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September 2013

Ambassadors Visit Redemption, NE Philadelphia

RedemptionRedemption is Small But Big in Mission

Four Redeemer Ambassadors visited this neighborhood congregation on Bustleton Ave. in NE Philadelphia. This was our 72nd visit to our sister SEPA congregations.

The congregation is in what the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod calls “transition.” Their pastor of 17 years recently retired and they will be seeking a new pastor. SEPA requires congregations to go through a transition process before the search for a new pastor begins.

This congregation will not have one synod-assigned leader during this time. They will have two. Rev. Christian McMullen will lead the transition process. He explained that he will be visiting with the congregation at least once a month. The bridge pastor will be Rev. Ghislaine Cotnoir.

Two interims for a big job?

Probably not such a big job. The Ambassadors have never encountered a friendlier congregation or a more self-confident congregation. We were approached personally by at least a third of the 50-60 people present for worship. Each seemed to be comfortable as a member and church leader. During the service, when Pastor McMullen asked questions, many shouted out answers. There seems to be adequate lay leadership ready and willing to do the work of the church.

redemptionpaintingThey confidently refer to their lay leaders by title. One man introduced himself as Deacon John. Their newsletter identified several others by the title deacon. This is a common custom in nonLutheran denominations but rarely used in the ELCA.

They already seem to have a bead on who they are and what their ministry is all about. They are active participants, along with a Presbyterian congregation (who use the term deacon), in an after-school program called Turning Points. Youth (grades 6-12) can come to do homework or take classes in the arts or take part in social activities. They also have a pre-school.

Our pastor had supplied their pulpit twice in the last month and he told us he was impressed with their prayer ministry. He described it as specific, intentional and intensive. (We come from a strong prayer tradition, too.)

There were a couple of children and a few youth present for worship. All seemed comfortable with one another and with us as visitors.

Pastor McMullen changed the day’s scriptures from “take up your cross” to “I am the vine and you are branches.” He concentrated on the pruning metaphor. Seems to be popular as it was preached at the Churchwide Assembly in August, too. The church needs a little less sharpening of the pruning shears and a little more fertilizer!

He is not the first pastor we have heard talk about the transition process. Alarming congregations about “vulnerability” during transition seems to be part of the spiel. I lost track of the number of times the word was used in worship at their neighboring church, St. John’s. But the region has lost two churches in recent years, Calvary and Holy Spirit, so they are probably well aware of vulnerability.

He talked about his own experience in a synod that did not have interim pastors and the difficulty of dealing with “baggage.”

One of our Ambassadors was a career pastor. He was called to a small-town parish that was divided bitterly over a relocation question. He did not follow any interim. He walked into the fray. He spent the first few months visiting with every family in the church, making sure every voice was heard. He helped them build the new church and went on to serve about 30 years. No one did this for him. He earned the respect of the neighborhood by doing it himself. Good pastoral skills make dealing with baggage a lot easier. Today that parish, a small neighborhood church in 1965, is one of the largest and most influential churches in their region, supporting at least two pastors. No interim hand-holding. Just solid, unselfish, love-directed ministry.

We found Pastor McMullen’s explanation of the five-step transition process to be interesting. There was no such process between Redeemer and SEPA. No exploration of our past. No discussion of vision. No attempt at reconnecting with the greater church. SEPA used force and trickery from the get-go in achieving their goal in East Falls. The goal was to acquire our property and endowment funds. Getting rid of the owners was the tactic.

I had to laugh when Pastor McMullen advised the congregation to be honest with the synod. He said he had heard horror stories about the transition process when the congregations were not honest with the synod. I pointed out to him after worship that SEPA was anything but honest with us and that false impressions run rampant when pastors speak only to other pastors about the congregations they serve. There are always two sides. We have horror stories in abundance! (Not just our own.)

Pastor McMullen also talked about the importance of reconciliation. This is a concept no one in SEPA Synod seems to care about in their treatment of our congregation. They just want us gone!

I pointed him to our Ambassadors story in parable form. Undercover Bishop describes the transition process from the lay point of view.

But Pastor McMullen promises to be encouraging and supportive of the people of Redemption. We wish them all the best. We visited Immanuel, Norwood, just a few weeks ago, where he had served his first interim ministry about six years ago. They seem to be doing fine.

Redemption lacks a web site, which seems to be a frustration for some. We offered to help.

Today was the ELCA’s Day of Service to celebrate 25 years as the ELCA. We did not stay for their social and service project. They were doing some clean-up and some delivering of fliers in the neighborhood.

We enjoyed our visit with Redemption. Good work!

08 Sep 2013

Are Sermons Passé?

storybookIs the weekly Sunday sermon
reaching anyone anymore?

When my son was little, he created a little ritual. He’d pick out a stack of storybooks for bedtime reading. Ten or so was the usual number and we usually went through all of them. But I did not dare start a story without saying certain words.

“Say it, Mom. You have to say the words.”

The first time he demanded this, I had no idea what he was expecting.

He patiently prompted me.

And so I took orders from my tot.

I opened the book to the title page and said. “And now it is time for our featured presentation.”

