Becoming Lutheran, Part 1 continued

My friend Jim wrote this comment about yesterday's entry: "The Episcopal Church blew it, but maybe all the friendly people were away at the Hamptons that weekend." That was about it. The Episcopal church we attended that weekend was an immensely wealthy congregation with a beautiful gothic building - they could probably smell that we were neither old money nor new. Later on, we attended my cousin's Episcopal church in a different part of Princeton, and it was much more down to earth and 'friendly.' But by then, we were already on the way to becoming Lutheran.

Of course, these personal, gut-level reasons for becoming Lutheran are not the whole story, as part 2 will make clear. But I start with the personal side because it would be false to pretend that our motivations for becoming Lutheran were purely theological or rational. We originally planned to remain in the Covenant, but the nearest Evangelical Covenant church was over an hour away, so we were looking for a local church to attend regularly. I want to lift up the importance of relationships in the church: Prince of Peace Lutheran became our home church in Princeton largely because we built relationships, became a part of an intergenerational small group (which included retired - though active - Lutheran scholar Karlfried Froehlich and his wife Ricarda, and several younger couples), and felt at home - theologically, liturgically, spiritually, personally.

A further question at this point is, Why did we not remain in the Covenant Church?