2×2 corresponds with several congregations that write to us regularly. Many are start-up fellowships. Occasionally, with their permission, we put them in touch with one another. Several have formed relationships with the common denominator being that they were introduced by 2×2—a project that grew from Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls.
Today, we learned that two of these fellowships are planning a conference together. They are about 350 miles apart in Kenya, but they are planning to travel to have their fellowships meet, worship together, study and get to know one another for three days. One fellowship works with street children. The other is a project of a husband and wife who have taken several orphans under their wing.
We are excited to learn of their efforts!
It is validating to our ministry, which the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA/ELCA) declared closed two and one half years ago.
Redeemer is not closed.
We are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.
Every now and then a group of people, calling themselves a church, decides that they don’t want to be a church any more. They take a vote and decide to close. It’s sad, but they followed a prescribed procedure. Everyone can move on.
In the Lutheran church, a congregation gets to decide among themselves how to use their remaining assets to the glory of God. Standing on the sideline is the regional body or synod, desperately trying to find ways around their polity to guarantee that the wealth of the congregations goes their way.
To assure this, they have developed a new process. You won’t find it outlined in quite the way it is being implemented in any ELCA governing documents. (But that’s why we hire lawyers.)
It begins with a target painted figuratively in red on the church. This is followed by years of neglect, and knowing nods and glances among clergy when the name of the congregation comes up in Lutheran forums.
The next step is the lock out. They’ll be talk (with no specifics) of the heroic “efforts” that came between these two steps—as if God was at work and failed. Truth be told, the prescribed neglect is just that — neglect, and no effective help was ever intended or offered. This is the written advice of noted church leaders.
By this time, clergy have ceded their influence in the Church to lawyers. The Gospel is out the stained glass window with the law following. Separation of Church and State replaces the laws other people have to live by.
What is likely to follow is a legal battle pitting clergy with their loyalties to the bishop against laity whose loyalties are to their congregation and faith. It’s not supposed to be this way. We are supposed to be interdependent, working together as equals. This is the traditional Lutheran way.
2×2 grew from just such a debacle at Redeemer in East Falls, Philadelphia. We have 15 years of experience on our side.
We’ve heard of similar heavy-handed treatments from bishops in New England, Metropolitan New York and Slovak Zion Synods and there may be more. There are examples in other denominations, including an Episcopal Church in East Falls. (East Falls is a favorite target. It’s a nice, working class neighborhood with soaring property values. The value of our property has outgrown the value of our people.)
So what are the reasons behind these actions.
Some possibilities
The congregation cannot pay its bills.
The congregation cannot afford to pay clergy.
The congregation is heretical in its teachings.
(If the first two are a reality, the congregation is likely to know it and work together to solve the problem or close.)
Here are some other possibilities.
The regional body cannot pay its bills.
The regional body cannot afford its current staff.
The regional body is heretical in its teachings.
In this case, there is the need for a cover story to gain acceptance among church people who might find what is about to take place distasteful — if not sinful. In East Falls, the cover story was that SEPA Synod intended to close the congregation for six months and reopen it with new and improved Lutherans that wouldn’t ask questions.
Well, SEPA has owned the property by court order for going on four years and done nothing with it.
This was not the real plan. The people of East Falls knew it all along!
The primary question that needs to be asked and answered is “What is the goal of forcing churches to close?”
The goal is usually stated as “better stewardship of church resources” or as a synod representative told Redeemer members, “ministry in East Falls is not good use of the Lord’s money.”
If this is the goal, the results point to high-stakes failure.
The results of this mismanagement, from which clergy and congregations shield their eyes, are ungodly. They include:
broken relationships — within the church, among friends, within families—and with God (the definition of sin)
children wrenched from the first support system they encounter outside their families
elderly living their later years under legal attack from the church they served all their lives
disabled or non-drivers, who relied on the local church, totally disenfranchised
an economic pit that gets harder to crawl out of every day for both the regional body, haughtily asserting its power, and the remnants of the congregation they set out to destroy
a Gospel message, preached weekly, but acted upon rarely
The stated goal—better use of church resources—is no longer even mentioned. The goal has failed.
The evidence is that if stewardship of resources is the goal, it is a far better to work with congregations interdependently — as our constitutions state.
Several times in the last few years, I have listened to reports from various bishops and high-end church leaders concerning their visits to Africa. Some have visited Ethiopia, some Kenya, and some Tanzania.
They travel at their denomination’s expense. They return with inspiring reports of baptizing hundreds of babies and meeting church leaders.
