Ambassadors Visit St. Matthew, Chester Springs, PA

StMatthewChesterSpringsA Low-key Reformation Sunday

The bright, blue sky and fall colors of October lured us into the Pennsylvania countryside.

We took the highway to Chester County and then followed Conestoga Road through the rural suburbs of Philadelphia. We saw a sign for St. Matthew’s and pulled into the parking lot but realized it was a UCC Church. We found the Lutheran St. Matthew’s a sparse quarter-mile up the road with only a playing field separating the two St. Matthew’s. The parking lots of all three were full!

St. Matthew must have walked this very land with two namesake churches so close. Of course, we guessed correctly that the two churches have common roots as Union Churches. They separated as friends in 1833.

St. Matthew’s is proud of their agrarian heritage and continue many traditions based on the agrarian calendar with festivals to mark the planting and harvest seasons. Their description of the intermingled social life and church life describes Redeemer’s historic roots, too. Our people were/are mostly small business owners. Regardless, St. Matthew’s homegrown nature of their parish life mirrors ours!

The ELCA Trend Report shows the congregation holding its own since 2005 with 1200 members, give or take 100 or so, year to year. The average attendance is listed at around 250. There was a major increase in membership since the 1990s. Rare!

We were plenty early. We sat for a while in the parking lot and watched people coming and going as our pastor read aloud from Habakkuk. A good number of children were playing in a playground. There had been a 9 am service that featured “faith formation.” The children must have attended the early service as there were none at the 10:30 service. There were about 42 adults at the service we attended.

Their pastor, Rev. Tina Mackie, was installed as senior pastor this month. She had served as associate pastor since 2003. Her husband is the music director. He and a second musician added pleasantly to worship.

Rev. Mackie attended Eastern Baptist Seminary, spending a year with the Lutherans. She preached a barebones Reformation sermon. She referenced each of the four scripture readings and hit the basic high points of Lutheran thinking. Otherwise the service was unremarkable for the festival day that Lutherans so enjoy.

st. Matthew Chester SpringsSt. Matthew’s is looking for a new associate pastor. We found their web account of the call process very interesting. They rejected some names and asked the Synod for more names to consider. What a contrast!

In 2000, we were told we had to accept the one name presented with a very serious “or else” attached. In fact, Bishop Almquist tried to bypass the call committee. He demanded the congregation vote on the candidate, hoping the congregation would vote against the advice of the call committee. Fortunately, we never had to see how such divisive advice would play out. The congregational vote failed, too. Bishop Almquist kept his promise and refused to work with us to fill our pulpit for his entire second term. He told us we would die a natural death in ten years. Instead, we grew five fold by the time his term was over.

We enjoyed the opening Reformation hymn and the closing hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation,” although they left out two favorite verses. When you memorize hymns, you notice!

The credal “Elect from every nation” verse and the great cry of oppressed Christians, among whom we are numbered:

Though with a scornful wonder
we see her sore oppressed,
by schisms rent asunder,
by heresies distressed,
yet saints their watch are keeping;
their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
shall be the morn of song.

Redeemer is still crying, “How long?”!

St. Matthew’s use of projected worship aids was the best we’ve seen if a little slow at times. We learned that they were early innovators in this regard, using a stereopticon lantern with a curtain projection for evening worship in 1917, decades before other churches started using projectors.

As is common in larger churches, we came and went without engagement with any members.

St. Matthew’s has active involvement with Tanzanian missions and sent a mission party to Tanzania recently. The blogs of lay members, chronicling this trip, are included on the St. Matthew website.

We wonder if they realize that their synod exiled about 60 Tanzanian members from this very region in 2009 when they voted to take Redeemer’s property and lock Redeemer members out of their church and the whole ELCA. As one of our younger Tanzanian members commented, “The ELCA is great on Tanzanian mission . . . as long as we Tanzanians stay in Tanzania.”

Before the service, Rev. Mackie addressed the congregation about an ongoing discussion — Vision 2020. That’s not so far off!

She correctly outlined how historic church structure is no longer working. We write about this all the time! She noted that the Reformation of 1517 was made possible by the printing press. She noted that modern communication may spark another Reformation. She is correct. We are part of this new reformation—victims with the potential to seriously lead, given the opportunity!

She highlighted two challenges. 1.) Weekly Sunday worship discipline is difficult in a world that offers alternatives on Sunday morning. 2.) People no longer give offerings to churches for centralized disbursement. They tend to give directly to causes. This affects church operating costs.

Members were asked to fill out a questionnaire which focused on shaping the modern worship experience and how it might be reshaped for modern Christians and the survival of the church.

We can give this advice.

Don’t attempt to fund large church deficits and hierarchical mismanagement by taking endowment funds and property from small congregations.