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August 2012

Congregations with NO Web Presence Are Waiting to Fail

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America gathers statistics from congregations and publishes a searchable database on the internet. It is called the ELCA Trend report. If you a looking for a church within a certain radius, all you must do is plug in your zip code and the distance you are willing to travel. A list will pop up.

The list contains the name of the congregation, its address, phone number and web address if available.

We plugged 25 miles into the radius and a long list of congregations came up, stretching into New Jersey. We are quite familiar with the list. We’ve visited nearly 50 of the congregations.

The first thing we like to do when visiting is review the congregation’s web site to find the time of services and learn about their ministry in advance of our visit.

Here is an amazing fact. Thirty of the congregations within 25 miles of our area (excluding NJ) have NO WEB SITE. Many of them are congregations with mission status which means the synod has some oversight of their ministry. (Redeemer, the church SEPA claims is too small to minister, has two web sites! This is one. redeemereastfalls.com is the other)

Where do people go today when they are looking for a restaurant, doctor, school, specialty store . . . church? To the internet.

There is no excuse for any church to ignore the potential of the web, even if it is simply to publish their address and worship times. A simple site can be set up for $25 a year and would take just 15 minutes to publish. With templates readily available, the most basic effort can look professional.

Congregations without web sites are advertising their inability to evangelize in today’s world.

Why would congregations not take advantage of the web?

  • Lack of knowledge. It’s a lot easier than it used to be.
  • The thinking that the web site is for current members and current members aren’t interested. Web sites are more for potential members than members.
  • Expense. They think it will cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. It used to! But not anymore. You can have a web site for $25 a year.

If you need help, call or write 2×2.

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No excuses. Get on the web!

11 Aug 2012

Restoring Trust in the Church (for the first time in a long time)

Building on a post by Lou Hoffman in “grow”—which builds on the thinking of Mark Schaefer.

The headline grabbed the attention of this Yankee.

Adopting the Piggly Wiggly View of Social Media

Piggly Wiggly? Isn’t that the grocery store in the movie, Driving Miss Daisy?

Piggly Wiggly, as a little research reveals, was the first self-service grocery store. Very few people are alive today that remember any other kind!

Back in 1917, an entrepreneur set out to change things. In those days, if you wanted a bag of flour, you walked into the local grocery with your own wicker basket and stepped up to a counter. The clerk fetched a bag of flour from behind the counter. You went down your list with the clerk turning to collect your desired items from the shelf and assembling your order on the counter before filling your basket and accepting your coin.

Clarence Saunders got rid of the counter. He stacked shelves with food and allowed customers to roam around and choose groceries themselves. He put prices on each item and provided a cart with wheels so you could buy more items, more easily. Revolutionary!

He met with resistance. All innovators do!

Stockholders feared customers would rob them blind. Sure, there are shoplifters, but for the most part, we all go to the grocery store today and select our own food.

Learn from this, Church. Get over your fear; trust the people.

Trust is not really very common n the Church. Much of Church tradition grew from distrust.

This is regularly displayed in the presentation of the Eucharist. One common method requires clergy to be the only hand to touch the host, placing the bread in the mouths of parishioners like a parent bird. The custom grew from the Church’s lack of trust in her people. If you allow peasants to touch the host they might not eat it like they are supposed to.

When trust is absent, control steps in. With control comes power. Power is a hungry beast that needs regular attention. Eventually, controls become so harsh that people no longer trust church leaders.  Reversing established controls is difficult. Result: no one trusts anyone. Some church!

Social Media relies on trust. The Church has been very slow to embrace Social Media. No surprise! Social Media cannot be controlled top-down and that’s all the Church knows.

Social Media has arrived just in time. People’s trust in Church leaders has been shattered by scandal. The actions of a few can bring the downfall of many.

Religious groups must recognize that faith and involvement in Church is optional.

By the way, the modern grocery story opened many doors. Sellers of products could now get the attention of the consumers without relying on the grocer. Consumers, by roaming around a well-stocked store, became familiar with cooking and cuisine from all over the world.

Think what opening the windows and doors with Social Tools of the Church might do!

Trust is a responsibility. There was a time when dialog in the Church was one way. This was back in the day when authorities made the rules, published the books and held the key to the treasury which was kept full by exerting power.

