4/7InkzHVUEQeEdU9vpc1tikzEhChrKmPfvXI-FSDBrBQ

February 2012

When a Church Makes Mistakes

“There will be dangers, and we will surely make mistakes.”

Bishop Claire Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church  in America (SEPA, ELCA), wrote these words to rostered leaders a couple of weeks ago.

She is talking about the future. It is also part of SEPA’s past.

Bishop Burkat’s message warned leaders that they don’t quite know what they are doing or where they are going in today’s religious climate. We suspect that has been the case for a while. There have been needless and costly casualties as SEPA leadership reached their newfound epiphany.

We all make mistakes. Church members, clergy, congregations, and yes, even bishops make mistakes.

Our question for the bishop and other SEPA Lutherans is this: When, at last, you’ve identified an action as a “mistake,” what are you going to do about it?

Redeemer and 2×2 are in an excellent position to predict the future.

When leadership mistakes happen within the part of God’s Kingdom called SEPA, the rostered clergy are protected at all cost. The volunteer laity shoulder the blame. We cannot move comfortably into the uncharted future as long as this continues.

By now, it should be dawning on SEPA congregations that the actions they endorsed in East Falls— if not by vote, by neglect — are a huge mistake. And now SEPA is warning that more mistakes are likely.

So far, SEPA congregations have behaved as if they are powerless. The annihilation of one little congregation has been a focal point of Bishop Burkat’s entire term. By setting out to destroy one expendable congregation, she has weakened the whole Church.

The Church must practice four pillars of church community—repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and atonement. Without these, the church will crumble.

What might have happened if SEPA and Bishop Burkat had practiced the techniques of listening and discernment she references in her latest letter to clergy? What might be happening in East Falls if SEPA actions had been motivated by love — which is the primary message of the Gospel? What might be happening in East Falls if SEPA had worked with Redeemer in the interdependent relationship their constitutions call for?

The Redeemer/SEPA conflict was needless. Once started there were numerous roads toward peace. Redeemer suggested many possibilities in letter after ignored letter. Every decision made by SEPA leadership for the last four years regarding Redeemer has escalated conflict with no end in sight. Faithful laity were treated as enemies from the get go.

We do not have to polish our crystal ball to predict that this is what SEPA congregations can expect if they are the victims of anticipated synodical mistakes.

  • Your clergy will disappear. Laity will be blamed for all consequences and have no one to speak for them.
  • Members will be named in personal lawsuits, their lives affected for years after being banished from their church.
  • Property and assets will be valued while people are thrown away.
  • Your congregation and its members will be called names, mocked, threatened, strong-armed, and dragged through the courts with every expectation that you submit to bullying.
  • No stone will be left unturned in pursuit of evidence to justify actions — after the fact.
  • Your members will be treated as if their faith and dedication are subservient to synod’s wishes made in greedy isolation.
  • Your denomination will use the full power of the courts in their attack against your members, while taking full advantage of their First Amendment protection of “separation of church and state.”

Maundy Thursday is eight weeks away. The imagery of Maundy Thursday is Christ in humility.

Church leaders like to display their humility ceremonially on this sacred occasion.  If this humility is genuine, the doors of Redeemer should be unlocked and our bishop should preside over a service, kneeling to wash the feet of Redeemer members. That would be the start of a new Church that practices what it preaches — repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and atonement.

IMAGE SOURCE PAGE: http://laughing-listening-learning.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html
10 Feb 2012

Adding a Video Interview to Your Blog

Posting an interview is a good first step to exploring video on your blog or web site.

Here are some guidelines for beginners. We’ll build later posts on this foundation.

  • Make your guest comfortable in a well-lit spot. Make sure there is enough light on your guest’s face, but don’t worry too much about lighting for now.
  • Frame your shot. We’ve included a few illustrations to show you how to position your interviewee.
  • A seated interviewee will pose less of a challenge for beginners. If you choose to have your guest standing, be prepared to move!
  • Keep backgrounds simple. You don’t need a set. A corner of a room with drapery, non-intrusive wall art or a bookcase is fine. A side-table with a lamp or potted plant is another possibility. If you are in a person’s office, set up the interview at the person’s desk. The background should not distract from your speaker’s message. 

  • Prepare your guest. Engage in conversation before the interview starts to make him or her more comfortable answering questions. You might review the questions in advance.
  • Test your equipment and sound. If you are using an auxiliary microphone, make sure the sound quality is good. This process can help break the ice with your guest. You can make it a little silly. Have your guest recite The Gettysburg Address or sing Mary Had a Little Lamb. This will do wonders to make your guest speak more informally when the real interview starts.
  • Make sure your guest knows the time constraints. If you plan to run your video without editing, pose just one question and let your guest take it from there. Alert him or her in advance that you will give a nonverbal signal when you need to draw the interview to an end. One technique used by some interviewers is to say, “Tell me in one sentence what you think about . . . . ” Your guest will invariably give you three sentences—enough for a nice, short blog interview!
10 Feb 2012

Why Use Video on Your Church Blog?

