YOU MIGHT BE A LUTHERAN IF...

You might be a Lutheran if...

• you hold your hymnal open for the entire service but never look down at it.
• you serve jello only in the proper liturgical color.
• your choir believes that what it lacks in tonality it makes up for in volume.
• the church is on fire and you rush in to save the coffee pot.
• you think you're paying your pastor too much if he buys a new car for the first time in nine years.
• you know church is going to be absolutely packed on Easter but you get there late anyway.
• you're watching Star Wars on DVD, and when they say, "may the force be with you," you reply, "and also with you."
• J. S. Bach is your favorite composer just because he was Lutheran.
• you feel guilty about not feeling guilty.
• you actually think the pastor's jokes are funny.
• you dress up as your favorite reformer for Halloween.
• the only mealtime prayer you know is "Come Lord Jesus" and you can say it in one breath.
• you believe there's an 11th Commandment that states, "if it's never been done that way before, don't do it."
• your Baptist friends think you're a Catholic.
• your Catholic friends think you're a Baptist.
• you sing "Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus" while sitting down.
• all your relatives graduated from a school named "Concordia."
• you know the difference between a "collect" and a "gradual."
• you hate the new hymnal.
• you love the new hymnal.
• you make change in the offering plate for a $5 bill.
• your idea of a mixed marriage is an ELCA bride and an LCMS groom.
• you're 47 years old and your parents still won't let you date a Roman Catholic.
• you know how to say "Melanchthon" in German.
• you hum "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" while mowing the lawn.
• your LCMS pastor refers to St. Louis as "the Holy City."
• when you're agreeing with someone, instead of saying, "yes I agree," you say, "this is most certainly true."
• you and your family of seven go to a Lenten supper at your church and leave a free will offering of $2.
• you go to a Lenten supper at your church and skip the service after the meal.
• your church uses folding chairs but you call them "pews."
• rather than introducing yourself to a visitor at church, you check their name out in the guest book.
• you think the way Calvinists number the commandments is not only incorrect but heretical.
• the Sunday bulletins at your church are 17 pages long.
• you hold up the line at the end of the service.
• you insist on spelling "catholic" with a small "c."
• you know it's wrong to applaud during the service.
• you doodle on the back of communion cards.
• every time something changes, the old way was better.
• they have to rope off the last pews in church so the front isn't empty.
• your house is a mess because you're saved by grace, not by works.