on Sunday mornings because that was church time; Christian clergy were respected in the community simply by virtue of their office; and basic moral behavior could commonly be referred to as "christian," as evidenced by the obvious condescension in a statement like, "That's wasn't a very christian thing to do." Churches like ours could open their doors wide on a Sunday morning and reasonably expect that new visitors would walk simply in. And once there, they were likely to have a good idea of what to do and what was expected of them. In fact, they had probably been raised in a roughly similar kind of place.

Times have changed.

The church can no longer reasonably expect respect and deference from the un-churched world, and the people whom we are trying to reach with the good news about Jesus are no longer primed to receive that message by prior experience in a church or even simply by years of exposure to a society steeped in Christian language, symbols, and practices. The church can no longer open its doors and expect the un-churched to stream in, let alone know what to do once they get there.

The key difference was crystallized for me once as I listened to a conversation between two leaders of very large churches in different parts of the country, one that began in the 1970s and one that began to thrive much more recently. The conversation went something like this:
Leader of the recently thriving church: When you started your church, you did it by going door to door and asking people if they were part of a church and if not, what kept them from doing so, right?
Leader of the church started in the 70s: Yes, that's right.
Recently: That's a huge difference for us. You could ask people what the problems were, then remove those problems, and people would be interested in joining your church.
1970s: Right
Recently: Basically you were asking people "Why not?" and removing the problems. We have to deal with people who are asking "Why?" and then show them a compelling reason. People we're trying to reach now are asking, "Why on earth would I want to be involved with anything as dumb, backward, and irrelevant as Christianity."

(In case anybody reading this figures out who these leaders are, I'd like to clarify that the leader of the church started in the 1970s is fully aware of this shift and is fruitfully engaging the 21st century world also.)

This is also a challenge that First Lutheran needs to meet. We must learn to live as a Christian church community that demonstrates the truth of the gospel in its life together so that our message is heard as more than just self-serving religious babble but, instead, as the declaration that the one good, Creator God is saving his obviously broken world - and he's doing it in Jesus.

For anyone who'd like to read some more about these important shifts in church mission, a good web resource can be found here. For print resources, two good books to read are They Like Jesus but not the Church by Dan Kimball or The Once and Future Church by Loren Mead.

Round 2

It's been a few days already since our research and leadership team for our vision discernment process had its second official meeting, but I haven't had a chance to blog it here yet.

We dealt with two main topics. I'll handle the first one now and then pick up the second one in another post.

(1) We spent most of our two-hour meeting talking about the prayer support that guides and undergirds this whole process, focusing especially on ways to involve the whole congregation. Pastor Angie began by telling us about the prayer vigil that she and others had begun putting together, and then we latched onto the idea of capturing the spirit of that vigil in a Sunday morning worship service for everybody.

What we're planning now - and I'm very excited about this - is a prayer service for Sunday morning June 22 at all of our four worship services. Angie, Linsey, Brad, and I are working on putting together a service of prayer, Scripture, and music that will hopefully facilitate us opening our hearts before God and putting us in a spiritual posture of listening and openness.

For any readers of this blog who are connected to First Lutheran (and I'm guessing that's most of you), don't miss worship on June 22. It's going to be an important moment in the life of our church. I can't wait!

Key Issues - Part 4 (Alignment)

When I think ahead to what I hope for as a result of this extended process of discernment, I think alignment is near the top of the list. And when I say that now, I'm aware that it sounds so horribly boring, but just below the surface lies real excitement.

I get the chance pretty often to sit down with volunteer and staff leaders in our congregation to work on various teams trying to accomplish various tasks. All of these teams are wonderful and all of these tasks are good, but more and more I find myself asking how they are related to one another or to any larger unifying goal. In our church community, we are doing lots of generally good Christian things, and we are doing a basically wise and intelligent job running a fairly large and complicated organization. There's really quite a bit to feel good about.

But we could be doing a lot better.

We could be doing a lot better if we were acting more in concert with one another. I can just imagine if our children's ministry department and our student ministries and our worship planners and our missions leaders, to name just a few, all had learned to dream the same dream and pursue the same mission - each, of course, according to their own gifts and tasks. Our teams would be healthier, our energies would be higher, and our fruitfulness would be greater. I know I want to see that happen, and I really think that God wants to see that happen.

It's possible that I'm exciting about the possibility of greater alignment among the ministries of our church just because I'm an over-organized, control freak (really, it is possible...), but it's also because the opportunities are so great. God has equipped First Lutheran with an embarrassment of riches (of all kinds), and if we harnessed our potential and aimed it in one consistent direction - there's no telling what God could do in us.

Key Issues - Part 3 (Ownership)

I have never been a part of any kind of team that achieved something great together without having everyone on the team pulling hard in the same direction.

Some of First Lutheran's staff and volunteer leaders made a trip yesterday to visit Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines. Hope is now the largest ELCA church in America (and growing), and we took some time to dialog with their leaders about their direction and practices of ministry.

