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Ambassadors Report

Redeemer Ambassadors Visit EPIC

The Redeemer Ambassadors went out today for the first time in a while.

The job of being an Ambassador in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is discouraging. We visited 80 churches—half of the congregations in Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod. We found that half the churches in SEPA—if they care at all about their denomination’s behavior in East Falls—are unable to influence their leaders. No reason to believe the other half will be any different.

So today we went to the church in our neighborhood that for several years has met in the movie theater just across the Wissahickon Creek on the edge of Manayunk—about 100 yards from East Falls.

Two of our ambassadors had visited EPIC before. This was my first visit.

EPIC has three Philadelphia campuses—Roxborough, Manayunk, and Center City. They are opening a church in Denver.

EPIC is everything the 80 churches we visited in the ELCA are not.

The theater was packed for both services 9 am and 10:15 am. There were probably upwards of 500 in attendance.

The congregation was demographically mixed—something Lutherans talk about but have not been able to achieve except in a few small congregations (like Redeemer). There were a number of wheelchairs, some older folks, lots of 20s to 40s, lots of children and babies. All races were represented in more equal numbers than we see in our own denomination—although still mostly white—appropriately representative of the neighborhood.

The service was heavy on music and the Word. Short on prayer, scripture, and liturgy—remembering that liturgy is structured as a conversation with God.

There were no robes or religious imagery. No cross. No church bulletin. No art. The videos played during worship were city scenes.

There was a very cute video sequence of children (7-9ish) telling us what they’d like to be when they grow up. It ended with the encouraging message that they can be anything they like and wouldn’t it be nice if they knew the Lord on their journey.

Following some opening music the congregation was asked to “high five” the people near them and tell them. “It’s good to see you in church” — easier for us to take than the passing of the peace, since the people passing us peace for the last six years have been trying to take our property and destroy our Christian community.

People stood for everything but the sermon—like a concert venue. One reason is the use of projection. If the first row stands, everyone must stand if they want to see. (Never a problem for Lutherans since we all sit in the back!)

A five-piece band led the music and all were invited to sing, but the band was loud enough that there was no way to know if anyone was participating outside of standing there. God knows, I guess. In fact, the congregation — at least in worship — were spectators.

Coffee, juice, bagels and donuts were made available as people entered the theater (sanctuary).

Last week the combined attendance of the three Philadelphia EPIC churches (called campuses) was more than 1400. It would take about 30 ELCA city churches to reach that level of effectiveness.

The opening video professes the power of the individual in relationship with God. And they are on to something with this.

We at Redeemer have spent years hearing church hierarchy tell us what we can’t do. SEPA leaders (in self-interest) have strayed from Lutheran teaching. Our denomination is hurting for it. Lay people who insist that “yes, we think we can do this” end up being made very unwelcome indeed. It is a shame because Martin Luther, our namesake leader, was huge on empowering individuals.

EPIC’s sermon was from the Old Testament—Moses and the Burning Bush. It was the second in a series of sermons entitled “Selfies”—God in relationship with his people as individuals.

There was no announcement made to silence cellphones for worship.

The congregation was actually encouraged to pull out their cell phones. We didn’t hear a single cell phone ring.

The speaker talked about how last week they had all used their smart phones to take selfies, kicking off the sermon series. Today, worshipers were encouraged to turn their cell phone cameras on themselves and look at their own image. The pastor then went on to talk about our ability to find fault with ourselves. The pastor read the story of Moses and the burning bush—how Moses found one fault after another that would keep him from serving God.

Outside of a reference to Psalm 46, (God is our refuge and strength) this was the only scripture read. No epistle. No gospel.

The same sermon was delivered at the same time in all three EPIC venues via video feed. 2×2 has been writing for a while that the expense of 160 pastors each writing a sermon for 160 separate congregations with an average attendance of 50 is ineffective use of resources and is putting many a congregation out of business.

The message was no less moving because the speaker was two miles up the road.

Before the offering was taken, the pastor gave a specific wish list for the ministry.

  • Air conditioning for the Roxborough campus. $40,000 (Interesting that all the “campuses” were asked to help with a need of one of the campuses—something you don’t see in the “interdependent” Lutheran structure. All our congregations seem to be competing for the same resources.)
  • New sound equipment.
  • $10,000 for a grand Easter Egg Hunt for 5000 participants.
  • Help for new churches.

The wish list totaled about $100,000!

They used plastic pails for offering plates. And they were filled.

Time was spent early in the service, explaining the EPIC mission via video. Participants were walked through the process of filling out interest cards to be placed in the offering plate. There were many greeters, hosts, ushers, band members, sound team, etc. involved in the morning service and their web shows that a number of people sponsor Bible studies during the week. Assistance in paying babysitters is offered to those who’d like to attend.

The interest cards were revisited as the offering buckets were passed.

The pledge card asks what your next faith step will be. I wrote—”writing about EPIC on 2x2virtualchurch.com.

I have kept my pledge.

We hope we can become strategic partners as we move our ministry forward.

23 Mar 2014

Social Media: Will the Church EVER Catch On?

2×2 has been experimenting with Social Media as a ministry tool for nearly three years.
During this time, Social Media made significant strides in gaining stature in every walk of life. When we started our experiment, many in the business world and nonprofit worlds were still not sold on doing more than hosting a barebones website as their nod to the modern world.

It’s safe to say at this point that every business or service sector is now ready to admit that Social Media is here to stay and that smart operators are investing in their web presence beyond their static website. It’s all but universal. A major holdout is — you guessed it — the Church.