Today, it is two-way. It is likely that a lot of dialog will happen before the Church actually starts to listen. But people do have a voice and will learn to use it.

If this is not recognized, the leaders in the church will become reactionary, doing whatever they can to hang on to old-fashioned power structure even as the congregations they serve fail.

This is no way to run a Church.

photo credit: Surat Lozowick via photo pin cc
09 Aug 2012

When the Church Ignores the Obvious

Another Chapter in a Tale of Two Churches

In 1979, Alfred Krass, A United Christian Church pastor from nearby Levittown, Pa., wrote a “white paper” on Evangelism in Mainline Denominations, published in Christian Century magazine.

Reading this study 33 years later reveals that many of the issues raised remain serious issues in mainline denominations. As is often the case in the Church, issues raised that are not on the popular agenda are often ignored.

Rev. Krass’s paper ends by identifying two questions for which he saw no denominations taking any steps to address. One involved the methods of communication used by the Church. The article did not foresee the internet and its tremendous potential for change (largely ignored by the Church).

The other problem he identified 33 years ago was the absence of families in Church and the ineffectiveness of motivating families as evangelists.

Redeemer’s Ambassador visits reveal that this is still a crying need in the Church. Rev. Krass identified the absence of 15- to 45-year-olds. Redeemer’s Ambassador visits reveal that the spread is now even broader. With very few exceptions, among the nearly 50 churches we have visited, children and youth are absent. When present, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Furthermore, the missing age group in church today is more realistically 1-50.

This was not true of Redeemer. Our age spectrum was fairly broad with no one age group dominating.

This problem unaddressed for the last three decades remains a problem. What are we doing about it?

The missing age group is the demographic where multiple generations actually live together under one roof — or in today’s world — under two roofs. The prevalence of the divided family is probably a big part of the problem. Religion can be an additional divisive agent.

How do we shape our message so that it reaches this majority population?

He closes with a point that church camps are ideally situated to minister to families. Interesting! Redeemer was a big supporter of church camping, making sure that as many members as possible were able to attend family camp and other church camping programs. Perhaps Rev. Krass’s ideas were working for us!

East Falls is an interesting place to study this question. This traditionally working class neighborhood happens to be blessed. It is a nice place to live and raise families and many generations stayed in East Falls through the years of “white flight.” Property values are strong despite the average family income. Families that raised six kids in their millworkers’ rowhouses and hung onto their property are now property rich. The vultures are all too willing to swoop in.

The conditions in East Falls and the actions of leaders of its faith communities reveal the priorities of hierarchies.

East Falls has Redeemer, where SEPA Synod has evicted the families and locked the doors, claiming the property the congregation had owned and the building they had built on working class salaries. More recently, St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church, was forced by its hierarchy to close its school. Redeemer had a strong family ministry. St. Bridget’s School was the hub of parish activity.

In sharing their experiences, both congregations noted the same thing. The “hierarchy” wasn’t listening. (Note: Lutherans aren’t really hierarchical. Their leaders just act that way.)

Another thing the two congregations have in common: Their hierarchies see church property as of more value to them when they are occupied by people who can pay more to use them than church members who live in the neighborhood.

Interesting, indeed!

photo credit: John Carleton via photo pin cc
08 Aug 2012

The Path to Church Growth: Empower the Laity

For centuries the Church has allowed the clergy to direct mission. It worked for a while, especially when church professionals were willing to labor in the field for little compensation and the people they served were uneducated. The rewards in those days were in the commitment to the Lord and His service. Tax law even recognized the sacrifices of clergy and created special rules to lessen their tax burden.

That level of commitment is rare today. Church professionals have negotiated salaries that might still be low compared to the corporate world but which are far better. They still have tax advantages.

The current state of decline in the Church has been influenced by this shift. Congregations must work harder and members must sacrifice more for less leadership. The laity have become valued for what they can contribute.

There are solutions but they require de-emphasizing the reliance on professional leadership. Empower the laity. They, for the most part, are still willing to labor without monetary rewards. They may even be eager to make a difference. In this day and age, they are educated and have leadership skills which they use in the secular world.

There is one hitch that will keep this from happening. Empowering the laity means less power for clergy.

Ministry was never supposed to be about power. It was supposed to be about service.

The biggest advantage to empowering the laity may force a return to that thinking.

