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East Falls

2×2/Redeemer Reaches Around the World

relief12×2 Relief Boxes Reach Pakistan

The story of Redeemer, 2×2 and the Church in Pakistan is remarkable.

Church leaders told us we were too small to fulfill a mission purpose. They were wrong. Small churches can contribute in big ways!

relief16

Even after church leaders took our building and our endowment funds, Redeemer kept on with our mission. We took it online.

The 2×2 website launched February 2, 2011. It wasn’t long before we were making mission friends all over the world. There are many amazing stories of mission collaboration that resulted. For now, we’ll focus on our friendship with the church in Pakistan.

2×2 was corresponding with church leaders in Pakistan for more than a year when terrorists bombs exploded killing hundreds of worshipers.

relief6They asked us to send a study Bible. We did. It was a small investment to test the water. They never got it. We weren’t sure we would ever be able to help outside of our online friendship. Too expensive. Too risky.

But then we saw the news of a church bombing in Pakistan featured ever so briefly on national media. We emailed asking if they were alright. The response came quickly. They were in hiding. There was no way of knowing if the violence had stopped. Many were killed (more than 200) and the injuries of those that survived were serious. They feared that Muslim hospitals would not provide adequate care to Christian patients. They were trying to care for serious injuries themselves. Many children were orphaned. They felt abandoned by the world.

Loyal Lutherans, we started to look for ways to help. We never voted to leave the ELCA, but the ELCA no longer recognized us. There was no one to call. SEPA Synod hadn’t returned our calls for years!

The ELCA divides the world and assigns each synod a region to support in mission. It is called the Companion Synod System. We checked the roster of companion synods with whom we might network. We learned the Middle East is largely overlooked. We looked up Lutheran World Relief. Their website showed no connection with Pakistan.

We asked Pakistani leaders what was needed. They were desperate for warm clothing for the children. They were preparing for a brutal winter.

relief3This would have been easy for Redeemer. Our church had lots of children. We would have had no problem collecting clothing. But our eviction, which forced the closing of a decades-old daycare center, had cost us access to families and hand-me-downs. We feared we could not help.

But we didn’t give up. We posted the need on our website. We got a few monetary donations and sent them to Pakistan. It took five trips to the bank to get the money transferred. It is difficult to wire money to Pakistan, the bank told us. But they did get what we sent this time!

We wanted to do more. There was practically no interest among western Christians about this horrific attack on people of our faith!

A subscriber to 2×2 called one day. I mentioned the need for clothing. She took the ball and ran.

relief8Keep in in mind that the fabricated reason for closing Redeemer was that our congregation was scattered and diminished. This was not true, but what happened next is proof that even if it were true, that phrase, so easily bandied about by professional church leaders, is no longer a valid way to measure ministry.

The 2×2 readers who went to work collecting clothing were in Michigan. Here in Philadelphia, we collected money.

Michigan 2×2 soon reported that they had filled an SUV with clothing.

They sorted, laundered and packed three large boxes of clothing and blankets. The next hurdle—shipping.

relief9Commercial shippers wanted $1500 to ship 62 pounds of clothing. We didn’t have $1500. We feared that all our work was for nothing. We shared our problems with the Pakistanis. “If we had $1500, we could buy the clothes we need,” they said.

But Michigan 2x2ers didn’t give up. They are close to Detroit. One of their business connections ships auto parts all over the world. They agreed to send our boxes. They wanted just $300. The money collected in Philadelphia would cover it!

PakistanShipmentThe boxes shipped shortly after Thanksgiving. They arrived in Pakistan the day before Christmas.

relief15Pakistani leaders documented the distribution with many pictures. Here are a few photos of the children receiving their warm winter clothing and blankets.

There are a few lessons to be learned from our experience.