The Church remains outside looking in, unable to fit the new way of doing things into their outdated structure.

Here is the status of the congregations and social media in our experience.

2×2 is a project of Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America claimed our land and decided four years ago that they are better stewards of our resources. While the property provided for mission by the Lutherans of East Falls remains idle and locked to all mission, the people of Redeemer have continued their innovative ministry with visits to other churches and experimentation with Social Media.

This is what we’ve seen in our 76 church visits to half the churches in our synod. (Some churches we visited house two ministries.)

About 90% of the Lutheran churches in our area have some sort of website. It is amazing that there are still ANY churches that have NO web presence. It gets easier every day and costs less than $50 per year.

In today’s world, a congregation’s failure to provide basic information online is advertising that they are not invested in evangelism. Failure to have a website is akin to a hospital staff “calling a code.”

Of the 90% that have websites, there are less than 5% using their site for more than a brochure about their church—the ALL ABOUT US approach to Evangelism. There is practically no inbound content—content that would attract seekers and is designed to be helpful to OTHERS as opposed to tooting the congregation’s horn. It is commendable that people in their neighborhoods can look up worship times and see who the pastor and staff are, but they are missing the true value of having a website—evangelism.

A few pastors have attempted blogs. Most quit after a few posts. The pastor at St. Andrew’s, Audubon, is one of the few pastors who seems to be ready to lead the church in using the web as an education and evangelism tool. One church, St. Michael’s in Unionville, invested in a modern web presence but opted to outsource the development of content—so it has a generic feel to it. It would probably be worth the investment of having a dedicated social media leader on staff to get full benefit of their investment. Trinity, Lansdale, hired a part-time communications director. That’s a step in the right direction.

A few churches actively use Facebook to create community. Most tend to use their Facebook page as a bulletin board.

Practically no churches use Twitter. Twitter has a great track record of “finding” people. This is a tool that is greatly misunderstood but which could very much benefit ministry.

SEPA Synod is trying to use Facebook but they haven’t been getting much traction. Interestingly they posted an article yesterday.

It starts:
Friday Food for Thought: What does an institution due [sic] faced with red ink and a dwindling, aging audience? Keep true to its core while driving innovation, embracing the possibilities of technology and reaching out to new audiences.

They pose this question and then point readers to a video clip from CBS’s 60 Minutes about the Metropolitan Opera’s solution to a similar challenge.

We know very well SEPA’s solution to their own question. They ignore congregation’s that innovate, sue their members and claim their land for their own enrichment.

It’s interesting, however, to see that they recognize innovation outside of their own sphere.

The challenge to virtually every congregation is in recognizing that Social Media has value requiring expertise that should be compensated. Frankly, Social Media will go farther to reviving ministry than even the best organists/music directors, education directors or even (dare we say it) clergy, in many cases.

Every month that goes by without any attempt to move all congregations in this direction is time spent talking about innovation and doing nothing to make it happen.

This is probably why innovation is so slow. In business, success depends on innovation and reaching people. Even CEO’s that are resistant to change can look at the numbers and make decisions that will keep their organizations viable.

In the Church, however, clergy play a leadership role that can go on for many years while the statistics of their ministry fail, without any pressure to change—until it is too late and the congregation can no longer pay clergy salaries. Then the congregations are seen as the failures. The clergy move on to somewhere they can continue doing things the same way until the money runs out again. When that gets too frustrating, they sign up for interim training.

Most clergy have no training in media. Failure to have these skills today is like not being able to read! Any church that calls a pastor who cannot use modern tools and is resistant to anyone else using this is doomed to status quo or failure.

Unfortunately, the role of Social Media director of communications director is likely to be seen as competitive with the role of clergy. So nothing will change.

Then there is Redeemer’s ministry—which SEPA was united in working for the last seven years to destroy. Redeemer stands alone in having made the investment in true innovation. Our work has positioned our congregation to truly lead in creating a platform and funding source for small congregational ministry.

We discovered that using Social Media IS transforming. It is not an optional “add on” but will shape your community and your potential. Church will be different. Ministry will be different. It is likely that the differences will be what the doctor ordered a long time ago!

We could help SEPA congregations join in our success to the benefit of all. But that would require that SEPA recognize Redeemer. Heaven forbid!

More’s the pity!

Related posts:

14 Reasons Congregations Should Avoid Social Media Ministry

9 Reasons Every Congregation Should Have A Social Media Committee

 

 

02 Nov 2013

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.

27 Oct 2013

The Power of Visiting

When did the Church become afraid of the door?Visiting Is A Lost Art in the Church

Redeemer adopted a project that is surely unique in Christianity. It is unique because we are unique.

We are denied access to our church home, so we go visiting. We visit a different church about three times a month. We call ourselves the Redeemer Ambassadors.

We made our first visit in August of 2010 — about a year after we were first locked out of our church building by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The idea was sparked after one of our home church worship services. One of our members commented, “I don’t understand why they want a church without us in it.”

The group response was “Good question. Let’s find out.”

Here we are in 2013. We have visited 75 of our neighboring churches—all of whom, it is safe to say—like the idea of taking one church’s property to pay for their debt. At least that’s how they voted. And they voted without bothering to visit us!

We didn’t know quite what we were getting into. We laid some basic ground rules.

Our mission: “to worship, learn, and share.” We would share during our visits only if we were invited. Few do.

At first we wrote letters to congregations. Now we just write about our visits online.