08 Aug 2012

We Still Call Ourselves Lutherans

There are only so many church properties SEPA can seize to pay hierarchical costs.As Redeemer Ambassadors visit churches of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we are often asked where we are from. After three years, the question is still a kick in the gut.

SEPA/ELCA rejected us four years ago. It did more than reject us. It confiscated our property and pursued members in court — an ongoing travesty that countless good Lutherans handle by looking the other way. (The message of the Good Samaritan story has been lost in translation.)

ELCA founding documents, the foundation of Lutheran law, forbid the confiscation of congregational property. Courts have decided they can’t uphold church law. They have no jurisdiction.

Two dissenting state Appeal Court judges wrote an opinion that if the law were followed, the members of Redeemer were making arguments that should be heard.

This should raise eyebrows among Lutherans.  

East Falls Lutherans are left with a difficult choice. The hierarchical assumption (if not wish) is that members would seamlessly uproot their lives, traditions, and personal relationships and travel to other Lutheran churches on Sunday morning with their offerings. Suing church members makes this scenario unlikely. Which congregation wants the targets of SEPA litigation as members?

Other ELCA churches have failed to lift a finger. Many of them are no stronger than Redeemer—cowering as they await their turn at rejection. The less they do now, the more likely that day is coming.

There are lessons to be learned by the Church about how to treat church members. They are not unlike the lessons business and government are learning in the modern world. Power has shifted.

The Church, living in its own lawless bubble, may be the last to grasp this. People, in the post-feudal church at least, have long controlled the purse strings. Now they control communication as well.

The shift in power is a good thing. We should be rejoicing. People can make a difference! The whole Church can make a bigger difference — but only if the concept is understood and put to use.

When SEPA Synod visited East Falls with faux concern for the neighborhood back in March, Redeemer was there. Did Rev. Davenport realize that 10% of the audience that day had connections to Redeemer? She was oblivious. SEPA doesn’t realize that members don’t evaporate just because you lock doors. We still live here. We still participate in neighborhood government and patronize neighborhood businesses.

There are only so many church properties SEPA can seize to pay hierarchical bills before they will have to come up with a better survival tactic. Now is a good time to start looking!

What should the Church do with loyal members when they dare to challenge actions?

Just practice what is preached!

What would be happening today inside Redeemer if members had been treated as children of God and not as enemies that must be vanquished at any cost?

A better way is still possible. Sooner or later a Good Samaritan will pass by.

Meanwhile, Redeemer members visit the congregations who have rejected us and answer with pride, “We are from Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls.”

We are still Lutherans—and proud of it!

07 Aug 2012

Object Lesson for Adults: August 12, 2012

1 Kings 19:4-8, Psalm 34:1-8, Ephesians 4:25-5:2, John 6:35, 41-51

This week’s object is a potato chip (or perhaps a peanut).

Eat one yourself and start to take another. Stop yourself.

If your group is small, you might put some chips or peanuts in a bowl and pass them around the congregation with the admonition that they eat just one and stop, just as you did.

Play off the well known advertising tagline (Lays), “Betcha can’t eat just one.”

Compare this human craving for more of a good thing to what was happening along the Sea of Galilee in the last few Gospel lessons.

It started with the miraculous feeding of the multitude with five loaves and two fish.

The similarities to a key story of the crowd’s heritage is not lost. The people were familiar with God sending miraculous food supplies in various Old Testament stories. In the most memorable, God sent manna from heaven in adequate, if not abundant, supply and saved them from starvation.

That they had just witnessed a similar miracle had the impact of a gold rush. Jesus, the man who had grown up near them in Nazareth, could feed them for the rest of their lives! Who would have thought!?

The frantic fans followed Jesus along the shore line, hopping into boats — any way to stay close to the miracle worker. Following Jesus could change their lives forever. “Count me in!” they might have been crying.

Jesus had their attention and he knew it. Now was the time to introduce a new concept.

He continued to teach more than preach.

Aha! You like the bread I gave you. What’s that? You want more! Try this idea on for size. “I am the Bread of Life.”

Jesus stretches the minds of his new fan club. They can have a piece of the Bread of Life.

It was not clear what Jesus meant. It is debated even today. But one thing is clear: To participate any further in this miracle, they must make a connection with the Father if they want the sustenance of the Bread of Life.

Look down at the bowl of chips or nuts. Ask: Are you ready for some more? What are you willing to do?