I think the meetings were mutually useful conversations with both sides sharing and teaching and learning from each other, but the biggest single take-away lesson for me came from seeing the broad-based (unanimous even?) ownership of their mission. It seemed like everybody at Hope knows and embraces the truth that they are a "great commission, great commandment church." They exist to love their neighbors and reach the lost, and they are not interested in agendas, divisions, priorities, or practices that do not help move them toward obedience to that calling.

I feel both convicted and challenged about the critical importance of this issue for the future of First Lutheran. In order to move forward, we must move forward together. For all of you who are reading this blog and are connected with First Lutheran, let me reiterate my invitation to you to be part of this process. Please be a part of our listening groups later this summer. Please offer your feedback right here on this blog. Please pray and listen for God's leading.

God's call for First Lutheran is a call for all of us, and we'll never get where God is leading if we don't go there together.

Key Issues - Part 2 (Passion)

First, some Biblical words, retranslated and out of context:
I wish you were either hot or cold. Lukewarm makes me vomit.

I think I've said this in a couple different contexts already, but if any of us find ourselves responding to any part of this discernment process with some form of "OK, that's nice," then it's definitely time for a check-up.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit and into the content of the next post on "ownership," but I remember wrestling through some vision issues a few years ago and being struck by the strong difference between ownership and agreement. I think the difference is passion.

The kind of things we're talking about in terms of our vision for ministry and our long range plan is heart-level, gut-level stuff. How does the God of heaven and earth plan to use our lives for the salvation of His broken world? If we can answer that question with cool detachment, then we haven't wrestled with it hard enough it yet.

What I really hope is that our whole congregation will grab hold of our clarified vision and say, "Yes, count me in. I want a piece of the action. I want to pour out my life for God's call, and I won't settle for anything less." But I'd rather hear someone say, "No way! Count me out! I'll never climb that hill with you," than hear someone say, "OK, that's nice. I guess I can accept that."

Key Issues - Part 1 (Urgency)

I had the chance yesterday to listen to some leaders from another church talk about a strategic planning process that they went through a few years ago. It was great to hear about God's leading in their community, and it really encouraged me about the importance of what we're doing. From their comments I took away four things that struck me as really critical in this work of discernment and planning that God has given us: urgency, passion, ownership, and alignment. Over the course of the next few days, I want to comment each of these. Today I'll start with "urgency."

Over the course of the coming years, First Lutheran is going to spend millions of dollars and burn through thousands and thousands of volunteer and staff hours. It is imperative that we know why. There's too much at stake to be unclear about this. We are using up far too many resources to be uncertain about what we want those resources to accomplish and exactly how we think we can use those resources to accomplish that purpose. It is urgent that we define our vision and form a clear plan to pursue it.

It is also urgent because the need is so great. Our immediate community is full of broken lives and broken hearts that can be restored by God's grace in Christ. Once we get clear on the way that God is leading us in particular to serve this community and bear witness to His Gospel, we can follow that leading with passion and be a conduit of His grace and healing to our broken world.

First Lutheran is already a place where lots of really good Christian ministry is happening (which has been true for a long, long time), and I am chomping at the bit to see us harness the resources and potential of this great community to accomplish even more in the Kingdom of God.

A Good Start

The research and leadership team began meeting this past Sunday night to begin helping First Lutheran Church discern its calling and set its long term direction. It's a great group of people, and we are off to a great start. I'm really excited to see where God is going to lead us together.

We handled two main topics for the night. The first and most important thing we did was to build a strong foundation of weakness. It sounds funny now that I say it like that, but I'm not kidding. We prayed together and acknowledged the importance of being dependent on God instead of producing some kind of self-driven strength, which is a real temptation for many of us, perhaps all of us. As part of our conversation, we were responding to readings from Jim Cymbala's book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. The human brokenness evidenced in that book is more obvious than it is in most of our community, but that doesn't make it any more real, and if First Lutheran is going to be place of grace and healing that looks anything like a community centered on Jesus, then we may as well drop the charade and get on our (literal and metaphorical) knees before God.

Second, we took some time to look objectively and empirically at our church and region. We reviewed internal membership data and worship attendance data, and we reviewed census and survey data for the zip codes around FLC. At FLC, we have started to see some signs of numerical growth in the last 4-6 months, particularly in contemporary worship and in new member classes. From an external perspective, nobody was surprised to learn that our area is relatively affluent, well educated, and white with a higher than average majority of white collar workers and two-income families. We saw that only 1/3 of people in our area report being strongly involved with their faith, and only 13% list "finding a good church" as something that they are concerned with.

If people were looking for a church, there was a (to me) surprisingly even split among people who would prefer to worship in a traditional/formal environment and those would would prefer to worship in a contemporary/informal environment. And then another, equal number said they had no preference! People also expressed a fairly high value for bible study, theological discussion, and prayer groups, and they preferred worship services that are both emotionally inspiring and intellectually stimulating.

I'm looking forward to the rest of this process.

(If you want to keep up with just the posts on this blog that are specifically about First Lutheran's process of discerning its call, just click on the "discernment" label at the bottom of any of these related posts.)