We have a unique vantage point in the ELCA. We’ve seen common problems. We see occasional attempts to solve problems. We can see what is working and what is not. Our view has its limitations to be sure, but it is broader by far than other congregations’ views.

Waiting for Visitors vs Outreach

The typical approach to evangelism is to entice people to visit us. That’s not really working very well.

Redeemer was a church with a high rate of visitation and we were doing a pretty good job of following up as well, relying (like most churches) on our pastor to do the legwork. We experienced moderate success. But our pulpit was somewhat of a revolving door. (SEPA was waiting for us to die and was not helping to fill our pulpit). Often people joined for relationship with the pastor more than with the congregation. They disappeared when the pastor disappeared.

We began to grow in a more solid way when our members started visiting within their network of friends. We had no pastor at the time, although two pastors were helping us and were interested in a call to our congregation. This was remarkably effective. 52 members in about 18 months. Enough to alarm synod that they were losing the “waiting for them to die” game. Better act fast!

Add this to our three years of church visits and we know something about the power of visitation.

We can place our experiences side by side and see trends. Sometimes we see opportunities that remain untapped staring congregations in the face. Sometimes we can see why.

There is great potential for sharing and ministry in visitation.

This is probably true on the parish level, too. Yet neighborhood visiting is almost a lost art. We don’t even bother. We cite demographics as a code word for “why bother trying.”

People who are not just like us are not worth the effort? Really! Have we so little faith in our message!

Finding a way to visit with people is key to church growth. It may no longer be a simple matter of knocking on doors, but it does involve putting ourselves out into our communities so that we can interact. Waiting for people to visit us is death row. (click to tweet)

Visiting Is Powerful

So powerful it can be seen as a threat!

For our third visit, we chose one of the churches closest to our own. If any of us had been inclined to transfer membership, it might have been to this church—at least that was the chatter among our ambassadors at the time.

The pastor of this church reported our visit to the bishop. The bishop became alarmed and issued a letter of warning to all pastors. It advised congregations to greet us with Christian love—as if they needed instruction! It included a contact phone number in case we caused trouble. How inviting! How paranoid!

Ironically, this is the only Lutheran Church in a 4×1-mile stretch of Philadelphia. Our members live within about a mile and a half of this church. One of our members has lived for 25 years just a few blocks away. None has ever been visited by this church. Yet our visit to them was seen as a threat.

It is not likely that this church will survive to call another pastor when their current pastor retires. Another lost mission opportunity.

There is just one question a church visitor should ask. We’ll cover that in our next post.

(By the way, we haven’t visited a single church that we would vote to close and relieve of their property—even though many of them seem to be no stronger in numbers than Redeemer.)

photo credit: Kevin Conor Keller via photopin cc

18 Oct 2013

Ambassadors Visit Trinity, Norristown

trintynorristownTrinity Lutheran Church, Norristown

Three Ambassadors set out today for our 75th visit to a member church in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod  (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Today we chose Trinity, Norristown. The address puzzles us. We traveled through Norristown, Norriton and Jeffersonville and a bit into the country, but still the address is Norristown. We have already visited Grace, which really is in Norristown and there is another church listed as in Norristown also, but they seem to have let their internet url run out!

Our first step in visiting churches is to study their website. Trinity’s website is well-designed, but like most church websites, it is all about them, missing out on the power of the web to evangelize.

We arrived early and waited in the parking lot for about 20 minutes. We planned to attend the 11 am service. There had been an early service with education and fellowship sandwiched in between, so the parking lot was well-populated. We passed through doors flanked by American flags. This made one of our ambassadors very happy.

Trinity, Norristown, supports three pastors. The husband and wife team of  Rev. Kim Guiser and the Rev. Dr. Asha M. George-Guiser, and newly called associate pastor, Rev. Althea Tysk.

We were greeted upon entry by Rev. Kim Guiser who explained that we would be attending a contemporary service. We entered a surprisingly small sanctuary for the size of the property. The church is set far back from the road. They have plenty of land to build and in fact are planning a capital campaign toward that end.

The TREND REPORT for his parish has not been updated in four years and for several years before that, so it is difficult to decipher trends. Their average attendance is listed as 252 but in this second service there were about 70.

The only thing contemporary about the service was the music, which was elaborately staged with a ten-member choir, piano, percussion, violin and two guitars. The production seemed to be enjoyed by most, but it was rather a shock to our sense of worship. Redeemer is every bit as contemporary but more contemplative with silence built in. There was no quiet in this service! Singing was uninviting since the band and choir were amplified beyond the ability of an individual’s voice to be heard. But the musicians worked very hard throughout the service and were well-rehearsed, seamlessly bridging every divide in the service.

The bulletin was sparse with reliance on projection for the order of the day. This is not uncommon. We used projection a bit in our church but mostly to showcase religious art and poetry before the service. There is something strange about looking up and to the left or right during prayers. The focal point of worship definitely changes. But you don’t spend a fortune on paper!

The finest moment in the service was an enthusiastic announcement made by a  boy who was pumped to speak about an upcoming bell choir concert. Ryan was so comfortable in his message that when the pastor tried to explain what the boy had already ably explained, the boy took the microphone from the pastor and finished his message himself. Get ready, folks! This is the church of the future!

Outside of music, the service was as old-fashioned as can be and high church. The language used was Roman—Mass, Homily, Eucharist as opposed to Service, Sermon and Communion. The distribution of elements in communion was done the old Catholic way—not allowing recipients to touch the host. The historic reason for this is that the people were not trusted to touch the host.

