Reformation Recap

After church yesterday, I made this Facebook post:

To begin today's children's sermon, I asked how much we have to pay to get into Heaven. The children gave me that look, like I'm a bit of a dullard, and they said, "You don't have to pay anything." I asked, "Well then, what do you have to do to get into Heaven?"--I was thinking we would talk about grace vs. good deeds. The youngest one answered, "Die."

 
I shifted gears. Although I wasn't anticipating that answer, I'm certainly not going to pass up the opportunity to remind anyone of any age that we can create Heaven right here and now, that we don't have to wait until we die. The Kingdom of Heaven is among you, Jesus preached again and again. So do I.

Happy Reformation Sunday!

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The other significant item I want to remember from yesterday:  during the adult sermon, near the end, I said, "This may not be the church our grandparents would recognize."  Then I caught my breath, looking out, realizing how many of us were connected to the grandparents' generation that had built the actual church building we were in, Faith Lutheran.  

My grandfather wouldn't recognize that specific building, but he was the pastor to an earlier group of five churches that consolidated down to two churches, one of them Faith Lutheran in Bristol.  I realized that I've never celebrated Reformation Sunday in a church that had been there for multiple generations and/or in a location where I had family connections.  

Momentarily, I wondered about the validity of the sermon I had just delivered, the sermon that reminded us that the church is always in some phase of reformation.  But as I looked out at the small congregation, I realized that this church, indeed, is one that my grandparents might not recognize:  it's small, it's composed primarily of retirees, and it's got a woman for a minister.