There is a great answer to this question: video improves the effectiveness of your blog or web site by nearly 700%! Astounding.

If you have an iphone and a computer you have most of what it takes to create videos for your web site. Of course, if you have a video camera, that is also good.

While there are things you can learn to make your videos better and more effective, there is not a great learning curve. We’re going to start exploring this with 2×2.

The advice for getting started:

  • Before you start, plan topics for 10 videos. This will assure that your efforts have direction and you won’t use initial difficulty as an excuse to stay out of the water.
  • Think short topics. Two minutes is a good goal.
  • Create a youtube account and upload your videos. Then link your web site to your youtube site.

That’s it in a nutshell. We’ll explore it more deeply in later posts.

photo credit: Tonymadrid Photography via photopin cc

09 Feb 2012

23 Advantages for Churches Using Social Media

A business web site (businessesgrow.com) recently published a list of 25 non-financial benefits of business blogging.

The list can be adapted to show the benefits of church blogging. Our list is a little shorter. We combined some things. Here goes:

  1. Create a database of answers.
    Seekers and members ask the same questions over and over. The need to have ready answers for most Frequently Asked Questions inspired Luther’s Small Catechism. Archive your answers to the questions you hear most often.
  2. Showcase your workers.
    Shine the spotlight on your volunteers. It is likely to inspire and encourage others.
  3. Integrate your message.
    Your pastor and church leaders create content regularly when they preach and teach. Give their work broader reach.
  4. Help search engines find your church.
    A lively church blog will rank over those annoying listings by the internet version of the phone book yellow pages.
  5. Tell your community why your congregation is different.
    Make your ministry stand out.
  6. Lay the foundation for other forms of communication.
    If you have an active blog, it will be easy to create a newsletter or congregational report. Cut and paste!
  7. Show your face.
    Your blog will reveal your congregation’s personality. Potential visitors will feel like they know you before they cross the threshold. Be assured — visitors today look at web sites first!
  8. Measure your vitality.
    A church with an active blog is proving they are engaged in the community with relevant and purposeful activity.
  9. Good public relations.
    Churches always have trouble attracting the attention of the press. If your blog has good community content, your local papers will find you.
  10. A quick and easy way to communicate with your current membership.
    If your members subscribe to your blog, they will get an immediate notification of breaking news. No need for the phone chain. Just don’t abuse it if you want to keep your followers.
  11. Engage your congregation.
    This may take some patient nurturing, but your congregation’s blog can become a place for congregational interaction and provide valuable feedback to your leaders.
  12. Ask questions.
    How many vestry or council meetings are spent debating what the congregation wants? With a congregational blog, you can ask them. Pose a question two weeks before a meeting and see what people have to say. If you want to keep this a valuable tool, be prepared to listen to the answers and respond wisely.
  13. Crisis management.
    You do not have to rely on anyone else to supply facts about your ministry. You can tell your OWN story! When a controversial decision is reached, use your blog to help the disgruntled understand. If your denomination is in the news, add your slant to the public issue.
  14. Forum for ideas.
    Again, this will take some nurturing, but foster the sharing of mission ideas. If people know they can make a difference, they will speak up. Be prepared to respond to ideas. No one likes to put their thoughts on the line only to be ignored.
  15. Give your leaders a platform.
    If their ideas are good, they will catch the attention both within and outside your community. That’s giving your church new reach and authority!
  16. Segmentation.
    This is something we don’t think about in the church. We like to think of ourselves as being “one.” There are, however, sub-interests within any united congregation. With the internet you can address these without leaving anyone out. In the business world it’s called “market segmentation.” In the church, it might mean directing some blog posts or creating a separate page or category within your blog for singles, youth, church musicians, daycare parents or Sunday School teachers.
  17. Identify advocates.
    An active blog will create “fans.” It’s nice to have supporters and know who they are!
  18. Inexpensive way to keep connected.
    You can gently remind your audience of upcoming events without the time to make phone calls or incur the cost of sending letters or postcards.
  19. Measure controversial issues.
    Should you change the time of worship this summer? You can debate this in a vacuum OR poll your members on your blog.
  20. Create a volume of work.
    Your blog will create your congregation’s history. Take your posts and create a quarterly or annual report. Your loyal members are likely to purchase an “annual” if you make printed copies available and include lots of photos.
  21. Network.
    Your blog can help you find people with special skills for a variety of needs from programming to building maintenance. Vendors may even be willing to contribute or discount services if you give them a plug and a link on your blog.
  22. Connect with people on an emotional level.
    Most congregational publications are fairly dry. Blogs can come to life with good story-telling, photos and video.
  23. Prove to your community that you understand today’s world. 
08 Feb 2012

The “Not So New” Horizontal Church

Many church leaders are bemoaning that Church isn’t what it used to be. Bishop Claire Burkat wrote to her rank and file lately warning that the road ahead is uncharted and there is no blueprint for moving foreward. The old ways just aren’t working.