The gestures of Catholicism were also prevalent—crossing, bowing and a tight decorum among the altar servers.

They did not follow the lectionary that both the Catholic and Lutherans follow. The lesson for this week was Jesus and the Ten Lepers. They read Luke 4, traditionally read the First Sunday in Lent. It is the story of the Temptation and the story of Philip and the Eunuch. Our pastor, who was with us, thought the verses chosen to be odd. He was following in his Bible. They used no Old Testament Lesson or Psalm.

Pastor Asha George-Guiser spoke about the “blasting of barriers.” She referenced her own marriage as an Indian Christian married to a white, Chester County farmboy from a non-religious family and the difficulty she experienced marrying outside her family’s customs. She encouraged the “blasting” of barriers of prejudice.

Once again, we see the disconnect in the thinking of clergy. The clergy of SEPA Synod, in which the Guisers are quite active, have condoned the creation of barriers in our neighborhood. These barriers were built on impermeable foundations of prejudice fueled by greed. They locked the Christians of East Falls out of their property and made our ministry and lives very difficult and painful. The actions were self-serving, hateful, and hurtful. Four years of pretending otherwise have not lessened this. But SEPA clergy preach about justice and doing right—while remaining hopelessly mired in injustice.

To Pastor Kim Guiser’s credit, we were introduced at the end of the service and he did not stumble over our name, something Bishop Burkat and several other pastors we have encountered have been unable to do! We were from Redeemer-East Falls. See, it’s not so hard. We do exist!

After worship a former Redeemer member approached one of our Ambassadors. He is the son of former church leaders and son-in-law of one of the matriarchs of our church. He was totally unaware of what was going on in his hometown. Our Ambassador pointed him to our website. I couldn’t help but remember how his mother-in-law, Betty Little, was always able to negotiate peace when there were disagreements within the church. SEPA could use her skills!

Trinity has a thriving preschool (as Redeemer would like to have and is fully prepared to open, if SEPA ever rightfully returns our property and restores our ministry).

Trinity is intentionally trying to develop the skills and volunteer service of members. They are having a service sign-up event in a week or so. They seem to be concentrating on a book, Outlive Your Life, which was referenced several times in worship. This may be the reason for the departure from the lectionary.

We wonder, is there is an opening for a muralist, two retired pastors, an architect, a finance expert, a hospitality expert and a communications expert with credentials in education leadership, and a blog coordinator? (Redeemer’s Ambassadors—all locked out of the ELCA).

13 Oct 2013

Ambassadors Visit Saints United, NE Philadelphia

We’ve had a tough week with the loss of one of our ambassadors this week, but we decided the best thing for us was to be together this morning and get back in the saddle.

The list of churches we haven’t visited is getting shorter. Today was our 74th visit. We were back in the Northeast part of the city again.

Saints United is another church in transition. Sometimes it seems like they are ALL in transition. Today they were saying goodbye to their nine-month interim pastor, Rev. Dr. Laurie Andersen. I think we saw her last fall at St. John, Mayfair, too. She gets around.

There were between 40 and 50 people present for worship. There were about six children. All but one small girl seemed to be of grade school age. They were all engaged in worship. For the most part, younger children, youth and young adults were absent. The general demographics, like most churches, is older.

The children were dismissed for Sunday School but returned for communion which allowed barely a half hour for instruction.

They greeted us warmly, although we didn’t talk to many. We are somewhat in shock, still grieving, and not feeling very talkative. But they were quite welcoming and invited us to stay for refreshments.

Today’s service centered on saying goodbye to two people, Rev. Dr. Andersen and their church organist, Judith Lovat, who recently resigned. They look forward to a period of substitute pastors and organists, beginning with one of Redeemer’s former pastors, Jesse Brown, who will preach in October.

The service differed from other services we have attended in a fifth Sunday of the month custom of augmenting communion with optional “stations.” Worshipers could stay at the rail for prayer, visit the baptismal font for prayer or walk to the back of the church and light a candle with prayer.

saintsunitedThe sanctuary is long and narrow but they had an adequate sound system. They had artistic reliefs on the wall. On another day I might have taken photos. But we aren’t ourselves at the moment. The only photo I took was the photo of our first impression—a large and imposing fence around their educational wing.

One of our ambassadors has some familiarity with the congregation and told us that they came from a Missouri Synod Lutheran background and once had a school there serving grades 1-8. The school has been closed for a while, he said. We hope they consider reopening, especially since it could help their financial picture (if not their mission).

They have a Kids Club, but I couldn’t find out too much about it. The website has some pictures but no explanation that I found.

Like many church web sites, Saints United uses its website primarily to communicate with  members. They will discover that a website’s worth is in communicating with nonmembers. Little Redeemer, deemed too small to be worth our own property, has 1000 visitors every week to our website. We’re betting we reach more people in mission than any other SEPA congregation.

One thing that struck me was the generality of prayer. Perhaps this was especially noticeable as we have been in touch all week with the Christian Church in Pakistan. Last Sunday, a congregation was attacked by terrorists. A suicide bomber struck during worship. 85 worshipers were killed including 17 children. 156 were seriously injured. They commented to us that they feel the western church doesn’t care about them. I suspect they are correct. That’s because we are unaware. A tragedy like this should be mentioned in worship. We, as small as we are, are collecting money to send to help with ongoing medical expenses of members. We looked to see if there was an ELCA companion synod we could piggyback. Pakistan is not on the ELCA’s Companion Synod map.