  • Even the smallest churches can fulfill mission purposes.
  • There is no need for small churches to depend solely on regional or churchwide entities to do mission for them.
  • The strength of the church as we move into the connected age will be in the networks each congregation builds. This can be done on a shoestring budget. Amazing things can be done without hierarchical oversight.
  • The networks built need not be constrained by geography.
  • The gratification and sense of accomplishment of doing mission directly is greater and has more potential for involving lay people in hands-on ways than the current system.
    By the way, the region of the world that is assigned to SEPA under the ELCA Companion Synod System is Tanzania. Irony! While SEPA supports the church in Tanzania, SEPA evicted a congregation of mostly Tanzanian immigrants and cut them off from participation in their church here in the United States. One SEPA argument was that to reach out to East Africa immigrants, Redeemer had to first accept mission status. We knew that meant giving up property rights. It is  a greedy strategy devised to make all properties owned for decades or even centuries by  neighborhood congregations the property of the synod. The new populations of urban neighborhoods are seen as incapable of administering their own Christian community. If this sounds like it might be racist, make no mistake—it is. It is subtly returning to a dependency system that America worked hard to break away from.

We’ll share other amazing stories of international ministry resulting from our website in our annual report. It’s that time year!

relief2

04 Jan 2014

Lutherans Who Care. Are there any?

Light one candle to watch for Messiah . . . .

I was touched by the story shared by a Redeemer family on Sunday. They reported that their family visited our church and placed a candle at the steps to the locked doors on Christmas Eve. It was our fifth Christmas Eve locked out of God’s house.

Light one candle to watch for Messiah . . . .

East Falls Lutherans are faithful. It is sad that our devotion and passion for mission and church is lost on a denomination that just doesn’t care about congregations and communities beyond their own comfort.

It is even sadder that our successful ministries could be benefiting the whole church, if we weren’t being shunned.

These particular members have suffered severely at the hands of SEPA Synod. Still they are loyal and hopeful leaders of Redeemer and 2×2.

We’ve waited five years for Lutherans to demonstrate compassion for our church.

The ELCA is only as good as it treats its own.

We’ll light more candles.

There is always hope.

30 Dec 2013

Analyzing Key Word Searches

“Small Congregation Overworked, Pastor Lazy”

One of the benefits of having a church blog is that you can find out what is on people’s mind. Blogs provide a list of the words people have plugged into their search engine (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) in order to land on your site.

Today someone plugged in “small congregation overworked, pastor lazy.”

Redeemer is a small congregation and our people are overworked at least as measured by any normal volunteer church efforts.

For many years we had no pastor. If lay people didn’t step up, no one would.

Maybe pastors saw our little part of God’s kingdom as too much work. Those words spoken by a Synod representative ten years ago are hard to forget. “Ministry in East Falls is not good use of the Lord’s money.”

We suspect that the deprivation of leadership was by design. Our assets were targeted for 25 years. Our assets provided incentive to create conditions for failure in East Falls. Accepting a call with any anticipation of success meant defying the prejudices of leadership. Redeemer was not a church to be served by any pastor with upwardly mobile career ambitions. Calls issued by God rarely do!

But were the few pastors we encountered lazy? Some of them were. Some of them were focused on their own ambitions and sense of purpose. But their reluctance was not necessarily motivated by fear of hard work.

Some of them found themselves serving with inadequate training. They arrived with established ideas and packaged formulas for urban neighborhood ministry. They would provide these services after they did the normal pastoral duties. They would structure their work-week around sermon preparation, clergy gatherings, committees and visiting the sick.

All of this is care-taking, not church-building.

Many of the pastors sent our way were ill-prepared for the realities of urban ministry. Cities tend to be very diverse and fast-changing. Pastors are trained with goals of longevity and traditions. There was often a sense that they would do what was expected of them, whether or not their efforts advanced mission.

Evangelism, therefore, is often relegated to the laity. If pastors have little training in evangelism, lay people are likely to have none. The mission work of the church becomes fund-raising for someone else to implement mission. Easier to fund bricks and mortar than community-building.

Sadly, there are never enough funds for the work that needs to be done.

