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March 2012

Here’s an idea for SEPA . . .

The laity need a voice.

The Synod is dominated by clergy. Their voices and interests outrank lay concerns simply because they are involved more with leadership on a daily basis and somewhat dependent on their standing with the Synod for career advancement and security.

Many lay representatives at Assembly are new to church governance and follow their pastors’ lead.

The Synod Assembly agenda is tightly scheduled, leaving little room for lay delegates to explore ideas, which might be old to clergy but are new to them.

Lay people who become involved at the synodical level must first pass through a nominating process that is reviewed largely by clergy or lay people who have already passed muster.

Redeemer, years ago, attempted to nominate a lay member and received a phone call from a clergy representative who said they’d consider our nomination only if we “felt strongly” about it. Puzzling! Why have a nomination process?!

Generally, there is little contact between church leadership and the people they serve. Contact is often orchestrated toward SEPA leadership’s objectives.

One dedicated lay person once shared that they went to an Evening with the Bishop excited to be part of dialog. He left, frustrated and disappointed, after an hour of listening to the bishop talk with no attempt at interaction with attendees.

Redeemer’s experience with the last two bishops was that they wanted congregational interaction on their own terms, subject to their own timing, agenda and control. Congregational leaders, who had attempted dialog for years with no response, were ignored — and eventually replaced by decree.

So here’s an idea. What if there was an annual LAITY ROUNDTABLE, say two months before the Annual Assembly, where ANY lay person could attend, discuss challenges and formulate ideas and proposals to bring to the Synod Assembly’s attention? The retreat could be one-day, on a Saturday perhaps, and should be entirely lay led. No clergy allowed. Trust your lay people!

The LAITY ROUNDTABLE would serve no purpose but to review ideas and proposals of individual congregations for inclusion on Synod Assembly’s agenda.

There would be added benefits:

  • Laity would understand common challenges and be inspired to find solutions.
  • The interests of the churches would be lifted up.
  • Lay involvement and leadership would grow.
  • Churches would feel more involved with the denomination which can only help SEPA.
  • Large churches and small churches would interact as equals.
  • Community would expand as laity come to know one another without pastors as gatekeepers.
  • Interchurch problem-solving would pump some fresh blood into our church . . . and we still consider it our church even though we have been kicked out — without a voice!
14 Mar 2012

A Return to the Days of Muhlenberg

The Lutheran Church recently celebrated the 300th anniversary of its American patriarch, Henry Melchior Muhlenberg.

Muhlenberg was a German pastor who came to America’s East Coast at a time when its forests were first being cleared for farms. There were pockets of German settlers longing for pastoral help in establishing congregations that worshiped in their traditions.

Muhlenberg came to Pennsylvania and began founding churches. But he didn’t sit still. He planted churches all along the East Coast. Most congregations had only an itinerant pastoral presence, perhaps as little as once or twice a year. And they grew.

Ironically, after 300 years, we are at a similar time in history. The Lutheran Church is well-planted but its foundations are shaking. After a century of working to unite, we are subdividing. There is no unifying voice, no forum to bring us together.

Corporate thinking of previous decades may be responsible for the current crisis. As populations shifted to the suburbs, consolidation for economic benefit was favored. We began to measure our churches’ value by their ability to park cars.

We are learning today that the neighborhood church is vital. People want to worship close to home where the sense of community truly impacts lives and where they can make a hands-on difference.

But damage has already occurred. During the affluence of the 1980s, congregations that thrived through the hardships of the Great Depression, began to struggle. Part of the struggle was the need to fund a full-time pastor at higher levels of compensation than they had ever known. That in itself became the focus of church life . . . and it’s no wonder people became less attracted to church.

Small churches can survive this, but it will require fresh thinking.

Worship and mission must return as priorities. We have to think as creatively as our colonial foreparents thought.

It is time, once again, for the structure of the local parish church to change.

We must concentrate on the work that needs to be done, not the positions that must be compensated.

Clergy, it must be recognized, have a vested interest in the solutions they propose. Pastors deserve compensation, but looking for larger salaries from one congregation may no longer be possible as the norm. Churches that admit they cannot do this need alternatives. Locking church doors is NOT the answer.

Lay leaders must speak and be heard. Their forums are few.