He was, obviously, influenced by his video and movie experience. A story just wasn’t a story without this little bit of fanfare.

Beyond “Once Upon A Time”

Modern culture does influence us. It affects our point of view, our attention span, and are ability to process information that we hear. When we set about listening, we have different expectations than our ancestors may have had. We recognized this when we moved from the two-hour sermon to the one-hour sermon to today’s 20-minute expectation. But today, things are still changing.

I have written many times about the futility of paying a pastor a salary with one of the primary objectives having a 20-minute sermon written for just fifty people once a week.

That’s a lot of resources invested in something that half of the listeners are likely day-dreaming through. At the end of the service, we never really know whether or not we have reached anyone with the Word. But we keep at it because that’s the way the Word was delivered for hundreds of years—since farmers and tradespeople took a break from the isolation of their fields and shops and gathered with the whole village to spend the day.

I know that I may be beating a dying horse with my arguments. Dying is probably the right word. Just look at the statistics. We are watching the steady decline in attendance in most mainline churches. If you think the 30 to 50% drop of the last 15 years is alarming, be prepared. The biggest decline is in people under 40. The next 20 years are going to be really bad for a lot of congregations. There is no one to fill the roles of today’s 50-, 60-, and 70-year olds. It is unlikely that the younger generations will ever adapt to the traditional delivery of a sermon.

Understand I’m not against preaching. It’s been our family business for generations. I’m questioning whether the ritual format of worship, including the sermon as the weekly featured presentation, is achieving its purpose—any purpose.

Consider the Lowly Podcast

Podcasts are voice only online presentations. They can be easily promoted on a  blog or web site and delivered to listeners through itunes. One of their major benefits is longevity. They can be accessed long, long after they are posted and certainly long after the Sunday morning church service ends. They can be shared. Your audience can grow!

Podcasts are the fastest growing platform for social media.

Why?

People can listen to them when and where they want. It doesn’t have to be at 10:20 on Sunday morning in the sanctuary on Main Street in every zip code. They can listen while they ride the bus, do the dishes, or mow the yard. They can return to a section they liked or questioned. They can listen to their favorite podcaster (preacher) or follow any links he or she might give to other inspirational or insightful resources.

They fit into our modern way of life as Christians and seekers.

At Redeemer, without a sanctuary for our people to attend and since our pastors headed for the hills long ago, I connected our members to an online teacher. (We are determined to stay true to our mission despite our unjust expulsion from the ELCA.)

Every day our members receive a short email Bible lesson. Only recently have I started to get feedback. They like it. At our last Redeemer gathering they started talking about the week’s lesson, which happened to be the book of Philippians — the foundational scripture for 2×2’s publication, Undercover Bishop.

My next experiment may be to expand this feature and develop podcast commentaries. Or maybe we can record chapters of Undercover Bishop!

It may begin as early as this week. Watch for it!

Podcasts may be the wave of the future for preaching. Who knows? We don’t have to give up the Sunday morning sermon, but after a while, we may want to!

And now it is time for our featured presentation.

photo credit: Travis Seitler via photopin cc
07 Sep 2013

An Interesting Post on Leadership Styles

mousetrap gotcha“Gotcha” Leadership in the ELCA

Dave Bratcher, a leadership consultant, wrote in his blog today about the style of leadership he terms “gotcha” leadership.

I wrote something similar for 2×2 ages ago. I called it the “gotcha factor.”

Dave’s post deserves a read by church leaders because gotcha leadership is a common tactic in the ELCA.

  • Approach a congregation with YOUR vision for THEIR future.
  • Stonewall anyone who disagrees. Gotcha.
  • Intimidate existing leaders. Gotcha.
  • Bring a posse, a lawyer and a locksmith to meetings. Gotcha.
  • Sue those who pursue their grievances. Gotcha.
  • Drag a simple, manageable dispute into court and rely on separation of church and state and immunity from the law (while using the law against church members). Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha.
  • Reluctantly allow a congregation to bring a grievance to Synod Assembly. Allow them no voice. Line up a host of witnesses who if they ever knew anything about the church have no current knowledge. Give them ALL the limited microphone time, supposedly available to everyone (thus doubling their side’s allotted debate time). Allow these additional witnesses to publicly ridicule the congregation, including individual members, none of whom are permitted to answer their accusers. Gotcha.

The only thing with which I would disagree is what Dave calls the tendency of peers to speak up for one another. This has happened in the Redeemer conflict only in private.

Otherwise, he is correct. Gotcha church leaders discourage risk-taking while imploring congregations to innovate. They manage by shuffling resources around, including resources that don’t necessarily belong to them! The activity makes it look like they are doing more than they actually are. Move failing Pastor A to Congregation B and then Congregation C and D to use up resources more quickly. Shut down the German heritage churches and give the resources to Korean/Latino/Homeless, etc. Lutherans. Close the older working class churches who are debt-free and build new churches in the suburbs with their assets. Forget the pain caused to the closed churches. Celebrate the new churches. All this shuffling of resources creates “us” against “them” scenarios.

Gotcha leaders can really do no better than keep and celebrate the status quo. They can do this with great fanfare! They control the media—at least until all churches discover the power of the internet.