06 Aug 2012

How Hierarchies Are Putting the Church Out of Business

Hierarchies start with the best of intentions.

  • Centralize authority to ensure quality and efficiency. Call it leadership.
  • Pool resources for cost effectiveness. Call it stewardship.

This has worked only short-term. In the long run, it has been disastrous and self-destructive.

The Church has been in the hierarchy game for a very long time. The Old Testament dallies in a number of systems—patriarchy, slavery, judiciary, military, monarchy—each with strengths for the moment, each going awry to be dealt with by a powerful, vengeful (but still loving) God.

The New Testament, puts all of this aside and forges a new relationship between God and His people, centered not on wrath but on love.

As Christianity spread, scattered faith communities sought unified leadership. The keys handed to the fisherman who set out with a walking stick and the shirt on his back were soon held by those with well-appointed robes and massive treasuries. The only way to keep the coffers full was to exert power.

The trappings of power created the illusion of necessity. Necessity became entrenched. If anyone noticed that the system was leading nowhere, they were dealt with swiftly.

The well-intended system stopped working a long time ago. It took centuries for Reformation to attempt to do something about it. Its success was limited and its message seems to be forgotten.

That’s the way with hierarchies.

Today, every person wields tremendous power. A teenager holding a smart phone controls more resources than worldwide television networks had twenty years ago.

When church members in the pew realize this, there will be a new Reformation. The only delay in this happening is the long tradition of lay people doing little but following and the innate desire of God-loving people for peace and pleasantry.

There are still many (if far fewer) satisfied followers sitting in the pews. Knowledgeable, motivated leaders among them are beginning to realize that their considerable efforts to gather resources to support the hierarchies isn’t good stewardship after all. They are growing weary of struggling for resources that do nothing for their communities but maintain a building and support a requisite hierarchically named pastor. They are looking for new supporters, but the lines of people looking for controlling relationships with its own system of taxation is very short.

For the time being the hierarchies are licking their chops as they glean the last kernel of corn from the field before they give up their ways—all the while preaching that the problems of the Church are that congregations won’t change.

Hierarchies don’t really want change.

But change cannot be avoided.

There are fewer churches and fewer Christians. Same old hierarchies.

photo credit: K e v i n via photo pin cc (retouched)
06 Aug 2012

How Many People Heard Your Sermon This Morning?

In dozens of churches near Philadelphia and hundreds or even thousands of churches across the country, hard-working pastors stood before their congregations this morning and delivered sermons to fewer than 50 people.

A conscientious pastor probably worked for days on that sermon. He or she probably spent the same amount of time on his or her sermon as far fewer pastors who delivered sermons to larger congregations.

Preaching is a major investment for every congregation whether they have 50 members or 1000 members—probably half the annual church budget.

Yet churches resist using the tools the modern era provides to preach the gospel to every corner of the world.

2×2, the web site that grew from Redeemer Lutheran Church’s exclusion from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, began with little experience with the internet. We had only a static web site which we rarely updated — just like the vast majority of churches who are concentrating on paying a pastor.

2x2virtualchurch.com became our new site.

2×2 studied the medium and followed recommended practices. We had no money to invest in outside help, so we learned how to do this ourselves.

Perhaps we were the perfect candidates for this evangelism frontier. We discovered that a small church can swim with the big fish!

Here is a mid-year report from the congregation SEPA Synod claims doesn’t exist (because they say so).

  • Every DAY 106 followers read our messages with our posts delivered to their email addresses. Huge potential for growth here!
  • Every WEEK an additional 250 or more come to our web site for information.
  • Every MONTH more than 1000 new readers find our site.
  • We’ve had 7000 visits this YEAR (in addition to our daily readers) and are on track to double that by the end of the year.

(Editorial update-Jan 16, 2013): All of these numbers have doubled since this was published five months ago!)

2×2 started strong in the Middle Atlantic states and California. In recent months our readership in Southern states is spiking. We’ve had readers in every state and regular readers in a dozen countries. Six congregations write to us weekly and share their ministry challenges and successes.

Topics which draw readers to 2×2 are (in order of popularity)

  • Object Lessons for Adults
  • Social Media
  • Small Congregation Ministry
  • Broader Church Issues
  • Vacation Bible School

We’ve learned that it is impossible to predict the popularity of a post. We had a Whoville theme party last January and the post about that still attracts search engine traffic several times each week. A post about a visit to a small church in a Philadelphia suburb and its pastor’s “brown bag” sermons for adults began attracting new readers daily, which led us to develop object lesson sermons.