Lazy, no. Lost, yes.

 

10 Dec 2013

SEPA Asks Some Good Questions

Here’s Redeemer’s Answer

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is launching a new fund-raising appeal to member congregations.

It is called “It Takes All the Saints.”

Giving is down.

Under ELCA structure no congregation is required to give. We are not hierarchical, but are united for common mission. There may be many reasons why congregations do not support the regional body as they once did.

The evaluation of that mission is a right of congregations. If congregations are to part with resources, there must be clear benefits.

When a church sends less or sends nothing, it is easy to jump to the conclusion that the congregation is failing.

The congregation may simply be practicing stewardship.

Congregations may realize that in this great, new, networked world, they have choices. Giving to the regional body is a choice. The answer for many is that the support of a regional office is not “good use of the Lord’s money. ”

The words in quotes were once used by a Synod representative with Redeemer in East Falls. “Ministry in East Falls is not good use of the Lord’s money.” This is a convenient euphemism. When you view resources as belonging to the Lord, claiming them for yourself seems less like stealing.

Congregations may withhold money to express concern about the direction of the Church. For example, many churches stopped giving because of the theological objections in the interpretation of sexual policies. The Church heard that.

When the issues are more subtle and closer to home, there is a disconnect. Congregations may stop giving when they see no benefit or services. When the regional body claims managerial authority, there is little liklihood that this will be viewed as having anything to do with them.

The insatiable need for more money for “the Lord’s work” is always upon us. Problems occur when the regional and national bodies see their work as more important than that of the congregations. This creates hierarchy where none was intended.

Lutheran constitutions addressed this early on. However, in recent years they have been tweaked to mean the opposite of the promises made to congregations in 1987 and 1988 when the ELCA was soliciting members.

Synods were not intended to have management control of congregational assets. Now they do. Every congregation MUST realize this. They can no longer use their offerings to send a message. The risks are too high. This is a problem no one wants to address.

Here is SEPA’s pitch for their latest fund-raiser. It is excerpted from their website, MinistryLink.

Has your congregation called a pastor or sponsored a member through candidacy? Have you been engaged with one of our new missions or had an evangelism consult with one of our coaches? Have you been blessed by global connections with Tanzania, SEKOMU, and our missionaries, the MacPhersons? Did you send junior or senior high youth to our annual youth gatherings? Have you downloaded documents from our updated MinistryLink.org website? Are you presently serving on one of the more than 40 ministry teams and networks — including the Faith Formation team, Tanzania Partnership team, Stewardship Resource Team, Transformational Ministry team and so many more – active in our Synod right now. Have you called the synod office with a question, and received an answer? None of these services would be available without synod staff, contracted experts, and many dedicated volunteers who spend hours planning programs, producing resources and being present with the leaders and congregations of our Synod.

Having asked these questions, SEPA needs to hear the answers—from each congregation. The answers will tell them whether they are using “the Lord’s money” wisely. If they are not, “the Lord’s money” may be better invested elsewhere.

Here are Redeemer’s answers.

Has your congregation called a pastor . . . ?

Redeemer attempted to call a pastor through the synod office several times.

  • In 1997, we signed an 18-month interim agreement with Pastor Robert Matthias. Bishop Almquist broke the contract after three months and supplied no one to replace him for more than a year.
  • In 2000, we encountered a “take who I recommend or else” ultimatum from Bishop Almquist.
  • In 2006, our pastor of close to two years had a private meeting with newly elected Bishop Burkat. He gave us ten days notice (not the constitutional 30) and left the synod after a private meeting with the bishop’s office. Synod lifted no finger to help Redeemer find a replacement ever again. Refusing to supply pastoral leadership (SEPA’s constitutional purpose) was a means to the desired end of acquiring property and assets.
  • In 2007, we presented a resolution to Bishop Burkat to call a pastor with whom we had been successfully working for seven months. Terms had been negotiated. The candidate was qualified. All we sought was SEPA approval. This pastor disappeared after a private meeting with the bishop’s office.

