Hello and welcome to the thinking fellas podcast. My name is Caleb Keith. Today I am joined by Adam

Francisco, Scott Keith and Bruce Hillman. And we're going to talk, it's already 2026. We're already like the time this

comes in maybe two months into 2026, but we're going to do sort of like one of those

beginning of the year episodes. And this time we're going to talk about the best reasons,

the best reasons to be or to become Lutheran in 2026. We have a decent amount of non-Lutheran

listeners and we appreciate you.

And there's obviously something interesting to you or capturing you about the Lutheran theology

that happens on this show, or maybe broadly at 1517.

And so we're going to talk about that a little bit.

And maybe also a little bit of encouragement

to our Lutheran listeners or even to ourselves this morning.

Just because, you know, when you're in the thick of it sometimes with, you know, there's a

denomination like ours, it can, sometimes you can be pretty down on it.

We've talked about how the

statistics around sort of institutional Lutheranism are not always the best. There's like all

Protestant churches sort of decline or aging groups and it can make you feel pretty dull

about the future. But the church is not about

those demographics all the time. It's actually about gathering around God's word and his gifts.

And so we're going to talk about how Lutheranism emphasizes that, what it gets right and how

that is a compelling reason to consider Lutheranism in

26.

So can I interrupt you real quick?

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