14 Mar 2012

Recognizing Jesus

Too bad none of the disciples were artists! They could have helped us all with one of the biggest questions of our faith. What did Jesus look like?

Biblical evidence is that Jesus looked like most people in Galilee and Judea. It took the kiss of Judas to help soldiers distinguish him from the others in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Artists over the centuries put their imaginations to work depicting Christ until the images began to look startlingly similar — however unlikely.

The earliest Christians didn’t seem to care about appearances. They had first-hand accounts of the disciples and apostles. The first depictions surviving today are from the 200s and 400s and are not very detailed. In fact, the depictions show Christ in action. His physical appearance is secondary to his works. They are like cartoons in simplicity.

The Eastern Church and its emphasis on icons in worship began to concentrate on the details of Christ’s appearance. Although they are stiff and representative, they are also beautiful, designed to be contemplated.

The Western church developed a genre of story-telling and teaching in church adornment and architecture that took the Eastern representations and made them breathe with realistic features in familiar biblical settings. The depictions were stereotypical and stiff in the Middle Ages but became more realistic with the rise of humanism. Jesus became easily recognized with features recognized to us today.

Modern people still want to know what Jesus looked like. We are accustomed to treasuring photographs, which is a very new historical phenomenon — not even 200 years old.

Our curiosity is insatiable. Recently anthropologists decided to answer this question once and for all. They used forensic methods to analyze excavated skulls to rebuild the face of the typical Jewish male who lived in Israel in the era that was unknowingly passing from BC to AD.

Now we know!

Jesus looked like the typical Jewish male of 2000 years ago.

Jesus looks like us today.

Jesus will look like our descendants to the thousandth generation.

But does it matter? Jesus asks us to see him in each other. Treat others well and you will be honoring me, he tells us.

No matter who takes the brush or chisel in hand, we don’t have trouble recognizing Jesus in art. It’s harder to see him in each other!

12 Mar 2012

East Falls Weighs In on How to Use Redeemer’s Property

What is SEPA’s mission in East Falls?

Redeemer members attended the East Falls Community Council meeting to listen to Rev. Patricia Davenport attempt to make inroads into the East Falls community with SEPA’s plans to use the property they seized from Redeemer. The discussion lasted 18 minutes. That’s 18 minutes more than Rev. Davenport gave the people of Redeemer before she came to our door with a locksmith back in February 2008.

Her timing was off. She told the community the building has been empty for four years. It’s not quite two and half. (September 27, 2009). She applauded when someone mentioned parking. Bishop Burkat used lack of parking in her opening volley against Redeemer back in 2006. Parking has never been an issue at Redeemer!

She claimed repeatedly that she very much wants a Word and Sacrament church there, but didn’t explain why they locked out the Word and Sacrament church that had been there for 103 years.

Her presentation was more noted for what she didn’t share about their involvement with the property. We thought for a moment she might attempt some candor when someone asked her when they were going to start using the property. She deflected this by coyly saying — if I say when, you’ll hold me to it and so I won’t say when.

As for the community, one member who was active in the children’s choir hosted by Redeemer suggested that the discussion was premature. Others stated that they missed the arts program which Redeemer used to host. Pastor Davenport talked about having a school . . . as if Redeemer had never had a school and wasn’t about to open a new one when they evicted us. So far every idea mentioned Redeemer had already done or planned to do. We doubt Pastor Davenport noted that.

The local newspaper editor thought the education building should be senior housing. That wouldn’t affect parking. Sounds like Redeemer should become a parking lot!

There was one suggestion so insulting that we almost forgot. It was the first one offered. Our church should be made into a dog park.

No one asked the BIG questions.

If SEPA’s oft-stated passion is to have a Word and Sacrament church on the corner of Midvale and Conrad, why don’t they just open a church?

Why did they work for a decade to destroy the church that was there?

Why are they making overtures to the community, if they know their mission?

It was an evening at the theater. SEPA has no money or resources for dog parks or art centers and it is not about to enter the kind of renovations necessary for housing anyone — especially when none of these are within their mission as a Synod. Any of these peripheral uses would side-track and delay their supposed mission and protected tax status.

They were trying to create the illusion that they care. They have demonstrated very well that they don’t.

Someone asked about desanctifying the land. It has already been defiled by Synod’s behavior.