Well, we’ll make them OUR Companion Church. We’ve been online friends in ministry for nearly two years. If you’d like to contribute to our effort, here are the addresses.

Right now, Pakistani Christians are living in fear, but we are sure they will soon surface. They went through something similar earlier this year when a video ridiculing Islam went viral. A Lutheran church burned during that uprising. The only way we know is our Pakistani friends told us.

Imagine what the response might be if one of our churches here in Philadelphia had been blown up during worship—or in Alabama—or any of our United States.  The casualties would be lower as there are few churches with 250 in attendance. But the outrage would be real.

We wish the people of Saints United well. As always we hope that they might consider helping Redeemer be as great a church as they are. All the churches of SEPA Synod are responsible for what is happening in our neighborhood—whether they know it or not. They can turn things around if they speak up.

29 Sep 2013

Ambassadors Visit Spirit and Truth, Yeadon

Spirit and Truth Lutheran ChurchA New Experience for the Ambassadors

Today, was our 73rd visit to a congregation of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Redeemer’s Ambassadors never know what to expect when we set out on our Sunday morning adventures.

We visited Worship in Spirit and Truth Lutheran Church or Worship Center (we’ve seen it listed both ways) in Yeadon (just outside of West Philadelphia). We found the doors were open, but the sanctuary was empty.

We had checked the web site before setting out. The service was listed for 10 am. We had run into a detour and were afraid that we were a little late. In fact, we were only two minutes late.

We could hear a praise band practicing and one of our ambassadors caught a glimpse of three musicians, but otherwise there was not a soul in sight.

We looked around the narthex for a few minutes. The sign on the narthex wall said WORSHIP 10 am. The Ambassadors took a quick vote and decided not to hang around waiting for the unknown. We were concerned that another ambassador was planning to come independently, but since he is never late, we soon set out. This morning would be a Fellowship Sunday.

On our way to the parking lot, we passed the pastor and his wife (at least they seemed to match photos from the web site). They were just arriving. We said hello. But there was no turning the Ambassadors around at this point. It was clear that worship was not going to begin anywhere near on time, and we are a restless bunch.

Last week, when we visited Redemption in NE Philadelphia, there had been an announced change in worship time that wasn’t on the web. We waited an hour for the service to begin, but we waited with other people. The pastor talked with us for a while and explained why there was a mix-up. This morning we had no idea what was going on.

We retired to our favorite local diner and discussed the gospel lesson of the lost sheep.

We were disappointed.

Spirit and Truth’s ministry interested us because their story was told to us when SEPA was trying to find a less messy way to acquire our property five or six years ago. We wanted to see their ministry for ourselves.

This is what we did in Yeadon, they said. The existing church (Trinity) had only a few old ladies left as members, they explained. The old ladies voted to close. We had a grand closing service to provide them closure. Then we reopened the church under a new name a few weeks later with new management—synod. They called the church a mission development church. Rev. Patricia Davenport (who was part of the Redeemer fiasco) canvassed the neighborhood for four or five years. SEPA rechartered the church in 2005 with 179 charter members. But the new charter would forever list the church as a church with mission roots (which we are guessing Trinity didn’t have). This is a bigger deal than it may seem. Read on.

For this strategy to work, it was explained, all memory and ties to the past must be severed. They make it sound likes this is to aid mission. It’s not. It’s about legally acquiring certain congregational property rights.

Spirit and Truth’s web site history begins: In 2000, the Trinity Lutheran Church of Yeadon, PA closed. That’s all folks. Trinity is history. Spirit and Truth rose from its ashes. The saints of Trinity would soon be forgotten.

This was the new flagship strategy of Bishop Burkat when she took office in 2006. Redeemer was to be the first of six churches to benefit from her innovative leadership—or so their lawyer stated in court.

This is why Spirit and Truth is sometimes called a Church and sometimes called a Worship Center.. Worship Centers are synod-controlled. Churches have rights. Unfortunately, those rights have been watered down (with muddy water) in recent years.

SEPA presented their sanitized intentions to the courts in 2009. They left out the part where they tipped their hand by trying to sell our property behind our backs in 2008.

Their plan included a stipulation that was not acceptable to Redeemer. None of the existing members could play a leadership role in the Church of the New Name. We could do no more than attend. We found no constitutional basis for disempowering local leadership and no reason to go this route as we had plenty of existing and developing lay leadership. The proposal was, in our view, a way of gaining control of our property by getting influential church members out of the way and scaring marginal members and pastors into submission.

There are three problems with this strategy.

Problem 1

There is no evidence that the strategy works. While Spirit and Truth grew for a few years under Rev. Patricia Davenport’s leadership, it has been in significant decline since she left in November 2007. Within three years of her departure their average attendance was less than half what it was in 2008 (and statistics were not reported in two of those years). Their statistics had dropped below their charter membership just a few years before. It was during these years that the great Yeadon experiment was starting to fail that Pastor Davenport and Bishop Burkat were trying to take Redeemer down the same road.

If leadership is dependent on clergy, then consistent leadership seems to be pivotal to success. There are no guarantees in today’s church that mission-capable pastors are going to be available long-term. Therefore, relying on clergy to be the sole provider of mission leadership is foolish.

Spirit and Truth’s ELCA Trend Report has current membership at 136 with average attendance of 35, but if you add up the itemized membership column, the membership comes out to only 70—about 12% smaller than Redeemer. Redeemer’s cash and property assets were more than four times theirs. Yet they got to vote on our property. We didn’t.

Thirteen years have passed since SEPA tested this new strategy.

Looks like Redeemer was smart to be wary.