Have you been engaged with one of our new missions or had an evangelism consult with one of our coaches?

Redeemer was having great success with an outreach to Tanzanians in our neighborhood who were coming here to attend schools and making new lives in America. Our attempts to work with SEPA’s mission office were rebuffed. Numerous calls went unreturned. The national office noticed our ministry and asked for a report, which we sent to Chicago. When a SEPA mission director at last responded, he offered this excuse. “It doesn’t matter what you do. The bishop intends to close your church.” On November 1, 2007, Bishop Burkat promised that we could work with the new Mission Director. She broke this promise.

Have we been blessed by global connections with Tanzania?

YES! But not through SEPA! About 60 Tanzanians joined Redeemer between 2000 and 2007. Yet when SEPA reported our membership to Synod Assembly, they weren’t counted. Synod Assembly was told we had only 13 members. The first judges in court were told this too. By the time SEPA started chasing our individual members in court, SEPA was holding Redeemer accountable for a voting membership of more than 70.

This led one of our young members to quip, “The Synod is big on Tanzania, as long as we Tanzanians stay in Tanzania.”

Redeemer is now supporting several mission efforts all over the world. We do this with no budget.

Did you send youth to annual youth gatherings?

No. We sent our youth and families to Lutheran Church camp. It was a better choice for children of immigrants who were learning about America and it was helping grow our congregation and our leadership. This stopped when SEPA took our money.

Have you downloaded documents from our updated MinistryLink.org website?

No.

Are you serving on ministry teams?

No. We have been excluded from all SEPA activities. However, we’ve created our own ministry teams that are amazingly effective.

Have you called the synod office with a question?

Yes. We called and wrote numerous times between 2006 and 2008 and received NO response.

Given this track record (which we hear in our Ambassador visits is not unique) it is no wonder that congregations think twice about where their offerings are best used. With new powers assumed by the Synod, they are risking more than they agreed to when they signed up for the ELCA.

What Redeemer continues to discover is that a congregation’s strength today is in its own network-building—not in the networks crafted by the regional or national body.

Perhaps the reason denominational giving is down is that congregations are realizing their offerings are best spent where they can make sure they are working, where there is transparency and accountability every day, and where they can individually evaluate success. That’s always been the Lutheran way.

Mission DOES take all the saints.

As for Redeemer  . . . we’ve given all we’ve got. Literally! It still is not enough for SEPA.

Again, when you view congregations as keepers of “the Lord’s money,” it feels a little less like stealing when you claim it for yourself.

06 Dec 2013

Overcoming the “We Can’t” Mindset

IMG_20131202_164209_598We think you can’t. We think you can’t.

Every little church knows the litany. It’s the Church’s own version of the The Little Engine That Could. It’s called The Little Church That Can’t.

  • “You can’t afford a pastor.”
  • “You are too small to fulfill your mission.”

Sometimes the two statements mean the same thing. At some point, affording a pastor becomes the mission.

The list grows.

  • “The demographics don’t support ministry.”
  • “Every church has a time to die.”
  • Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera.

Small churches don’t get much help in overcoming objections, especially when their property and endowments are up for grabs. We forget that the biblical model of “church” always worked at overcoming objections far worse. Remember, it was actually illegal to be a Christian way back when and still the Church grew.

It’s not just the little churches that get trapped by this frame of mind. The whole church embraces it. The erroneous belief is that small churches need bigger entities to fulfill mission.

There may have been a day when this was true or at least more true than today. But the world is changing. It is time we all sit up and take notice.

This is good news for small churches. Small churches can play a huge role in the life of the church.

Here is 2×2’s most recent experience.

2x2virtualchurch.com was started two and one half years ago by Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls when our denomination locked us out of our property. About 18 months ago we began an online friendship with the Christian Church in Pakistan.

We were amazed that our friendship resulted in facilitating a meeting of Christians from Pakistan and Kenya earlier this year.

