'I Hated Sunday School!'

by The Rev. Virginia L. Bennett, D.Min.

Photos courtesy Virginia Bennett. (Click images to enlarge slideshow)

I was raised in the 2nd largest Lutheran Church (not Missouri Synod) in the country. It had 6000 baptized members. So my first impression of church/religion was something that awed me, made me feel as though this must be about something 'enormous'. A picture of the nave and sanctuary is in my office at church. I remember being so small that the top of the pews were taller than me, and walking with my mother down that aisle I remember the sun coming through the stained glass window behind the altar of the risen Christ and it was just overwhelming; breathtaking; something that affected me on a visceral level, but I could not explain.

I hated Sunday School and before that my mother always told me that when she could hear babies and small children screaming in the nursery she was sure I was the loudest. (read more...)