Third post from "The Powerlifting Pastor" on meeting the Standard

I pick things up, I put things down.

In powerlifting there are 3 lifts…squat, bench, and deadlift.  After years of lifting weight, I decided to enter a powerlifting competition for the first time December 2010.  I had been doing those three lifts for 20 some years, and of them I loved the squat the most!  So much so, that my celebration of my 40th birthday was to squat 400 lb, 40 times.  I spread the lifts throughout the day, and it took 7 sets, but I did it.

But this was 14 years later, and a real competition, with others watching.  For my first attempt, I went with 330 lb.  Not a heavy weight for me, but serious enough.  Three red lights.  I didn't go deep enough.  It felt deep, but it wasn't according to "real" powerlifting standards. 

I kept the same weight.  Three red lights again.  Close, but as the saying goes, no cigar.

Third attempt, I kept the same weight.  I hit depth, and got so excited I racked the weight right away.  Three red lights for not following commands. 

This was a full power meet, which means that you have to complete all three events.  At that point I could have been sent home, but they let me continue the meet, so I would get some experience.

When I first started lifting, I had a couple of people help me.  Because of comments from one of them who was just shy of getting his pro card in Bodybuilding, I know that my squats were proper depth in 1988 in Schweinfurt, Germany  The squat, a lift I loved to do, I had changed my form, and was not doing correctly anymore.  I had to work on what I had done wrong, and get back to the right standard.

I was ordained as a Pastor in the American Lutheran Church in 1983.  This denomination merged with two others in 1988 to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  There were lots of discussions in the forming of this new denomination about the authority of the Bible, and how we should speak about that, as well as other important teachings and practices of the church.

Over the years various things changed.  The "standards" of decision making slowly changed to be bureaucracy, culture, and a theological understanding of God and man, different from our roots, all of which centered on "my own conscience". 

Lutheran roots can be found in one of the great confessions of Martin Luther, " Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen."  The standard is not "my conscience", but "my conscience bound by the Word of God."

 The ELCA made a decision in 2009 that was contrary to the teachings of the Bible, and the whole history of Judaism and Christianity.  I struggled with these decisions.  But I continued to work within that Church. 

But ultimately, on this "lift" was three red lights. 

So, last year, I left the ELCA, and became a pastor in the North American Lutheran Church (http://www.theNALC.org).  It was not an easy decision.  Many things were right in the ELCA.  But being a disciple of Jesus is not a one-event or two-event reality.  It is the whole meet.