When There Is Only One Way

No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ.

One way.

The Church tends to take that admonition from the lips of Christ and make that road as narrow as possible.

Jesus said ONE way. Not OUR way. (tweet)

The way Jesus described is not narrow except as we mortals with all our individual and collective baggage make it.

Defining the rules of the spiritual road worked for centuries. It is not working now.

Read Seth Godin’s blog entry this morning. The renowned marketer’s message for the day speaks volumes to the church. Here it is (minus one sentence).

The pitfall of lock in

When you believe your customers have no real choice, either because they’ve signed a long-term contract, or the technology locks them in, or they’re stranded in Fargo with no other options, you’re likely to drift away from delighting them.

When you believe that people are stuck in their seats, it’s not essential, it seems, to keep cajoling them to stay there.

And while you might be correct that this particular customer is locked in, it doesn’t mean she doesn’t have friends, colleagues or a blog.

Word of mouth and recommendations don’t come with a lock-in feature. Generations change, and if you’re here for the long haul, there is no lock in.

Seth’s words complement our posts on replication and mission by the book. The replication process, touted by regional bodies as innovative, is really just a last-ditch effort to recreate ministry models that are failing at a slower rate in other neighborhoods.

Of course, the failure is first assigned to the laity. There is something wrong with them that can’t be fixed.  

Shutting churches down and reopening them in the same form with different people in the pews and pulpit is actually an admission that professional leadership has failed.  “Let’s let the people who have failed to lead for decades take control. They must know what they are doing,” is flawed church-think.

Healing (reconciliation) is too much work.

The Church doesn’t understand how neighborhoods work.

Links to the past don’t disappear because the Church held a service proclaiming their demise.

Go ahead and change the name. You can bet the neighborhood will call it Old Trinity or Old St. John’s for decades.

The Church is creating terrible word-of-mouth ministry — the kind of ministry tactic that spread the Gospel to the farthest reaches of the known world within a century or two back when there was no other way to reach people.

The lasting impression the leaders of the ELCA (its greedy bishops and spineless clergy) create in the neighborhoods where they swoop in, lock doors, confiscate assets and punish their life-long supporters with lawsuits is not a billboard for the road to Christ.

Here’s what the neighborhoods think when they pass the locked doors every day.

The Lutheran Church—ahh, yes. They’re the ones who sue their members and threaten their livelihoods and exclude them from participation with other congregations.

The next thought is not going to be

“Let’s join.”

Listen to Seth. Just because we are locked in—or locked out as has become the new ELCA’s  protocol—doesn’t mean we don’t have friends, colleagues, neighbors and a blog.

The ELCA way makes sense only to clergy who believe in their own isolated power. When you include the people of the church — the ones who put money in the offering plate each week, the ones who sacrificed a productive lot to build a building, the ones who show up every Sunday for decades, teaching and singing and serving — then it is wanton foolishness.

Remember, the WAY that is taught to us within the walls of the church includes standing up for what we believe.