They are waiting for clear title to the land they seized. That could take years in the courts. Then they are likely to sell the property — their plan from the start. Would you house Aunt Nellie in Redeemer’s education building only to uproot her when the day comes for SEPA to hightail it out of East Falls, cash in hand, once and for all?

SEPA told Redeemer in 1998, “Ministry in East Falls is not good use of the Lord’s money.”

Dog parks? That’s another story.

We video-taped the discussion. The EFCC allowed us to distribute a flyer.

12 Mar 2012

Children in Worship; Adults in Sunday School

Today’s Alban Institute Roundtable discussion again references the book, Scattering Seeds, by Stephen Chapin Garner, pastor, and Jerry Thornell, layman, of  UCC, Norwell, near Boston. It is interesting that the Alban article lists only the pastor as author, leaving off the name of the lay co-author.

That’s what this book is all about, the changing roles of pastors and lay members. 2×2 will be reviewing it later this week.

Meanwhile, today’s discussion focuses on a favorite topic of 2×2’s: children in worship. This was the biggest surprise as our Ambassadors visited 41 churches in the last 18 months. We thought the Lutheran tradition was to have children worshiping side by side with their parents, deeply involved in the communal worship experience. We found that the overwhelming number of Lutheran churches dismiss children from worship before the Scriptures are read. In one church we visited, the fairly healthy attendance at worship dropped almost in half as a surprising number of adults accompanied the children out of the sanctuary.

The findings of this book support our concern. The Norwell experience found that the inclusion of children in worship created a more vibrant youth presence. There was more continuity between childhood, teen years and adulthood. We thought this was always understood among Lutherans!

Children in worship are important to the life of the congregation and continuity of Christian family. You do not exclude children from the family dinner table because the conversation is “over their heads” or not of interest to children. Children become interested in the concerns of the adults in their lives by listening. They learn the rules of social interaction by watching the give and take. The day will come all too quickly when the young child adds his or her two cents to a topic no one realized was noticed by the youngest. All heads may turn for a moment, but the conversation will go on . . . and grow.

Adults benefit. They have a chance to connect with their children and learn about their concerns. They begin to see the world through the eyes of a new generation.

Similarly, this book advocates for a stronger educational experience for adults. 2×2 suspects this is vital to healthy congregational life.

Redeemer, our parent church, followed this advice. Children were very active in worship and often volunteered when they thought they were ready for a new role. Children led prayer. Middle schoolers often told the children’s sermon story. They shared church leadership. They sang and accompanied music. When they came back from church camp, they insisted on teaching the songs they had learned to the congregation. They acolyted, they took the offering and read lessons. Our church, like Norwell, was experiencing significant growth.

Sadly, they have been locked out of their church for a significant part of their childhood.

12 Mar 2012

Ambassadors Visit Trinity, Manoa/Havertown

Three Redeemer Ambassadors visited this active church on West Chester Pike near City Line Avenue this morning. The congregation has been of interest to us for some time since one of our members, a retired Lutheran minister, remembers serving his internship year with this congregation 60 years ago. Unfortunately, he wasn’t with us this morning, but we took photos to share with him!

The 10:45 service had about 60 in attendance, including a nine-member choir and piano accompanist for all worship. A lovely solo, Panis Angelicus, began the service. The sermon was about keeping the first commandment — giving your all for Lord. The message rang clear to our Ambassadors as our people have sacrificed greatly for our church, laying much on the line as individuals. Our devotion has been ridiculed and taken advantage of by denominational leaders. But the pastor, Dr. Dolores Littleton, admitted in her sermon that it is a difficult commandment to honor.

Members were quite friendly. Several went out of their way to talk with us and we had several good conversations.

The congregation seemed to be pulling together on many projects including an upcoming mission trip to West Virginia. It was older adults bragging to us about their youth’s activities. Their youth had just participated in a youth retreat in New Jersey and slides from that event were on display in the fellowship room.

One member talked to us about a ministry meeting in their building called Oromo. We had seen this listed in directories but could learn nothing about it. He described it as a ministry exclusive to those from an area of Ethiopia. We discussed our East African outreach with him and how we had grown into a multicultural congregation.

The pastor expressed a sentiment that she wished Redeemer members could move on and forget all the anger. Anger is a rightful byproduct of injustice.