We were already in strong conversation when a Pakistani Church was bombed by terrorists in September 2013. We checked on our friends. They were not directly affected but they were close to those who were. They were in hiding behind locked doors.

As weeks passed, we heard firsthand accounts of the devastation and terror. We were sent photos of the prayer vigils. For the first time, the Pakistan Church asked for help.

How could a little shunned church like Redeemer respond?

We looked to see if the ELCA had a mechanism for help. (We never voted to leave the ELCA. They kicked us out.)

We found none in the companion synod system or on the Lutheran World Relief website. We heard no mention of the tragedy in Lutheran churches or in The Lutheran magazine.

The Pakistani Church told us their biggest need was winter clothing for the many orphans that resulted from the terrorist attack.

Redeemer had many children, but the persecution of our church has hurt our network among families with children that could donate clothing.

We mentioned the need on our virtual church website.

Readers in Michigan picked up the ball and ran. They said “Just call us 2×2 Michigan.”

They gathered three large boxes of clothing.

Then came the next hurdle. Shipping costs were $1500. We were all discouraged. But a 2×2 reader mentioned the need to a business associate that ships products all over the world. They offered to help.

So this week, only a month after the need was made known, 2×2 shipped boxes of children’s clothing to Christians in Pakistan.

That’s a place where it is even harder to be a Christian than East Falls!

The modern church will be built on the reliance of member networks more than denominational networks. This is a power waiting to be unleashed.

We think we can. We think we can. And we can! 2×2.

God is doing something new, indeed!

03 Dec 2013

From Whence Cometh Church Innovation

Why Transformation in the ELCA Is Unlikely

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA) recently posted a link on its Facebook page from a Methodist Conference that discussed the role of clergy in church transformation.

It referenced the work of Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations. His work studied innovation in farming.

Rogers found the implementers of new ideas broke into the following categories:

  • 2.5% were Innovators. They were educated, had means and were risk-oriented.
  • Early Adopters followed them. They were young, educated and community leaders.
  • Then came the Early Majority. They were conservative but open to new ideas.
  • The Late Majority were older, less educated, conservative and less socially active.
  • Laggards were very conservative had the smallest farms and little capital.

The article argued that clergy could not be effective innovators within their parish role. They place the clergy somewhere between early adopters and the effective implementation that follows.

innovation-700x386Perhaps this is true within Methodist circles.

The Lutheran Bell Curve would probably find clergy at the other end of the spectrum. It is probably a disproportionate number, eating into the hump of the Bell Curve.

innovation2-700x386

  • Lutheran clergy, at least in our area, are older.
  • Lutheran churches in our area are smaller.
  • Lutheran leaders at every level are desperate for capital. That equity should be a tool for the congregation’s use, but regional bodies covet it.
  • Lutheran clergy, by some measure, are less socially active. (Search Lutheran clergy on LinkedIn and see how many are connected and how many of them post their profiles publicly.)
  • Lutheran clergy are becoming increasingly enamored with and dependent upon hierarchy which makes them less likely to explore risk. Innovation without risk is unlikely.

Given these factors, the Lutheran Church will lag in innovation if we depend on professional leaders. Clergy already turn to laity for implementation of most church work. But the control reins hold them back.

Add a few other factors. Lutheran regional leadership, desperate for capital, hover over member congregations waiting for signs of failure. The incentive to assist with innovation is not there. Innovation takes capital! Most of that capital tends to go toward salaries with inconsequential accountability.

Caretaker and part-time ministries rarely lead to innovation but they abound. Pastors inclined toward innovation must be careful. Would-be innovators do so in an unfair arena where leadership is protected by separation of church and state and lay innovators accept personal risk. They may not know it! Ask the laity of Redeemer in East Falls who were named personally in lawsuits by SEPA Synod, while the actions of clergy were protected under separation of church and state.