Problem 2

Redeemer was not anything like Trinity in Yeadon, the predecessor of Spirit and Truth. Their members agreed to the arrangement. We were given no choice.

Our membership was statistically young. Only three or four of our 82 members were over 70 (just over). While Bishop Almquist waited six years (2000-2006) for our older members to die, we had actually become a young church. In 2007 the new members led a membership drive which resulted in 49 new members. Most of our newer members were young families and with a good percentage of young unmarried people and young couples from a wide variety of backgrounds joining. We were growing quickly. No reason to act like we were failing when we weren’t.

We didn’t need a new entity with a new name and Synod-approved leaders. Synod did.

Problem 3

Many churches don’t realize this:

If you allow your congregation to be listed as a mission development church, you lose important constitutional rights.

  • The Synod gains rights to the property and disbursement of assets if you vote to close.
  • The congregation loses the right to withdraw from the Synod to join another Lutheran body with their property. EVER—even 100 years from now.

The Synod wants churches to have mission status—even for a short length of time—to constitutionally secure the property for their future enrichment.

This strategy puts the control of assets in their hands. It also puts success or failure in their hands—since they now control all aspects of ministry. That’s why SEPA needs knowledgeable lay people out of the way. That’s why Trinity, Yeadon, was encouraged to close and deed the property to Synod before new outreach began. SEPA needs old churches to close to gain rights to property. It has nothing to do with mission effectiveness being hindered by previous ministry or history. It’s about creating new entities to secure property ownership under mission status. All those new church members in Yeadon may not know that they no longer have the rights the old members in Yeadon had.

Very sneaky, indeed.

We can only wonder why the current residents of Yeadon are considered less able to run their own church than the previous demographic of Yeadon. Redeemer was dealing with a new demographic too. Our members, mostly from well-educated professionals from East Africa, were viewed as unable to manage their own affairs without synod’s help.

And all of this is why SEPA’s dealings with Redeemer have been secretive, underhanded, vindictive beyond reason and litigious. They don’t want people to really know what’s behind their “mission” strategies.

Redeemer has members well-versed in the church constitutions. We knew it was not in our ministry’s interest to give up our rights as Lutherans. SEPA was the only beneficiary of the plan.

SEPA would have to find another way to take possession of our property—and they did. But it has been an ugly unChristlike LOSE-LOSE situation. It is an embarrassment to our denomination.

The Ambassadors didn’t attend a worship service today. We don’t know what went awry.

One thing we know:

Redeemer leaders were always ready for worship at the appointed time.

We had visitors almost every week.

First impressions count.

15 Sep 2013

Ambassadors Visit Redemption, NE Philadelphia

RedemptionRedemption is Small But Big in Mission

Four Redeemer Ambassadors visited this neighborhood congregation on Bustleton Ave. in NE Philadelphia. This was our 72nd visit to our sister SEPA congregations.

The congregation is in what the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod calls “transition.” Their pastor of 17 years recently retired and they will be seeking a new pastor. SEPA requires congregations to go through a transition process before the search for a new pastor begins.

This congregation will not have one synod-assigned leader during this time. They will have two. Rev. Christian McMullen will lead the transition process. He explained that he will be visiting with the congregation at least once a month. The bridge pastor will be Rev. Ghislaine Cotnoir.

Two interims for a big job?

Probably not such a big job. The Ambassadors have never encountered a friendlier congregation or a more self-confident congregation. We were approached personally by at least a third of the 50-60 people present for worship. Each seemed to be comfortable as a member and church leader. During the service, when Pastor McMullen asked questions, many shouted out answers. There seems to be adequate lay leadership ready and willing to do the work of the church.

redemptionpaintingThey confidently refer to their lay leaders by title. One man introduced himself as Deacon John. Their newsletter identified several others by the title deacon. This is a common custom in nonLutheran denominations but rarely used in the ELCA.

They already seem to have a bead on who they are and what their ministry is all about. They are active participants, along with a Presbyterian congregation (who use the term deacon), in an after-school program called Turning Points. Youth (grades 6-12) can come to do homework or take classes in the arts or take part in social activities. They also have a pre-school.

Our pastor had supplied their pulpit twice in the last month and he told us he was impressed with their prayer ministry. He described it as specific, intentional and intensive. (We come from a strong prayer tradition, too.)

There were a couple of children and a few youth present for worship. All seemed comfortable with one another and with us as visitors.

Pastor McMullen changed the day’s scriptures from “take up your cross” to “I am the vine and you are branches.” He concentrated on the pruning metaphor. Seems to be popular as it was preached at the Churchwide Assembly in August, too. The church needs a little less sharpening of the pruning shears and a little more fertilizer!

He is not the first pastor we have heard talk about the transition process. Alarming congregations about “vulnerability” during transition seems to be part of the spiel. I lost track of the number of times the word was used in worship at their neighboring church, St. John’s. But the region has lost two churches in recent years, Calvary and Holy Spirit, so they are probably well aware of vulnerability.

He talked about his own experience in a synod that did not have interim pastors and the difficulty of dealing with “baggage.”

One of our Ambassadors was a career pastor. He was called to a small-town parish that was divided bitterly over a relocation question. He did not follow any interim. He walked into the fray. He spent the first few months visiting with every family in the church, making sure every voice was heard. He helped them build the new church and went on to serve about 30 years. No one did this for him. He earned the respect of the neighborhood by doing it himself. Good pastoral skills make dealing with baggage a lot easier. Today that parish, a small neighborhood church in 1965, is one of the largest and most influential churches in their region, supporting at least two pastors. No interim hand-holding. Just solid, unselfish, love-directed ministry.