No one suggesting we should move on — including our bishop — ever presents any realistic options. Law suits filed against our church and individual church members left no choice but to defend.

Which church near us (all which voted to take our property) would be willing to welcome us? We’ve visited almost all of them. They are very much like Redeemer in size and joining one of them is likely to find us being treated the same way all over again in a few years, just as our nearest neighbors — Grace and Epiphany, Roxborough, were before us. We care about our church and neighborhoods and are bound by faith to minister in our own community.

Redeemer is dedicated to finding answers to urban ministry challenges — not shuffling people, their faith and properties like playing cards.

11 Mar 2012

Creating A Congregational Culture that Welcomes Growth

A favorite moment in the popular game show, Wheel of Fortune, is the moment when the leading contestant realizes he or she has won the bonus round and a huge jackpot. Family and friends instantly surround the winner and the perennial host, Pat Sajak, walks away and allows the family to enjoy their moment on national TV with no attempt to share the spotlight.

Pat Sajak is a gentle and unpretentious host. He seems to truly enjoy the contestants and their quirky hobbies or unabashedly mundane lives. Each contestant is welcomed and accepted.

His personality has helped to create a game show culture that encourages success and gently helps players recover from misfortune or nervous blunders.

It is no wonder that this game show is a favorite. Every contestant knows he or she is safe from potential nationwide embarrassment and has a good chance at success. Viewers at home feel comfortable as well, rooting for the success of each player.

Congregations have cultures too. Some are centered on the personality of the pastor. Others are centered on long-standing traditions or family or lay leadership.

Developing a congregation’s culture may be an overlooked key to achieving church growth.

Culture is what visitors first encounter. Culture is the impression they take with them.

The challenge to each visitor is to measure whether or not they will be able to fit and flourish in the culture they encounter.

Culture can be cultivated. It can be nourished and encouraged. It can change!

While each culture embraces the same Scriptures, the group of people representing your congregation to the community has its own personality, its own priorities, and its own system of values and rewards.

Visitors will pick up on your culture immediately. Whether or not they return depends a great deal on what they see and feel, more than the quality of worship or the sermon.

Congregational culture can take cues from its denomination. The attitudes of top church leaders cannot help but trickle down. When, for example, there is a change in the papacy, it isn’t long before the rank and file adapt to the priorities of new leadership.

The opposite may also be true. Congregational culture can also affect leadership and guide the attitudes and values represented by the denomination.

Here are some questions to help you examine and shape your congregational culture.

Does your congregation value life-long education?

Does your congregation draw all members into leadership?

Does your congregation know its priorities, needs and goals?

Does your congregation have established cliques?
Is there an attempt to involve different groups of workers on various projects? 

Does your congregation enjoy being together? Do you have fun?

How do you achieve this?

Share the work.
Give everyone a chance to play a leadership role. That means giving people room to make mistakes and learn. Create a culture that is nurturing and forgiving. If your congregation has long-standing lay roles, it may mean creating some new responsibilities for new members to become involved. Encouraging the new does not necessitate discouraging the old!

Praise your members.
If you are the pastor, take a cue from Pat Sajak, walk away and let the attention fall on the members. Let their lights shine. Avoid the spotlight entirely. Let members praise and encourage one another.

Educate gently and often.
Education is an ongoing process. Talk about your mission and goals. Tie your work to scripture. The lecture hall is dead. Sermons, like lectures, have limited impact. Spread your message out in bytes and teach by example.

photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc
10 Mar 2012

2×2 Has 4000 First Time Visits and Counting

Today 2×2 registered its 4000 first-time visitor just as we began our second year of posting.

We created our virtual church after our denomination locked us out of our property nearly three years ago. It’s been a grand experiment and we’ve learned a lot, all of which we are glad to share.

We’ve been watching the statistics and they reveal a great deal about the reality and challenges of ministry today.

