Two of the three ambassadors who visited St. John’s, Mayfair, Philadelphia.

St. John’s: a beautiful church in “transition”

Redeemer’s Ambassadors visited St. John’s, Mayfair, Philadelphia this morning.

The beauty of this church is unsurpassed. Modest brick and marble or granite (low maintenance) walls and columns frame exquisite stained glass windows depicting the life of Christ.

Attendance at the 11 o’clock service was upwards of 80 but shy of 100. It was difficult to count as there was movement among worshipers, playing different roles in the church service.

The service itself was similar to a Redeemer service, mixing modern praise songs with various elements of the liturgy. We noticed that they haven’t bothered purchasing rack editions of the ELCA’s new worship book, and we don’t blame them. They had a 20-page bulletin and 12 additional pages of announcements. One of our Ambassadors was grateful for the help of a member in finding the hymns which were reprinted from various sources in the back of the bulletin. You would have had to read through the whole bulletin to discover this, though. Singing was strong. They skipped the epistle reading.

A four-member children’s choir sang a Thanksgiving hymn. A larger adult choir sang an Offertory. This followed an extended “passing of the peace” which continued through much of the anthem. The people sitting near us were heavily involved in loud conversations throughout the anthem.

Liturgically, there always seems to be a problem transitioning from the passing of the peace to refocusing on worship. At Redeemer, we solved the problem by having a musical call to prayer ending the passing of the peace free-for-all. This works very well.

There were about a dozen children, far fewer youth and a couple of infants. There were about ten people sitting in the chancel.

This is a program-sized church and suitably the bulletin listed many programs. We noted that the pastor encouraged creating some respite time during Advent. Not a bad idea.

On this Sunday morning we found St. John’s in “transition.” Their pastor of ten years left at the end of October.

We were aware that this was the church of The Rev. Lee Miller III, the lead “trustee” who came to Redeemer in the summer of 2007 and told us he was there as a “fact finder” who “wanted to help.” He then did very little fact-finding nor did he ever offer any help. He did not reveal to us at his first encounter with our leaders that he actually was a “trustee.” We learned of his deception five months later. He explained, without apology, that he lied because he didn’t want trouble.

Well, there has been nothing but trouble ever since. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. . .

His involvement in our community was confusing. He seemed to be in favor of supporting our ministry, but changed his tune (never in discussion with us) sometime during months of silence. We suspect that his position as head of the trustees was an exercise in brown-nosing and personal career advancement.

Having received just 15 votes at the last Synod Assembly election for bishop, he has abandoned the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for fairer pastures, leaving us to deal with the substantial mess he created.

The Rev. Lee Miller III was the person who first suggested that Redeemer “wanted to have the bishop arrested”—an impression we corrected immediately, but which nevertheless found its way into the trustees “report” and all subsequent court documents — even after we asked that this and many other false statements be corrected as long ago as May 2008—four and one half years ago!

No one at Redeemer EVER tried to have anyone arrested.

Oh, well, the Rev. Lee Miller III is gone, if not forgotten. Philadelphia’s loss is Buffalo’s gain.

“Transition” is an odd term. This is not to be confused with “transformation.” Transformation, in Synod-speak, occurs only after transition and ideally under their watchful eye. It can easily go unrecognized if it happened when they weren’t watching.

Church communities are always in transition. When SEPA uses this term, it refers to a time between pastors. As a congregation that existed without a pastor for most of the decade before Lee Miller intruded and four years after he came with the bishop and a locksmith, we at Redeemer find this official designation to be curious.

SEPA thinks congregations fall apart when a pastor leaves. The seeds of this thinking were in all this morning’s talk about vulnerability. The congregation was told repeatedly, “We are vulnerable. You are vulnerable. I am vulnerable.” Maybe they are. Perhaps the synod was creating fear and need to make it easier to reach their version of “mutual discernment.”

There were no obvious signs that St. John’s was falling apart because Pastor Miller left. That’s a compliment to both pastor and congregation.

In clergy’s view, lay people need their oversight to do anything constructive. This view, which reflects clergy vulnerability more than lay, creates an uncomfortable period of limbo. Laity will live lives on eggshells as they are questioned, observed, rated, evaluated,  defined, assessed . . .

Our Ambassadors reveal just how confusing this process is for lay people. Our account, Undercover Bishop, is drawn from our observations of congregations in “transition.”

The associate pastor, the Rev. Patricia Neale, confessed as a Synod representative looked on that she is in a vulnerable position during this process. Church “rules” require that an associate pastor leave at the same time a “lead” pastor leaves. Rules are made to be broken and in SEPA they are rewritten for convenience. Wait and see!

Rev. Patricia Neale, was called to St. John’s upon graduation from Philadelphia Seminary in 2007.  That means she has identical parish experience as Bishop Claire Burkat who served just five years as associate pastor of Holy Trinity, Abington, before joining SEPA Synod staff.

Pastor Neale’s sermon talked about Pilate and his need to control the situation festering among the Jews, Jesus and civil authorities. Doing the right thing in regard to the troublesome Jesus was less important than doing the thing that protected his power. Some things never change.

Control is similarly part of the “transition” process, although it is never presented this way.

Pastor Neale probably knows the congregation well. She gave both a good sermon and children’s sermon. Since SEPA has their interim person coming once a month and not every week, we suspect the decision has already been made about St. John’s future.