Laity step up when caretaker ministries are in place, but their leadership is often unappreciated by clergy, who even with part-time status want full-time oversight and credit for success. Failure? The laity can take the credit for that!

Beware! Laity inclined toward innovation do so at their own risk. They may even risk the mission of the church if their leadership threatens the perceived turf of professional leaders.

Yet transformation is not going to happen without a fully empowered laity.

Dedicated laity bring skills to the table that the church desperately needs. When they go unappreciated or are seen as threatening, innovation is squashed.

Laggards swim in the wake. They see the opportunity to sustain things as they are by seizing property, capital and equity.

Consequently, transformation will not happen any time soon. Talk won’t get you there! Visibly aligning with the few charismatic rising stars among the clergy won’t work either. Feature them at Synod Assemblies and Bishop’s Convocations and hope their energy fuels a local movement. Will it catch on without an infrastructure to support it? Not likely. Looks good, though!

This is 2×2’s (Redeemer’s) experience in the ELCA.
Our ministry was already getting attention for innovation back in 2006.
Enter SEPA Synod with its recurring six-figure annual deficit, legal team and locksmith.
SPLAT!

The Lutheran Church desperately needs to empower the laity. They just don’t know how.

19 Nov 2013

The Advent Prayer of Thankful Warriors

Where Do We Send Our Thanks?

My mother had a question she asked every Thanksgiving.

“If people don’t believe in God,
what do they do on Thanksgiving?”

The answer is simple but it is not one she would accept.

They watch football, feast, and go shopping.

It’s also what a lot of people who DO believe in God do!

Thanksgiving is a national holiday, not a religious holiday. In reality, many Americans will gather around the traditional turkey and utter thanks to no god.

Their thanks will fill the empty air and land in no place in particular.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls have one thing in common. We are Americans. We too will pause to give thanks.

Some will do this in their church homes.

Redeemer has no church home—but we will manage all the same.

We are now in the fifth year of being locked out of our church by SEPA Synod.

This is the outcome of greedy synodical actions, implemented with no clear direction but with all the power bullies can muster.

Can anyone in SEPA Synod explain what they thought would happen when they came to our neighborhood on February 24, 2008, with words of peace but with a locksmith in hiding?

Really! What were you thinking?

SEPA has spent the last four years as slum landlords in East Falls. Good slum landlords. The walls are still standing and the lawn is raked and mown. But they have shown no love for East Falls or any understanding or compassion for the many people they have hurt.

Hate is like that.

For all their talk of discernment, SEPA has communicated no vision for mission in this region of Philadelphia, which includes East Falls, Wissahickon, Roxborough, and Manayunk—and a sizable swath surrounding this area. This area is home to more than 100,000 people and SEPA has no vision for serving here. They grabbed the assets of three churches in this region since they organized in the 1980s. They’ve put nothing back, except the expenses of caring and disposing of property.

As richer SEPA congregations struggle to support their regional office, the land of smaller churches has become a target. When they’ve squandered all of that, then what?

Nothing positive has come of SEPA’s actions in East Falls—nothing.

Left in the wake of this manifestation of corporate greed are good people disenfranchised from the church.

On the other side of the conflict are good people who still want to believe that their leaders know best. All evidence is to the contrary.

  • Assets provided for ministry by our community have been squandered on legal fights and synod’s budget shortfalls.
  • A Lutheran-sponsored school which provided important services for 25 years was closed—a long relationship squandered.
  • SEPA has created a reputation in the neighborhood of a church that puts property above people and that handles disputes with local people with all the strength of a corporately supported bully. Rebuilding the church here, without the people they expelled, will be very difficult—assuming that was ever their  intent.
  • Children once active in their church weekly were left unchurched—disenfranchised. One young man who was eleven when he was locked out has started his own Bible study with his friends.
  • Young adults once passionate about ministry are unchurched. They were in their teens when they were locked out. Sadly and perhaps wisely, they’ve become content. Secular organizations value them.
  • The working people of Redeemer remain in close touch ready for the day their church might once again love them. We are faithful to our mission.
  • The older people of Redeemer support one another, still in shock that the church they supported all their lives would rather “move on” without them. Other churches expect cooperation in making this easy for them.
  • Every church now knows what to expect if they don’t do as they are told. Lutheranism has lost its backbone.