Here’s a short rundown:

  • In the first two months of 2012 we matched the traffic for all of 2011 with more than 2000 visitors. If traffic continues to grow we may have 20,000 visitors by this time in 2013.
  • Someone from every state has visited 2×2 with the most visitors from Pennsylvania, California, Georgia, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, Minnesota and Illinois.
  • 68 countries have visited 2×2 with regular readership in France, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Pakistan and the Netherlands. Traffic in Africa and South America is beginning to pick up.
  • Traffic comes in peaks and valleys but the peaks are growing taller and the valleys less deep.
  • We have about 80 readers subscribing to our daily blog feed and an average of 37 miscellaneous visitors every day. Together that’s more than 100 readers every day.
  • We’ve had more than 200 new weekly visitors for the last four weeks (not counting subscribers).
  • Most readers come looking for advice on using social media or for the worship resources we’ve made available.
  • Our multicultural series was reposted in Texas.
  • Two seminaries have shown an interest in 2×2’s thought leadership. Our posts have been circulated for discussion among students.
  • We are starting to form friendships with churches all over the world as we make it a point to write to anyone who comments. Some are becoming pen pals, praying and fasting for our church. We pray for them regularly as well.
  • We’ve created links for special projects of others and are helping their ministries grow.
  • Our most popular post continues to be a review of our visit to Trinity, Fort Washington, and their pastor’s object lessons for adults.
  • Just in the last month, dialog started to pick up on the topics we’ve introduced, drawing comments from leaders of some sizable churches.

2×2 is a small church fulfilling a big mission. We’ve just begun!

09 Mar 2012

Engaging Conversations for Change in the Church

2×2 follows several online forums.

CMConnect is a lively forum with lots of input on many subjects about Christian education. Many, if not most, of the voices are lay. The dialog is practical and hands on. Nitty-gritty questions get quick and thorough answers. Participants are actively trying to help one another. It’s eclectic, down-to-earth and helpful.

Another forum we follow is Alban Institute’s Roundtable, which poses a topic prompted by a book offering each Monday morning. The voices in this forum are almost exclusively those of clergy.

The engagement is miniscule compared to that of CMConnect, but those that respond usually do so at some length. The topics that draw interaction are interesting.

An October post from a book by a female pastor discussing the length of hair, jewelry and wardrobe of women in ministry drew 22 passionate responses.

A pivotal post about the future of religion in the Digital Age drew one response (2×2’s) and that response awaited moderation for a full week!

The comfortable perennial topics of budgets and teaching draw moderate dialog — three or four comments.

Tough topics that stand to change the church draw little or no interaction.

It is difficult to engage church leaders on topics outside their comfort level. Why? Are they comfortable in the isolation of their parish? Are they fearful of hierarchical repercussions? Must dialog be within approved denominational channels?

Without more open discussion, the Church will continue to decline.

Discussion must take place among church leaders and between leaders and lay people. Technology makes this easy. Changing habits is hard!

upper photo credit: patricia kranenberg via photopin cc
09 Mar 2012

Should Churches and Pastors Be on Facebook?

Facebook vs Blogging

A year or so ago announcing your presence on Facebook was the latest craze. Many Church leaders tried this route as congregations and regional bodies added Facebook pages.

We visited the Facebook page of one prominent church leader. It started with a hesitant attempt to engage the flock. Within one year, the Facebook page had deteriorated to nothing but announcements of press releases. One young person had posted a deep concern on the “wall.” The answer received to that post was obviously written by a staff person, someone monitoring this prominent leader’s Facebook page — a digital age blow off.

That points to a real danger of church engagement on Facebook. People reaching out expect a caring person online waiting to hear them and willing to answer. They expect the Facebook owner to be reading what they write and they expect that person to respond when they’ve invited the inquiry. A digital blow-off from a third party, offered days later, has the power to devastate.

People will sense phoniness and turn to active forums that really ARE listening and engaging.

As proof . . . after one year this church leader had NO friends and few followers. So what was the point of the big Facebook announcement?

Facebook requires more daily attention and commitment — more time than most church leaders are able or willing to give.

We visited dozens of congregational Facebook pages . . . again . . . mostly press release type announcements with no real engagement. Most had very little activity.

This is why we recommend that congregations enter Social Media through blogging. You can develop your pace and control the content much more easily. People can engage just as they do on Facebook, but are likely to be more thoughtful about it and more willing to wait a day or so for a response.

There is some value to being on Facebook. You can feed your posts through the various Social Media outlets and get some traffic benefits. But it is hardly worth the fanfare of announcing it.

If you make a big announcement about your Facebook page and then doing nothing with it, it is like crying Wolf. Don’t say it if you don’t intend to play it!

photo credit: {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester} via photopin cc
08 Mar 2012