Kabod Has Left the Building?

There was a time when the "kabod yahweh" just up and left the temple. We may be seeing that time as we speak.

I had breakfast yesterday morning with two friends from a church that left my particular brand of Lutheranism and have great hope for their post-denominational experiment. Actually, they didn't leave it. They believe it left them.

This gutsy pastor was told by his former leaders "the Great Commission is highly overrated. Do what you want on these three acres, but don't even think of a satellite and growth."

My dad, a pastor in the ALC (predesessor body of the ELCA) retired after 38 years in the ministry and moved to Moorhead, MN, following my mom's heart attack. They were out near a reservation in North Dakota and it took 80 minutes for the ambulance to get to her while she was having the attack... another 80 minutes to get her to the hospital. In the meantime, this strong farm girl's left ventrical died.

Purchasing a house for the first time in their lives was exciting. They had lived in parsonages all their lives and always joked that they'd be living in a trailer park someday. The house happened to be two blocks from a friendly, solid LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) church. Although they weren't that "brand" of Lutheran, the pastor was a good preacher, the people were warm and inviting, the youth pastor stopped by and asked dad to be his mentor. When the dust settled, they were drawn into that worshipping community.

Then the institutional problem kicked in. His former Bishop wrote a note asking what ELCA church they were attending. They responded they had found a good LCMS church two blocks away and that they'd be attending there. He wrote back that they had to attend their own brand of church or he would no longer be on the clergy roster. Dad wrote back and explained that two blocks was just right for walking, that they were in their late 70's, that he had given almost 40 years to the church as a pastor, and that they had established some wonderful friendships at the LCMS place.

The next letter that came from the Bishop went something like this: "You are no longer a pastor. You no longer have the right to wear a robe, officiate at baptisms, communion and funerals, or call yourself by that title. That chapter of your life is through."

I told him to rip the letter up and baptize away!

The institution does not own him. It cannot control him unless he allows it to.

What you are seeing is not only the assailing of the people of God from the outside of the church. You are seeing the crumbling of the old, and the mad scramble to hold on to the power that they cannot hold.

Someone asked me recently "will nothing stand the test of the ungodly's assault on the church?" I ask "will nothing stand the test of the godly's assault on the church?"

(PS - Please excuse this soap box preacher for getting a little ruffled. I can't imagine the guts and insensitivity it would take to tell a person who had given their whole life to the church that he can't call himself pastor...)