{"id":103,"date":"2017-02-27T19:00:41","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T19:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/?p=103"},"modified":"2017-02-27T19:04:37","modified_gmt":"2017-02-27T19:04:37","slug":"meet-a-lutheran-darrell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/2017\/02\/27\/meet-a-lutheran-darrell\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet a Lutheran: Darrell"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Hello!\u00a0<\/span>My name is Darrell.<\/span><\/p>\n

I became a Lutheran during my senior year in college. Before then I had attended a number of different churches<\/span>\u2014<\/span>Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, and many others. I drifted from one church to another because I never really felt at home in church and was always looking for the right fit. <\/span><\/p>\n

After spending some time away from church during college, my wife and I decided we would look around for a church home. I had an interest in Lutheran theology thanks in large part to my study of the Danish philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard. Before officially becoming Lutheran, there were many questions I wanted answers to. I really wanted to know whether salvation was by faith alone.<\/p>\n

The answer I received from my now Lutheran pastor was shocking. The answer was that salvation was by faith alone but that faith had to have the proper object. This shocked me because for as long as I could remember I had believed that faith was something I had to work at to sustain. But I learned that salvation did not come by placing faith in myself, or other people, or the church, but in Christ alone. He is the one and only object of our faith. I also learned what exactly faith was.<\/p>\n

Before I became Lutheran, I always thought faith amounted to belief<\/span>\u2014<\/span>an intellectual assent to certain propositions. I learned though that, while faith does to some extent involve the intellect, faith is really a radical trust in Christ for salvation. This means that I had to look away from myself and look only towards Christ and his righteousness. This is not an easy thing to do. In fact, when I became Lutheran, I learned that faith is not something we can produce on our own. Instead, an active, living trust in Christ is produced in us by the Holy Spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was certainly good news for me because I had struggled with doubts for as long as I could remember. That is not to say I still do not have doubts from time to time, but I now know that faith is something God gives to us through the his word and sacrament. I know longer worry about my doubts because I know that God is the true author and finisher of my faith. <\/span><\/p>\n

I would not go as far as saying that before I attended a Lutheran church I never heard the Gospel. However, what I did hear for the first time attending a Lutheran church, at least in a new and radical way, was that were that my sins were forgiven not because of anything I could ever do, but because of what Christ has done for me.<\/span>
\nThank you for reading my story!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello!\u00a0My name is Darrell. I became a Lutheran during my senior year in college. Before then I had attended a number of different churches\u2014Pentecostal, Baptist, Methodist, and many others. I drifted from one church to another because I never really felt at home in church and was always looking for the right fit. After spending Read more about Meet a Lutheran: Darrell<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[29,30],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meet-a-lutheran","tag-meetalutheran","tag-story"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/lutherrose.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107,"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatisalutheran.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}