Not only is this all OK with SEPA Lutherans but it seems to be the only outcome Lutherans in this region can imagine.

That is sad. We worship of God of possibility!

Hate destroys.
Love nurtures.

At Redeemer, we give thanks for our community that has weathered this storm and forged a new ministry without property and without the expenses that are crippling many churches. While others have waited for us to die, we’ve networked locally and worldwide. We are thankful that we live in an age where this is possible.

We are thankful for the blessings of God that have given our people fortitude and spirit. We are thankful for the varied skills and talents which comprise our community. Some are hard workers, some are spiritual nurturers, some show extraordinary care for the many people in their lives, some are great organizers.  We have each other. Praise God!

We are thankful for the support of a few churches and individuals that have no dog in this race except that they see injustice. They remain nameless for their own safety. They have our heartfelt thanks. They have shown us what “church” is supposed to be.

If God seems at times to have looked the other way, He at least has given us good company.

Thanksgiving in America is the harbinger of Christmas. Soon the Church will be talking about love, peace, reconciliation, forgiveness and the gift of salvation brought to all people in the form of God’s only Son.

Maybe the message of Christmas will be heard this year by SEPA Lutherans.

Hope is what Advent is all about!

13 Nov 2013

Old Order Lutheranism vs the New Order

pakistan2Helping the Church in Pakistan

The ELCA’s new presiding bishop wasn’t speaking to us in her editorial published in November’s The Lutheran.

After all, the Lutherans of East Falls were shut down more than four years ago. We don’t exist.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, courtesy of courts who didn’t take the time to hear the issues, now owns Lutheran land in East Falls. They’ve kept the doors locked and the security system (which they installed) turned on for four years, while they worked very hard to destroy any semblance of the faith in our part of Philadelphia. Meanwhile, they have done nothing with the land they coveted for more than a decade.

But now, we have a new presiding bishop. I mean they have a new presiding bishop.

Her name is Elizabeth Eaton. She’s been part of the Council of Bishops for some time, so she has surely heard all about us—at least one side of the story. That was enough for her predecessor. Will she follow the same course? Hands off any dispute between congregations and regional leaders? Let local Lutherans twist in the wind?

Will she have a grasp of what is going on in the several synods that are living beyond their means and violating Lutheran polity while they prey on small congregations?

Time will tell. The Lutherans of East Falls are prayerful if not hopeful.

We are busy being Lutherans whether or not Lutherans accept us.

Bishop Eaton wrote in one of her first addresses to greater American Lutherandom:

We are church together. There is no way that the churchwide organization or synod offices can be with the saints and be present in the communities where our churches are planted. The local congregation does that.

But there is no way that the local congregation by itself can run camps, train leaders, engage in disaster response or accompany global companions. That is the work we do together as synods, agencies, colleges, seminaries and the churchwide organization.

We are church for the sake of the world. We have experienced God’s extravagant love in Jesus. We want others to know that love too. That is what motivates our evangelism and our work to make the abundant life promised by Jesus a reality for the most vulnerable.

This view reflects an “old order” view—the one taught in confirmation classes across the country for decades.

But the world is changing.

pakistan32×2 has discovered that the statement we printed in bold is no longer true in the emerging world. In fact, the strength of the emerging church will be that the local congregation can do a great deal without “federal” oversight.

Congregations can run camps (Redeemer had one). They can train leaders (read 2×2). They can respond to disasters that more organized efforts are inclined to overlook!

2×2, the remnant of Redeemer, was appalled and deeply moved by the church bombing in Pakistan. One reason this touched us so deeply is that we had already been in conversation with Pakistan’s church leaders through our website for more than a year!

