From the time I was five years old until my college years I attended with my family a Lutheran church (Holy Cross) in Jenison, MI. As this was a member of the conservative Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), I’ve long assumed that the previous church we attended (Faith Lutheran in Grand Rapids, MI) when I was a young child and where I was baptized was also in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.
I’ve found to my surprise, however, that Faith Lutheran was a member of the now-defunct Lutheran Church in America (LCA) at the time I was baptized (along with my twin brother) by Rev. Robert Lignell in 1982. It then merged into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) which is a liberal denomination.
When Rev. Lignell retired in 1987, the Rev. Raymond Peterson took over and my parents, disappointed in his preaching, transferred our family to Holy Cross. As Rev. Lignell’s resignation was in 1987, just the year before the merger, I wonder if he was opposed to the merger. He passed away at 91 years of age in 2014.