They give these reports because they want us, here in the United States, to give offerings to these “approved” mission efforts in other parts of the world. They want us to sense that their denomination is actively engaged in the universal Christian mission to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every nation.
This approach to mission work has decades of experience behind it. It also has decades of pre-social media traditions dimly lighting the way.
Is continuing this style of mission work effective for today’s world?
We serve an interconnected world. Sending official denominational representatives for on-site visits may once have been the only way for congregations to interact with mission efforts overseas.
Today, each individual has the power to connect. If the Church does not harness the power of the individual using social media tools for world mission, we are failing in our stewardship of possibilities.
Each congregation and its members have the power to communicate daily with Christians around the world. No intermediary is needed.
We can share ideas and first-hand accounts of our faith journeys. The exchange can be very personal — they with us and we with them.
A forward-thinking denomination would be working to create their own online mission communities. That would be providing a service many direct benefits. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel. They can simply harness the social media platform that suits them best.
The money spent on junkets might be better spent in building these social network circles.
It would bring new life into mission work.
2×2 is experimenting with this concept now. We correspond with several such mission ventures. We identify ourselves as Lutheran, but we’ve found no need to dwell on denominational distinctions.
As a result of our online outreach, we have first-hand reports of their work, almost daily — not just on mission Sunday. We get firsthand news! Our friends in Pakistan shared that a Lutheran Church in their city had burned as a result of recent violence. We prayed for them during the unrest. Two weeks ago they sent word that they were holding a prayer meeting for us as we faced Hurricane Sandy.
We know many in these fellowships by name. We exchange photos. We pray for one another and offer ideas and strategies. The exchange is truly two-way.
In case you are wondering, we have never sent money.
What will grow from this initiative remains to be seen, but we know this. There’s no holding us back.
God is doing something new in East Falls — and the world.
The Mission Statement is written. The Vision Statement is being drafted.
The process of writing the Mission Statement helped you define your congregation.
The Vision Statement is a congregation’s crystal ball overview. Where do you see yourself as a congregation in five to ten years?
The Vision Statement is an invitation to dream.
You will be tempted to write a beautiful Vision Statement, wrapped up in all your hopes for your beloved congregation. You will stumble over one thing.
You are who you are.
Unless you are a brand new congregation, people already have expectations when they walk through your door.
This is nothing new. It’s how denominations came to be and how they continue to be defined. We expect a bit of pageantry when we enter a Roman Catholic or Episcopal Church. We expect a different focus in a Baptist or Methodist Church.
Example of Branding Challenges
The Lutheran Church (ELCA) is a good example of branding gone awry.
Lutherans are a congregation-based denomination that spans the liturgical tradition. The broad definition provides a wide door for participation, but no one quite knows what they will encounter when they enter a Lutheran Church.
The local congregation, therefore, must be diligent in defining its image.
Without definition, there is a subtle competition to be more of whatever the current trend might be. This changes over the years and varies culturally and geographically.
Currently, Lutherans are trying to emulate the Episcopalian traditions. Leaders worked hard to reach agreement at being in Full Communion, a concept that benefits only top leaders. A document was drafted accordingly. And then a disclaimer was added.The disclaimer is rarely read. It negates most of the agreements made in the document! We are in full communion — just kidding.
The result is a classic “branding” problem. Compare this to the business world.
You expect a certain type of movie from Disney. You expect a certain type of thinking to come from Apple. You don’t expect lullabies from Mick Jagger.
If a company strays from its mission, confusion and disappointment results.
What do we expect from our Lutheran congregations, especially when there is a difference between the leadership of our denomination and the congregations?
Local congregations must find a balance between sudden change and its established image.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. Denominational pressure encourages change. Demographics are examined with a marketer’s eye. The real, unstated mission is to find members willing to support the denomination.
Congregations may decide that they will attract young professionals if they offer a praise band. But that offering may go against who you actually are as a congregation and the community may read this as desperate marketing. Result: no one is comfortable. Pretty soon, your congregation doesn’t recognize itself.
On to the next marketing “hook.”
Like it or not, the Church is involved in marketing.
Know Thyself
A congregation’s “branding” must grow organically from who we actually are. Any changes on the road to transformation must first enhance the life of the existing congregation so that our members are confident in their evangelism efforts. Presumably, the drafting of a Mission Statement helps this process. Know thyself and don’t try to be all things to all people.
Otherwise you may as well lock out the faithful members of the congregation. With this unwelcoming behavior on display to the community, you can then try to build a new membership more to your liking.
This may sound absurd, but it is the actual strategy of some synods in the ELCA!
Today’s object is a skill game — paddle ball (a paddle with a rubber ball attached with an elastic string) or a cup and ball toy (bilbo catcher) pictured here.
