No Longer Sola

Welcome to our new blogging home! Most of you know me as Dalas, the Crunchy Lutheran Mommy. Most of you also know that over the last several months our family has been on a journey to find the fullness of God’s gifts in the Orthodox Church. On December 31st our heart’s desire was fulfilled and our family was chrismated and welcomed home.

If you have followed us before, you might notice some name changes on our blog. When you are baptized or chrismated (anointed with the seal of the Holy Spirit), you receive a Christian name that reflects either a trait of Christ, a feast of Christ, or one of His Saints. I took the name Amelia after the sainted mother of Saint Basil the Great. From now on we will be blogging with our new names as a reminder of our identities in Christ.

When I knew I would need to change from my Lutheran blogging home, Iakobos (Jake’s Christian name, after James the brother of our Lord) and I decided to switch over to a family blog rather than just a personal one. This gives both of us an opportunity to share our hearts and experiences with all of you, and helps us grow closer together as we work on a mutual project.

No Longer Sola was born out of several deep desires of ours. First and foremost, we wanted to continue sharing our family with all of you who have followed us for so many years. I still have dedicated and dear readers, people who helped us bring our children home from Ukraine, who we are deeply indebted and grateful to. I did not want to stop blogging completely and deprive anyone of updates on our family and our sweet children who so many worked so hard for.

Secondly, we very much hoped that our beloved congregation, family and friends, would be given a way to continue processing and discussing our departure, as many questions were left unanswered. We did not feel comfortable leaving it at that, and we hope that those who are still seeking closure will be blessed by the dialogue we share here. We don't intend to make this a forum for convincing people of anything. Our goal is to, in some small way, continue to be in community with those we love, and those who God might happen to bring our way.

And finally, we really wanted to have a place that brought together all the resources that we have found useful over the last eight years of our married life. From faith to adoption to homeschooling to my crazy crunchy side, there is a lot that we have found beneficial in our own lives, and this blog not only gives us a nifty way to organize all of those resources – but we can put them here for anyone who might benefit from them as well.

So what does No Longer Sola mean? No Longer Sola has a great depth of meaning for our family, and we will have a blog series that goes into much more detail. For those who are unfamiliar with the term “Sola” it is Latin for “Alone”. The Solas of the Reformation are points of doctrine that characterize much of Lutheran and Protestant theology. As a family we no longer adhere to these Solas, and so “No Longer Sola” was one way to describe that.

More than that though, we have found that, as members of the Church, we have been given the fullness of relationship that we could not access in Lutheranism. In many ways we now feel that we are no longer alone on our spiritual journey. Yes, we had an amazing church family, but the Lutheran/Protestant theology turns salvation into an individualistic event or pursuit; it is difficult to be the Body of Christ. In Orthodoxy we have discovered that we are saved in community. We aren't alone in our struggle.

To our loved ones, we hope you will continue on with us as fellow travelers, even though our circumstances have changed, we will always be brothers and sisters in Christ and we are all walking the same narrow path that our dear Lord has called us to walk.

And if you are new… Welcome to our crazy life, and we would love for you to join us on our journey as well.