Recently I had reason to attend a nondenominational Reformed evangelical church on a Sunday morning. In a previously held theological attitude, I would have spent the time tallying all the ways it did things wrong—in other words, all the ways it didn’t do things like an LBW-toting Lutheran church would have. Nowadays I find myself more in a place I have come to call “post-tribal Lutheranism,” wherein my passion for Lutheran theology has turned from judgment to generosity. I am more glad to find the gospel preached in word and sacrament, wherever I may find it, than I am to see institutional success for my tribe.

Anyway, I can’t say I felt entirely at home in this church, but I felt no more uncomfortable than a tourist—many points of connection but with unusual coloring and emphases that caught my attention. Here are the four that my husband and I parsed out in discussion afterwards.

First, although the congregation had no denominational affiliation, the preacher made frequent allusion to The Church. In fact, the various heresies denounced (in their peculiar American guise) were judged faulty on the basis of what The Church had already decided. The Church rejected gnosticism, so parishioners should follow suit and do the same. The Church condemned Valentinus, so parishioners should regard contemporary sages who make Valentinesque claims in the same light. Lack of denominational affiliation in no way meant contempt for the one holy catholic and apostolic.

Second, there was a definite polemic against being happy. Now I suspect, from seeing the people around me, that many of them were happy; I’d go so far as to say that their faith in a kind and merciful Lord had something to do with their happiness. That leads me to believe that the hymns and sermon meant something very specific by “happiness,” as in prosperity-gospel happiness: Jesus did not die and rise again so you could slide effortlessly up the corporate ladder, lose twenty pounds, and gain a new SUV. But I was rather struck at how unqualified the polemic against being happy was.

Third, the general assumption of all the worship, prayers to songs to sermons, was that you faith is under attack. Not in a politicized, liberals-are-taking-over-America kind of way, or a don’t-let-them-teach-evolution-in-school kind of way, but in the distinctly spiritual sense that faith is hard and the powers and principalities will do anything to undermine it. Parishioners were called upon to learn their faith well so it would stand up to attack. I have never heard anything the slightest bit like this in a Lutheran church. I wonder if we mistakenly think that freely given grace means easily acquired (and retained) faith?

Finally, being a 15-minute or so preacher myself, I always wondered how preachers in other tradition could carry on for 40 minutes or more. Now I know the secret. They repeat themselves. They do not assume you got it the first, second, or third time, or that one way of putting it is enough to illuminate your mind. They do not deliver three-point sermons, but one-point sermons, and by gum by the time the sermon is over you’ve got the point. I have heard some Lutherans complain that these kinds of sermons tend to teach rather than proclaim, which is apparently bad. But I didn’t perceive that kind of disconnect. This preacher taught the brain, warmed the heart, and bolstered the conscience. It was an altogether inspiring combination.