This lesson can be adapted for use with children or adults.
The lessons in today’s lectionary reference things that are habits in our lives. Habits are a demonstration of an acquired skill. There are good habits and bad habits. Everyone has them!
Practice whichever game you choose until you can paddle a good series or catch the ball with ease. You’ll want to show your skill as you start your sermon — perhaps missing and improving as you talk.
The widow in the Old Testament story is going about her daily routine, knowing that this may be the last time she ever prepares a meal for her son. Along comes Elijah and claims her last morsel. Habits can have predictable results and can be alarming.
The Psalm today is part of a series of psalms that repeat the theme of praising the Lord, beginning with the psalmist’s own voice of praise and ultimately including everything that has breath. Habits can gain momentum.
The tables are turned in the Epistle, where Jesus’ one-time sacrifice is contrasted to the habits of priests who carry the sacrificial animal blood into the temple again and again. Good habits once, but now they are unnecessary. Habits can become useless.
And finally we come to the Gospel story of the widow’s mite. Here, Jesus is watching a ritual take place. One after another, the faithful come to the temple with their offerings. The rich make quite a spectacle of their giving and they are probably accustomed to making their offerings when there is a good audience. The widow is also part of the habit of giving. It is so ingrained that she gives from the little she has with no Elijah promising her an endless supply of oil and bread. Habits can define character.
The point of the object is to demonstrate how with practice the challenges we undertake get easier and easier. Actions that we undertake as challenging become habits. It’s tough to hit or catch the ball at first. Eventually the game is conquered. Muscle memory and balance are imprinted on the brain. Like riding a bicycle, it’s not forgotten. (You could use a bicycle as your object!) Point out that the motivations for the habits also become embedded in our minds. Watch you don’t get too adept at your challenge game! You’ll risk looking like the rich givers—showing off!
You don’t have a reason for hitting or catching the ball except the satisfaction of achieving the goal. What are the motives behind your worship habits? The motives mattered more than the gift to Jesus.
Our faith lives are built on habits—habits of prayer, praise, thanksgiving, attendance and giving. We don’t even stop to think.
If this is your church’s stewardship Sunday, you might point out that the habits of giving need to be reexamined now and then—new talents and skills discovered, new obstacles overcome.
You could point out that habits in giving need updating. $5 in the offering plate in 1970 doesn’t go as far as $5 in the offering plate today.
But mostly, today’s lesson is about the overall value of practicing faith skills until they are part of our lives and we are willing to give to God without measuring the cost to ourselves.
Redeemer Ambassadors have now visited 50 churches. We’ve seen 50 versions of the weekly bulletin.
They are all pretty much the same and most are a mountain of paper to be left in the hymnal rack or tossed at the first opportunity.
The primary purpose of a worship bulletin is to direct people through the service. This is also the primary purpose of the expensive Worship Books/Hymnals sitting in the pew racks.
A secondary purpose is advertising — which these days is better done by email or Facebook. (It’s not the people who are in church that need all the reminders!)
Bulletins can be a creative outlet that provides enriching content—much more than those black and white line drawings that every church uses—the ones with short, big-eyed characters in flowing robes, acting out the Gospel for the day.
If a church is to go to the trouble of reprinting the worship book each week, it should add something to the worship experience.
We have yet to encounter bulletins as helpful as Redeemer’s—one piece of paper (11 x 17) with the entire service printed inside, including words to all hymns and prayers. Full color art from many different genres and religious poetry graced the covers. News, contact info, credits, calendar and even a Bible study or puzzle for the children appeared on the back.
There was no need to reference hymnals, which freed us to use worship elements from many sources.
Since we printed only words, we could easily substitute parts of the liturgy with an appropriate praise song or hymn.
But what about the music? The congregation developed a pretty good ear. The organist played hymns through in their entirety once. Hymnals were in each pew. Hymnal references were provided for those who wanted the music—and that was rarely more than one person.
A Redeemer bulletin was easy to follow for the presiding minister, visitors and even the children. Most important—there was a reason to take a Redeemer bulletin home to enjoy and share during the week.
Recently, a former member who now lives out of state wrote to one of our members and asked for a copy of our bulletins. She wanted to share them with her new pastor. A current member spoke up and said, “I’ll send her a few, I have them all on file.”
Others had often shared that they clipped a poem or image from the bulletin and stuck it to the refrigerator. That anyone kept them on file was a surprise!
It’s been more than three years since our last worship service in our own sanctuary, but when I cleaned my son’s room last week (who is now of age to be moving out). There, neatly folded on his dresser was the bulletin from the last Redeemer worship service —September 20, 2009.
