Cross View Blog

Childhood religious experience runs deep in the soul.  Positively or negatively, early church experiences are deeply imprinted. They remain with us for the rest of our lives.  Mother Church, with all her human flaws, provides the genesis of faith.

I am grateful that my early church experiences were overall positive. They shaped my faith and life as a child and later into adulthood. I acknowledge that many young people do not have similar positive experiences. The faith life of many children becomes aborted. Church, like a childhood story, is long forgotten in later years.

Early memories of sitting in a pew, singing familiar hymns, watching ushers, observing people taking Holy Communion, listening to the pastor lead the liturgy and preach from the pulpit, the creaking wooden pews, the offering plates passed down the row, elderly organist Mr. F.C. Witt, the choir singing behind on a platform, the old stained glass windows, the aroma of Easter lilies, the magical Christmas trees, the church bell tolling before the service: all these memories form a poignant collage.

Two large wall mural paintings graced each side of the chancel. One of Jesus praying at the Garden of Gethsemane; the other of Jesus knocking on a door. As a child, I wondered at their meanings. Why was Jesus praying? Why was He knocking at the door? What was He thinking?

As a boy, I did not fully understand what was being said or sung. Often my attention drifted elsewhere. Sometimes I would get lightheaded and have to sit down to feel better. Once in a while, I would attend German service with my father because it was only 30 minutes long. He would keep a strict eye on me beside him.

When I became a teenager, I preferred to sit with other boys in the front pew rather than with my family. Our behavior was well monitored by the entire congregation. We were there Sunday after Sunday. No questions asked. It was what we did.

I believe that during those formative years, The Spirit of God was seeping into my soul, nurturing the embryo of faith embedded at my baptism, April 18, 1937.

The miracle of faith cannot be analyzed and explained in human terms.

It is a wonder that the tiny seed of faith continues to grow and becomes a tree of life in which the birds nest.

Many young people today are growing up without the implanted Word of God. We now have entire generations who never experience the miracle of faith. For them, life is what it is, a succession of events with no ultimate purpose, a play without a plot, a story without an author.

Perhaps, in His wisdom, God is preparing new ways of bringing young people to faith, ways that we cannot now imagine. For those of us who believe, however, we can be grateful that the seed once planted by Mother Church, still lives and grows.

Truly, faith once conceived is nurtured by Word and Sacrament in the womb of Mother Church. Long may she live!

Paul Emmel
Minneapolis
August 9, 2020
The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Paul Emmel is a retired pastor in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, having served as a parish pastor, a correctional chaplain for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, and a hospital chaplain and a community counselor. As a retired pastor, Paul continues to serve the Lord and His people, including establishing the Minnesota South District’s “Pastors to Prisoners” ministry.