Perhaps it is only an illusion that they ever did!

Welcome to the “horizontal” Church.

Church can learn from what’s happening in the rest of the world. Business leaders, too, are noticing that the old ways of doing business are ineffective, inefficient and unprofitable. There is a TV show that brings this “epiphany” to us every Sunday evening — Undercover Boss.

In the old business world, upper management controlled all things. An employee’s future relied on his/her ability to control people, material, budgets, customers. The power in the business world has shifted to the consumer. Smart business people are meeting the challenge by restructuring their businesses to be less vertical (hierarchical) and more horizontal. Create a good product, serve your customers well, and your business will grow by word of mouth or by keystrokes on the internet or cellphone.

The Church lives in the same world. It has relied on hierarchical control for a very long time and so change may come a bit harder and a tad slower, but things are changing. Hierarchies are crumbling under the weight of their own weaknesses. Rank and file spiritual church members are resisting the support of vertical management and for good reason. It’s expensive, unproductive and crippling. Offerings, we can conclude, are better spent on direct service than on supporting hierarchy.

And so, the Church today is mirroring society. The Church is becoming more horizontal. We still have a good “product” and the laborers in the vineyard are committed. The Church will survive by spreading person to person (2×2!).

This is where Bishop Burkat is wrong! There is a blueprint! It’s called The Bible.

photo credit: michaelrighi via photopin cc

 

07 Feb 2012

Sharing the Gospel in Social Media

One reason many churches shirk away from using the power of social media is an old-fashioned sense of ownership. Their slant on the Gospel becomes a bit proprietary. We carefully hold our cards close to our vests, waiting for the right moment to play.

We forget that the Gospel is for everyone. We start to think about how telling the Gospel benefits us.

Ministry plans sometimes try to fill niches not addressed by other congregations. This can be very altruistic and good. But sometimes it is more like carving out territory, hoping to attract Christians our way to help our parish statistics.

That thinking will not work in the social media age. Sharing the Gospel has never been more possible and churches must adapt our thinking to a world of new possibilities.

Sharing is a good thing. Social Media thrives on it. It is becoming the accepted way of doing things. The internet thrives on linking to other sites.

So stop playing your ministry cards close to your vest. Tilt your hand so everyone can see your cards. Take a look at your neighbors’ hands and TELL IT!

Use your web site or blog to link to other ministries and good works in your neighborhood. It’s OK. Really! You may drive traffic away from your site for a moment, but your site traffic will soon benefit. People will remember that you helped them find that support group or social service agency. Your neighboring church will remember that you promoted their Cantata. They, in turn, might support your spaghetti dinner! You will be demonstrating that you care about your neighbors. That’s a good thing!

The message for today: Look for good things in your neighborhood to write about and link to.

photo credit: oknovokght via photopin cc

05 Feb 2012

Put Some Verbs in Your Parish Reports

A pastor, was lamenting that the forms he fills out every year to report his congregation’s ministry don’t ask the questions which really measure their ministry. “All they count is members and money — not what happens with the members and money.”

Church statistics can mislead. As one eminent church consultant commented—There are congregations with 20 members that will die and there are congregations with 20 members who have what it takes to grow.

Similarly, there are congregations with $1,000,000 in endowment funds that do little but watch it grow. After all, that can be measured on next year’s report. On the other hand, there are congregations that struggle to pay the insurance but have tons of projects and mission ideas.

How should denominations measure congregational ministry?

Start counting verbs as well as nouns. What is happening with the money and people you are counting? For example:

  • It is of no value to count the number of Spanish-speaking Christians if you cannot name a single ministry outreach effort that addresses the Hispanic community.
  • Did your church baptize 5 children this year but have no Vacation Bible School?
  • How did you spend the your offerings this year? Did it all go for salaries and utilities? Was anything spent on mission?

Look over your parish report and attach a verb to every number. If you have a hard time coming up with verbs, you have a good idea of what needs attention.

If there is no place on your forms for your full ministry report — one with some verbs — attach it anyway. Who knows? It may do some good! And it may be more honest than a list of numbers.

02 Feb 2012