Redeemer bulletins had mileage—even three years after we published our last one!
In this age of “going green,” it is peculiar that we publish hymnals with liturgies printed in them and place them in every pew. We brag that we have the latest and greatest worship book. Then the worship books sit unused in the racks. We reprint the liturgy in bulletins that eat up a ream or two of paper each week, a ton of toner, and wear and tear on office equipment. Preparing these bulletins takes a half day of a pastor’s time and probably a full day of office time.
Church bulletins are a huge investment with little return.
The reason we do this is probably that the hymnals are heavy and require flipping from the liturgy section to the hymn section frequently. They are awkward.
It’s also the way every church seems to do it.
But bulletins with 16-24 pages and fliers spilling out are equally awkward. Some of them were daunting to us as visitors — even with our strong church backgrounds.
Here’s an idea. Fill the hymnals with hymns—nothing else. You may end up needing to invest in fewer copies.
Print each liturgy in a small booklet that is easy to manage and won’t cost more than a dollar or two per copy. Let congregations choose which liturgy booklets they want. They can even create them themselves if they pay the licensing fee. Most churches don’t use more than one or two versions of a liturgy, regardless of how many choices are offered in the heavy worship books. An advantage of this is that new liturgies can be added at any time without waiting 20 years for the next hymnal to be published.
Now your bulletin can be one sheet of paper. Or maybe you won’t need one at all!
Save a forest. Save the church budget.
The bulletin will be easier to follow and allow for the inclusion of more art, poetry and teaching in your worship experience.
PS: We were able to forge the way in developing this because we didn’t have a pastor controlling the process.
The sign hangs close to the door of almost every church. ALL WELCOME.
A similar message of welcome will be on the church’s opening web page, usually accompanied by a photo of Christmas Eve worship—as if Christmas worship is representative of the whole church year.
We still expect our worship experience to be the entry point into community life within the Church. There may have been a day when this was true.
That day would have been when most people had some familiarity with religion and sought a new church community only when they relocated.
Today, however, a first-time visitor is often entering our doors totally unprepared for what they are about to experience.
Their first impression will be as if they were watching a foreign film with subtitles in a different foreign language.
Liturgies and hymns are laced with words from Latin and Greek and tunes from ancient choral traditions.
They will be asked to stand, sit and kneel with little explanation as to why. Obvious perhaps to church goers, but not to today’s visitors.
They will juggle bulletins with papers flying out and hymnals that have two numbering systems.
And then comes Communion, where they won’t be sure if they are among those welcome or not. They may be unsure of the local customs and have no clue what this eating and drinking of the body and blood of Christ is all about. (Many of those participating don’t know either.)
There is nothing wrong with any of this. Just realize that it doesn’t necessarily communicate to visitors. Although meant to be welcoming, it may be alienating or worse.
If a visitor is not welcome at communion, their first visit to church has been an experience of exclusion.
If communion is a weekly event, they will feel excluded weekly until they are made welcome through some form of initiation. If the Eucharist is a third of the worship service, the visitor has been excluded from a third of the worship service.
This is just something for the Church in a new age to think about as we practice our rituals.
If they haven’t started already, they will soon! Christmas Carols will be on every retail store Muzak, the radio, and TV commercials.
There is something about the “sound” of a Christmas Carol that touches emotions immediately. It has nothing to do with being “pop.” Most popular Christmas Carols were written hundreds of years ago.
Part of the thing that distinguishes a “carol” is its seasonal nature. We don’t talk about them much but there are Advent carols and even Easter carols.
Many of them grew from folk music.
But a key distinguishing element of a carol is this. From the very beginning, carols—as differentiated from hymns—were meant to inspire DANCE!
Has your congregations danced to its Christmas music lately?
I had an uncle who was a Methodist preacher. He often said, only partially jokingly, “Jesus is the answer. Now what is your question?”
There seems to be a similar “go to” response in the Church today. When you don’t know what to do—or when you do know what to do but don’t have the courage to do it, there is an easy answer. Promise to pray.
It’s been tough going for our congregation as members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Bishop Claire Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod went on the warpath against Redeemer Lutheran in East Falls, Philadelphia, including personal attacks on lay members. Acquiring the assets of Redeemer seems to have been part of the plan to fund massive budget deficits from the very beginning of her first term in 2006.
Large deficits have been routine since the beginning of SEPA back in the late 1980s. Giving and attendance were (and still are) in serious decline. There was no plan for reviving small church ministry beyond neglect and waiting for failure. Several congregations folded rather than swim upstream without the cooperation of SEPA leadership.