Several seminaries have sent students to 2×2 for discussion topics.

2×2 has established both a mission voice and reach that rivals or surpasses mid-sized churches. We’ve done it on a shoestring budget. Another year to 18 months will no doubt add to our reach.

We will continue our experiment in modern evangelism.

How many people heard the sermon your church paid for this morning?

photo credit: Photomatt28 via photo pin cc
05 Aug 2012

Involving Laity in Planning Church Worship

Who Should Plan Worship?

The fallback thinking is that pastors or organists plan worship.

Let’s look at worship planning from the small congregation’s point of view.

If a congregation can afford only part-time pastoral help and they allocate a good bit of that expense to sermon preparation and worship planning, they are paying for church maintenance, not church growth. For small churches, this may be a waste of resources.

Here is a bit of news. Anyone can plan worship. 

Lay people attend hundreds of worship services, but they don’t think about leading them.

The food is placed before us and we eat. If we like the food, we come back for more. If we don’t, we become less involved.

This common scenario detracts from worship. Over time and among a people who are less and less educated in church, people fail to realize the purpose of worship.

Worship is about praising God—not satisfying worshipers. Nevertheless, if worshipers are organically involved in the planning, God will be glorified by a joyful worshiping community.

Many denominations have an established structure that facilitates worship planning.

Liturgical churches usually follow a lectionary, which means that scriptures and themes of weekly worship are already laid out following the traditional church year that begins in Advent and ends after Pentecost. The previous link takes you to the lectionary on line. If you want to have a reference book for your lay leaders, here’s a link for a print version of the Common Lectionary.

This is how pastors plan worship. (Anyone can do this).

  • They read the lessons and then review the structure of the worship service.
  • They find hymns which augment the theme. Sometimes this is all that happens.
  • Going beyond that, worship planners can look at the language of the liturgy: the confession, prayers and responses. There are resources which provide pre-written changes in wording and ideas for novel expression. There is no law against writing your own. (We recommend Sundays and Seasons. This link is for the current year which is nearly over. The first Sunday in Advent (December 2) will be here before you know it! Here is the link to plan for 2012-2013 using Sundays and Seasons.)

As long as worship planning is the province of paid professionals, this is what will happen week after week.

Stop and consider the talents of the worshiping community. How can they add to the worship experience. Do you have school teachers who can tell a children’s story? Do you have dancers, musicians, writers and artists? Are there banner makers and printers? Are members involved in social service ventures that need to be embraced by your community?

When lay people become involved in worship planning, there will be answers to these questions.

People will  come to understand what is going on in a worship service and how it relates to the full mission of the church. As they become involved, they grow in realizing that they can lead. New leadership skills will transfer to other arenas of congregational life.

The hardest part is getting started. Ask for help. Be prepared to teach as you get started. See what happens! 

photo credit: dtcchc via photo pin cc (retouched)
04 Aug 2012

Making Choices in the Church

There is new jargon in the world of parenting. When our children stray from the path we would hope they follow, we scold them for “making poor choices.”

Not “wrong” choices. “Poor” choices. That’s less judgmental.

Making choices is a big responsibility. It is something we are asked to do regularly in the Church.

  • We can choose to attend worship . . . or not.
  • We can choose to support the work of the Church with our offerings . . . or not.
  • We can choose to help . . . or not.
  • We can choose to stand up for an unpopular cause . . . or not.
  • We can choose to speak out for the oppressed . . . or not.

Children make choices. Parents make choices. Congregations and leaders make choices. Pastors make choices. Bishops make choices.

  • The Church can choose to invest in social change.
  • The Church can choose to be more welcoming.
  • The Church can choose to tolerate differences.
  • The Church can choose to give a voice to those who differ.
  • The Church can choose to resolve conflict.
  • The Church can choose to love, forgive and reconcile.
    Or not.

Sometimes the Church makes good choices. More often we make the choices that are less troublesome and require the least effort.

Sometimes the choices we make are more than poor. They are wrong.

That’s where the Church chooses to fail.

photo credit: Dr Case via photo pin cc (retouched)

03 Aug 2012