We found Pastor McMullen’s explanation of the five-step transition process to be interesting. There was no such process between Redeemer and SEPA. No exploration of our past. No discussion of vision. No attempt at reconnecting with the greater church. SEPA used force and trickery from the get-go in achieving their goal in East Falls. The goal was to acquire our property and endowment funds. Getting rid of the owners was the tactic.

I had to laugh when Pastor McMullen advised the congregation to be honest with the synod. He said he had heard horror stories about the transition process when the congregations were not honest with the synod. I pointed out to him after worship that SEPA was anything but honest with us and that false impressions run rampant when pastors speak only to other pastors about the congregations they serve. There are always two sides. We have horror stories in abundance! (Not just our own.)

Pastor McMullen also talked about the importance of reconciliation. This is a concept no one in SEPA Synod seems to care about in their treatment of our congregation. They just want us gone!

I pointed him to our Ambassadors story in parable form. Undercover Bishop describes the transition process from the lay point of view.

But Pastor McMullen promises to be encouraging and supportive of the people of Redemption. We wish them all the best. We visited Immanuel, Norwood, just a few weeks ago, where he had served his first interim ministry about six years ago. They seem to be doing fine.

Redemption lacks a web site, which seems to be a frustration for some. We offered to help.

Today was the ELCA’s Day of Service to celebrate 25 years as the ELCA. We did not stay for their social and service project. They were doing some clean-up and some delivering of fliers in the neighborhood.

We enjoyed our visit with Redemption. Good work!

08 Sep 2013

Ambassadors Visit St. Paul’s, Doylestown

The Redeemer Legacy Lives in Doylestown

The Ambassadors were an imposing force at St. Paul’s today. There were the usual number of us but we were surrounded by family and friends.

Many of the Leach family, a charter family of Redeemer, were gathered to share memories of a loved one. They have been active at St. Paul’s for decades.

The Redeemer legacy has contributed to at least two of the largest congregations in SEPA Synod. We gathered at Trinity, Lansdale, earlier this year.

Published statistics have St. Paul’s membership at about 1700 with average attendance of 400. For the last ten years the statistics have held their own. An occasional slight rise or fall. That is an accomplishment, considering the average rate of decline in many churches—large and small.

St. Paul’s has two pastors, The Rev. Carl Linders, who has preached there since 1977. Today, a young pastor, Thomas Rusert, conducted the service.

In planning the funeral, one of the pastors questioned whether there would be enough people to carry the singing of the family’s choice of hymns, which varied from those suggested. They don’t know the Speakman/Leach tradition of singing! Voices filled the sanctuary as if there were several hundred and not just 100 or so. Some of that tradition comes from having roots in Redeemer. We continue to share this strength of our congregation in our Ambassador visits.

Tradition is carefully guarded at St. Paul’s. A soloist in the family (and there are many) wanted to sing The Lord’s Prayer, a family tradition. The family was told it can’t be sung during the service. We enjoyed it as a prelude.

The Ambassadors have joined in singing the Lord’s Prayer in several of our Ambassador visits. We often sang it during our services. So we wonder what the problem could be.

The family was also discouraged from speaking at the service. This had been one of the most moving and memorable parts of our last family funeral. Instead, we compiled a Memorial Booklet. There are always work-arounds when faced with rigidity. And sometimes they lead to something better!

The pastor wore a cassock and cotta, which is rarely seen these days.

A study of their website proves they are a consummate program church. I checked their long list of activities and wondered what some of them were. Relational Ministries seems to be smaller segments of the congregation with special interests. In other words—clubs. Large churches need small groups.

They have an active youth group. Some of our family—the ones with infants and toddlers in tow today— were once involved.

They are also proud of their many musical ensembles ranging from various choral groups to a brass ensemble and bell choir. Again, our family have been very involved musically at St. Paul’s.

We saw a page for downloadable forms. Ah, perhaps they’ll have a sample Membership Application Form! SEPA had accused us of contempt of court for not providing these records—all to make us look bad. We had never encountered Application Forms for Membership—and still haven’t, but a judge could easily believe that there should be such a thing.

Actually, there was only one form available for download—a youth participation permission form.

This was our 71st visit to a SEPA congregation. Perhaps we will return some Sunday morning.

24 Aug 2013

Ambassadors Visit Immanuel, Norwood

Immanuel, Norwood muralSmall Church Faces Demographic Change

Three Redeemer Ambassadors set out on a new adventure this Sunday morning. We hadn’t been in this area for a year or so. We never plan our trips before the prior Saturday afternoon, so it’s always a surprise to us.

Immanuel Lutheran Church, Norwood, Delaware County is celebrating 125 years. We told them they are just a bit older than we. We are in our 122nd year.

Redeemer is not closed. We are locked out of God’s house by SEPA Synod.

We read their Trend statistics and website thoroughly before our visit. This was very interesting to us. It is one of the many enigmas we encounter on our visits.

Redeemer was falsely represented to the Synod Assembly and in court as having only 13 members (they counted only our white members). Our situation in the courts, without any opportunity for us to witness otherwise, has been repeatedly termed “dire.” We were not operating with a deficit budget. Synod was!

Our true statistics laid beside Immanuel’s make us look rich indeed. We had an endowment three times theirs in 2009 and more than 15 times theirs in 1997. Legal fees dealing with the Synod in 1997 and 2008-2013 ate up a lot of our resources. The Synod has cost our community dearly and they aren’t finished with us yet, we suspect.