An entire congregation of 250 worshipers (larger than most congregations in our affluent part of the world) was targeted by suicide bombers. More than eighty were killed. Twice that number were seriously injured. That creates a congregation of shell-shocked and mourning families. That leaves an unusual number of orphans and an unusual number of adults recovering from war-caliber wounds. The world of over-organized religion has barely taken notice.

We looked to the national church to see if we might latch on to global relief efforts—the Old Order Lutheran way.

We found none.

In fact, we’ve heard no mention of the Pakistani problems in the churches we visited since the attack—not even a passing reference in the Prayer of the Church.

Lutherans are carefully selective in their world view. This is nothing new. I was on the staff of The Lutheran Magazine back in the 1970s when Cambodia was a killing field. I remember arguing that we ought to be addressing this.

Cambodia was not on the Lutheran map then. Pakistan is not on the Lutheran map now.

2×2, Lutherans unfettered by Lutheranism, has befriended the church in Pakistan. We are a modern congregation that knows that individual churches have enormous individual power if they use the tools of the modern age.

We sent some relief money. A drop in the bucket for their needs, but they wrote numerous thank you notes.

The Pakistani Church is asking for warm clothing for winter especially for the orphaned children. They need jackets, sweaters, hoodies, fleeces, shoes and socks.

We are just a little congregation without much access to families with small children who might have hand-me-downs to share.

But we can put the word out. There is no harder place, or perhaps more important place for Christians to maintain voice in today’s world. Our very faith is being put to the test in a world that is pitting Muslims against Christianity by forces that don’t really practice either religion.
The victims are the children.

The future of Christianity in these hard places for Christians is also with the children.

If your church can help gather clothing, call us for the address. For the safety of the Pakistani church leaders we will not publish this information.

We already have an effort in Michigan taking up the cross! We’re doing what we can!

This is an opportunity for Christian love to shine.

Here is a photo of the Bible class recently started for the children of the besieged church.

pakistan1

09 Nov 2013

What Good Can Come from East Falls?

The composer of this well-known church anthem was from St. James the Less in East Falls.

24 Oct 2013

How does 2×2 rank with other church blogs?

I have been blogging on behalf of my congregation (Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls) for nearly three years. It has become a discipline which has created many interesting mission opportunities for our little church without a building. It is something our members follow and discuss when we get together. It is our church blog.

There is always something new to learn! In 2011 we inched our way up from one visitor each month to 500 a month. In 2012 we improved our statistics about tenfold and doubled that again in 2013. We have used no gimmicks or strategies—no Facebook ad campaigns, no contests or elaborate opt-in schemes. We just created and posted content almost every day.

But how do our statistics measure? I had no idea.

Today I saw a recommendation for a utility that analyzes a website in comparison with others in a similar field. I think it does this by analyzing key words and results of key words. How would  three years of work stack up in an independent, purely statistical, algorithmic review?

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Nevertheless, I started exploring.

The results are amazing.

2×2 is in the upper 20% of most church social media ministry categories and is NUMBER ONE in the category of church blogging. The lowest we ranked in any category was 47%.

Within the next two weeks we will tally our 40,000th unique visitor. We now have about 200 readers everyday (about half unique and half followers).

We are putting our four years of exile from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to good use. What we have learned could help many! Statistically, we may be the largest church in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod — measuring modern statistics!

But we are shunned. Our skills, our loyalty, our faithful mission, and our people are worth nothing in the ELCA. Our property and the protection of the people who created this mess are priorities.

Lutherans teach that the church is not a building. The church is the people.

But Lutherans don’t really believe what they teach. They have our building and evicted the people. They declared us closed—with no consideration for the people. A new church is now worshiping at the same time we once worshiped — right across the street from our locked building—proving that ministry is totally possible in our neighborhood.

But we knew that all along.

Will the ELCA ever see us as viable?

Not without some help.

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

10 Oct 2013