I occasionally have conversations with people who are not involved in the congregation I serve that reveal that people have very different understandings of the nature of the church than the institution I experience in my everyday life. Sometimes, upon finding that I am a minister, people begin to apologize for their lack of attendance at church. They may be apologizing for their failure to attend different congregations, as if they expect that I would be judgmental of those who don’t attend church. I never know quite how to respond to such statements. I’d be happy if that person were to find a church community that is meaningful and would become involved, but that is behavior that I can’t control. The person would need to make their own connections and commitment. I don’t make any judgments about a person’s character based on how often they attend worship. I am closer to those who are regular worshipers because I know them better. We spend more time together than I spend with folks who aren’t involved in churches. A person who doesn’t attend church doesn’t need to answer to me or to explain their behavior to me, but there seem to be quite a few people who feel compelled to do so.

Some people, upon learning that I am a minister, want to tell me part of their religious experience. That is understandable, such experiences are life-shaping and generally are interesting for me to hear. It seems to be a privilege of my calling that I know things about relative strangers that have not been shared with everyone else. I suspect that there are plenty of customers who shop in a certain office supply store who don’t know that one of the clerks is the daughter of a Lutheran minister. You could shop there for a long time without knowing that particular detail. One day, however, when I used the church’s credit card for a purchase, she asked me if I was a minister. When I answered, she told me about her father and continues to share bits and pieces of the story when I return to the store to make purchases. Perhaps she is just a friendly clerk who shares her stories with all of her customers, but it seems that we have a particular connection because of the similarity of her father’s vocation and mine.

Sometimes those who are not involved in churches, or at least not in the congregation I serve, speak as if they think that everyone in the church agrees about each detail of doctrine. Our church isn’t much for doctrine in the first place, preferring to use statements of faith as testaments of belief, not tests of faith. There is a wide diversity of beliefs within the congregation I serve and I think that the diversity is one of the treasures of the community. But outsiders think that we agree on every detail of our faith. I often will have a bit of a conversation with someone who thinks that being involved in a church means a specific belief. There are quite a few people who think that all people in the church are advocates for official teacher-led prayers in public schools and all reject scientific theories such as evolution. In my own personal case, I spent a decade serving in a community where the majority religion was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I’m simply not a Mormon and I pray differently than some of the public Mormon prayers that I have heard. I don’t want to live in a society where someone else decides what prayers should be prayed in school. I’m all in favor of prayer in all aspects of life, but I see no reason for the prayers to be imposed by school officials. And as to the theory of evolution, I don’t find my particular understanding of the Creation stories of our people to reject scientific method or commonly held discoveries of scientists. But on both of those issues, you would find a diversity of opinion in my congregation. We don’t see things from the same point of view.

People are not required to agree with me in order to participate in our congregation.

Faith, from my point of view, is different than intellectual assent. We don’t have to agree in order to believe together. In fact, we stand in a long tradition of engaging in conversation and even debate about interpretation of scriptures, tradition and other aspects of our faith. Jesus grew up in a tradition of teaching through arguing and debate. He often debated with the religious scholars of his day. Part of our Christmas tradition is the story of Jesus in the temple, talking with the elders at the age of 12, where the temple leaders. The Gospel of Luke reports, “they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions; and all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” (Luke 2:46-47) The temple as Jesus experienced it, was not a place where everyone agreed, but rather a place for questions and answers and the give an take of honest intellectual inquiry.

I enjoy thinking about God. I enjoy talking about God. I enjoy discovering new ideas and fresh perspectives. All of those things are aspects of my faith, but I also practice my faith by singing and repeating historic prayers and considering how our community has come to its unique position in the world. I don’t find it necessary to agree with every word of every hymn we sing in order to find comfort and solace in singing with a community in good times and hard times. I don’t sing to make logical arguments, but rather to participate in a community. This doesn’t mean that I have huge disagreements with the elements of worship we use, just that I see plenty of room for differences of interpretation in our words and actions.

The season of Christmas is a season of worship for me, and I am delighted that we bring many different perspectives to our worship. We’ll leave intellectual agreement and same beliefs to others.

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