The assumption of SEPA leadership is that if they neglect ministry for a decade, ministry will fail to the benefit of Synod coffers. Under Lutheran polity this isn’t a given. Congregations can determine where to donate their assets. But Synods are finding a work-around that guarantees they will benefit. Simply declare the congregations “terminated” before they can have any say. This means that the congregations have NO rights within the Church they have served for decades or centuries. They need not even be consulted! Constitutional checks and balances are ignored.
Redeemer was getting the “10 years of neglect” treatment. But it wasn’t going as Synod planned. Lay leadership grew. Alliances were made with several dedicated pastors. Redeemer was in a promising position, with a five-year commitment of a qualified Lutheran pastor, working under a detailed plan that the congregation had spent six months drafting. In fact, our ministry continues to grow, despite the abuse.
But the efforts of lay people are not valued.
And there was that $275,000 deficit budget approved by Synod Assembly at the same time they voted (against Lutheran rules) to take our property.
And all of this has gone on while the clergy of SEPA Synod have watched.
Our members have approached people who should be in a position to at least open dialog on the issues.
There are fairly specific guidelines for resolution of disputes in the Bible and there are governing documents that could be followed within the Church. But ELCA leaders do not bother. They rely on “wisdom.”
We’ve heard all kinds of excuses.
From Bishop Hanson: Just talk it out. I have great regard for Bishop Burkat.
From a Synod Council member: We have no intention of negotiating with you. (Synod Council is supposed to represent the congregations.)
From deans: Silence
From pastors in a position to help: We have to trust the wisdom of the bishop.
From pastors who visited Redeemer 30 or 40 years ago: We know your history (as if Redeemer was stuck in a time warp).
From pastors who don’t know anything about Redeemer — but voted with the crowd anyway: Sorry! We didn’t know.
Whatever the excuse, it is always accompanied with a sanctimonious, conscience-assuaging promise to pray.
We wonder what these learned church leaders expect to come of prayer.
That someone else—anyone else—will play peacemaker.
That God will suddenly fix everything without any work.
That whatever happens won’t affect them.
That miracles will replace gumption.
That whatever happens, their jobs will be secure.
That they will never be the victims of the type of leadership abuses that have characterized this sad episode (and perhaps others before us).
That life in SEPA will go on as if Redeemer, and Epiphany, and Grace and others never existed—and the list will probably continue to grow.
Lutherans pride themselves on an interdependent structure. That means we are supposed to work together.
Here’s a suggestion:
By all means, keep praying, but recognize that the answer to prayer is probably in getting off your backsides and doing something.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do
for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
At the core of democracy is the freedom to say “no.” This freedom is also at the core of Christianity, without which democracy the way we know it today would not exist.
Jesus taught His followers to sort out the demands of the various authorities in everyday ancient Mediterranean life—and they were many—local, religious, tribal, class, Roman. Jesus gave his followers license to say “no.” Yes, it got some of them in trouble. Saying “no” calls for some bravery, some chance-taking.
Every now and then, the Church forgets that “no” is an option, even in Church life. The Church is then taking itself more seriously than its mission.
There is always a temptation to worship the leaders whom we can see and hear rather than the nebulous God they serve but come to represent in people’s minds. The temptation of leaders is to first accept the attention and then to expect the attention. Obedience to man is substituted for obedience to God.
Things can go badly for many for a very long time until one or a few brave souls put their tongues to the roof of their mouths and say “NO.”
Many of these are remembered today as saints. Others are featured in history books. Two of them have similar names — Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Still we easily forget the power of the simplest and most necessary word in almost any language. Wrong will prevail without the ability to say “no.”
We are in one of these unfortunate eras. We have church leaders who look at any controversy in the Church and say. “I’d better not comment.” No response appears to be safe, a ticket to popularity (and reelection and a continuing paycheck).
No response is a devil’s playground.
We have clergy who protect their status in the Church by saying nothing to abuses of power.
We have church members who follow suit and attempt to create an easy-going congregational life where everyone just gets along and never considers taking a stand on anything that might disrupt the good life.
Shun the naysayer.
Substituting for the simple word “no” are laborious Social Statements that committees slave over until everyone can agree . . . and that collect cyberdust on the national bodies’ websites.
The Church then stands for nothing and people of conviction rightly conclude that passions are of more value outside the Church.
The Church, without the word “no” in its vocabulary, will continue to decline.
Do something about this? It’s our choice: Yes or No.
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
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For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
2×2 Sections
Where in the World is 2×2?
On Isaiah 30:15b
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