Immanuel’s membership and attendance are dropping at the same rate as most other churches. In contrast, Redeemer was growing. We accepted 52 members in the 18 months prior to Bishop Burkat’s interest in our assets. They didn’t count. “White Redeemer must be allowed to die. Black Redeemer . . . we can put them anywhere,” said Bishop Burkat to our stunned East African members—some of whom had been members for a decade. Some were born and baptized into our faith community. As one young lady commented at the time, “This synod is great on supporting Tanzanian ministry as long as we Tanzanians stay in Tanzania.”

A difference is that Immanuel has a pastor. SEPA strategy in dealing with Redeemer was to isolate us from the standard relationship of church/synod. Bishop Burkat chased two of our pastors. Bishop Almquist chased one and refused to help us find a replacement for six years.

In 2008, we had just presented a resolution to the bishop to call the pastor we had been working with successfully for seven months. After months of trying to reach the bishop to ask for an assignment without so much as a returned call, he suddenly was given an interim job in the northern frontier of the Synod. Redeemer continued to find our own leaders. One of them was with us this morning.

This was our Ambassador’s 70th visit. It amazes us that more than a third of the churches we visit are no stronger than we, but they still felt comfortable voting to take our property.

They are in the same boat. We’ll hand them an oar! We’ve been down the rapids that they are about to take!

We are very familiar with the challenges they face.

  • Astronomical utility bills. Immanuel is already soliciting contributions for an anticipated $10,000 winter heating bill. Ours was $8000 when we used the building daily and about $6000 when we heated the building only a couple of times a week.
  • Enormous insurance bills. These bills are crippling a lot of small churches— the price we pay for living in a litigious society (including church culture).
  • Changing demographics. We actually solved this problem!

They have a two-story educational building with a gym. We had one without the gym. It was a good source of ongoing revenue for us until SEPA Synod interfered. Redeemer was very much self-supporting.

I asked why they weren’t hosting a school. It seemed to be an obvious solution to their financial problems. The building, a member shared, isn’t handicapped accessible and they couldn’t open a school without that. They said it was just too costly to make it accessible.

If this is the only thing keeping a church from worthwhile programs that would contribute to their mission and ministry, one might think that all churches, through their hierarchical interdependence, would find a way to help older congregations solve this problem. Instead, our leaders wait for their older neighborhood churches to die so they can benefit from the spoils. They discourage the use of equity to solve problems. They offer no solutions. This relieves every church’s burden of supporting hierarchy and gives them a false sense of strength and prosperity. They sit smugly in their buildings, like spiders in their webs, waiting to assume the resources of older churches. Their buildings are up to code only because they were built more recently.

Redeemer’s school, by the way, was handicapped accessible. We were trying to renovate it to bring other things up to date, but the biggest expense in making it accessible had already been met. This is a resource to our church and community that has been squandered by SEPA.

Immanuel had just finished a week of Bible School and remnants of the busy week were still adorning the walls. About 45 children attended, the pastor said.

Yet, there were no children in church. There’s a challenge for them.

Redeemer, on the other hand, often had more children than adults in church. Many of our new members learned of our church through our six-week summer programs and day school.

The people were quite friendly. Many approached us for conversation. Even the pastor, The Rev. Gerald Faust, talked to us a little. (This is unusual!).

There were about 50 in church. They seemed to like to keep to a schedule. The organist announced that they would truncate the opening hymn, because the announcements were longer than usual.

Their Education Chair gave a talk about their various education opportunities which seemed to be extensive. They are preparing for their Fall Rally Day. We hope they can get some of those VBS families interested.

One of our Ambassadors was happy that they used the hymnal (LBW and WOV) and not the bulletin for worship. It’s his pet peeve. The hymns were all familiar. One was our Vacation Bible School hymn years ago and I still know it by heart. (Each year we memorized a different standard hymn.)

Singing was strong. A seven-member choir sang an offertory.

They sang the Lord’s Prayer at the appropriate time. It’s not the first time in our visits that the Lord’s Prayer was sung, but we have encountered a church where the pastor refused to allow the singing of the Lord’s Prayer during worship! Redeemer did this on special occasions. Maybe that’s what bugged the bishop! 😉

immanelnorwoodThe sermon was about division in the church in keeping with today’s lectionary. Sometimes we think the point of this passage gets lost. Division is to be expected. We are not asked by Jesus to lie down and let adversaries walk over us. Instead, we are encouraged to be prepared. Redeemer was prepared!

The most amazing thing about the sanctuary was not noticeable until we turned around to leave. There is a beautiful mural on the rear wall, painted by a woman and member, now deceased (see above). Their own Violet Oakley! (She painted murals on the walls of the Harrisburg state capitol and on church walls in our neighborhood.) Small churches are filled with talented and passionate people.

One of our Ambassadors is an architecture buff and commented on the older Sunday School area, now a fellowship area, at the rear of the church. This was common church architecture in the 1920s and was part of the Sunday School movement. Classes would meet in partitioned sections around the perimeter and the partitions would open for a closing ceremony. It’s a good concept, but the numbers in Sunday School rarely support it any more.

We wish this good-spirited congregation the very best as they celebrate their 125 years in September. We encourage them to find a way to open a school, so they can concentrate more on mission and less on heating and insurance bills. There has to be a way!

As we left the pastor asked us to sign the guest book. We did. We assured him we are loyal Lutherans.

18 Aug 2013