In reality, they are more likely to start congregations down the road to failure and break the morale of their able and hard-working members.

This kind of leadership spreads fast, especially in desperate times.

The Church is facing desperate times.

Oh, and there is another word for “gotcha” leadership. Bullying.

photo credit: nicubunu.photo via photopin cc
06 Sep 2013

Religion and Art: Philemon and Onesimus

Saint Philémon Welcoming Saint Onésime. Bible historiale. Guiard des Moulins. XIVe.This Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 14:25-33) is visually challenging. You could point to any number of artistic renditions of Jesus carrying the cross.

The story of Philemon, this Sunday’s epistle, offers an interesting alternative.

Philemon had a slave.

Most people of any stature in Paul’s world had slaves. Some estimate that 45% of the population were slaves. That doesn’t leave much room for the concept of employment!

We don’t know what the problem could have been. Slavery presents any number of issues. Whatever the issue, Onesimus (his name means “useful”) seems to have run away. He wasn’t really in hiding, although the penalties for running away were harsh. He went to Paul. Onesimus was seeking help within the structure of the life to which he was born. He had few choices of where to turn.

Paul was acquainted with Philemon. Paul writes a short but interesting letter to Philemon which artfully talks him into accepting the return of Onesimus with grace. He doesn’t use force. Neither does he give him much choice. Had Paul been a free man, he might have personally intervened. He had to rely on the power of his words and his trust in the nature of Philemon and his reputation.

Onesimus probably carried the letter himself, trusting that his master would read it before dealing with him.

It’s an interesting story to study and imagine. Slavery in its worst sense is such a shameful part of our history.

Today, we have other perfectly legal forms of slavery. We can be slaves to the family or slaves to our jobs or bosses. We can be slaves to popularity or the status quo. We can even be slaves to our churches.

Running away is still a temptation. Where would we flee? To whom could we turn for help?

Here are a couple of renditions of the story of Onesimus and Philemon.

Onesimus 1

05 Sep 2013

A Big Day for the ELCA: God’s Work, Whose Hands?

September 8 is a big day all across the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. On this one day of 365 Lutherans will unite in living their motto: God’s Work: Our Hands.

A scan of local church newsletters and bulletins reveals big plans. Congregations will volunteer at local parks, spruce up their own grounds, pack school kits and other charitable giveaways. Many churches will do some cleaning.

We predict not one of the 159 churches in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod will lift a finger to help clean up the mess they have created in East Falls. We are just a piece of litter everyone pretends none of them dropped. Besides, there are so many other people who need help that won’t test anyone’s conscience.

Roll up your sleeves. Put on your gloves. Do something safe.

Four. Five. Six Years. We are still here. We still worship weekly. We have our own service projects. We work on them every day. We are still locked out of the Church we supported all our lives. We are still waiting for our Church to practice what it preaches.

In East Falls, the ELCA motto is:

elca mock logo

 

Here’s our service list:

  • Weekly Ambassador visits and reports.
  • Daily blog posts and ministry aides.
  • Analyzing the state of the church from our unique perspective.
  • Providing daily devotional materials — print and online.
  • Supporting our individual members in their faith journeys.
  • Occasionally hosting a neighborhood event with thanks to the Old Academy for the use of their valuable property.
  • Planning monthly worship in our neighborhood — again with thanks to the Old Academy.
  • Little acts of kindness—many which grow from our Ambassador visits.
  • Fostering spirituality—especially prayer.
  • Encouraging and uniting overseas mission workers in Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria and Sweden.
  • Fighting to protect the constitutional rights of all Lutherans. You’re welcome!
04 Sep 2013

If Religious Education Was In Crisis Would Anyone Notice?

Are Seminaries In Touch with Today’s Church?

I read a blog post today about the alarming state of education in the field of marketing. Keep in mind that marketing and evangelism are very much alike.

It seems that the field of marketing is changing so fast that academia has not kept up. Tenured professors are teaching marketing the way it was ten and twenty years ago to students who no longer live in that world. Scratch that. They NEVER lived in that world.

Businesses are interviewing the top students and finding them wholly unprepared for real business challenges.

How did this happen?

The world of marketing began to change at a very fast pace within the last 15 years—too fast for the accrediting process to keep up.

It is quite possible that the Church faces the same problem. But it may take even longer to identify and fix it.

The Church is, after all, 2000 years old. We know what we are doing. Thank you very much.

But perhaps we face the same problems.

Keeping in Touch with the Neighborhood Church

Seminary faculties may be filled with professors who haven’t served a congregation during the most recent decades of change. The Church is ill-prepared to cope with the technological and economic challenges. They spend lots of time and resources analyzing but they use old measures. The outcomes predictably favor managerial thinking and not creative thinking.

Consequently, we may be teaching evangelism and pastoral methods that will not reach today’s communities, today’s Christians, or today’s unchurched.

If a congregation can’t find a pastor with the skills they need, what’s the usual advice? Change or close. There are few leadership candidates prepared to lead change. They, like most students, get where they are by complying with the institutions in which they are enrolled.

The type of change administrators are looking for may be impossible given the state of leadership. Managing churches (an expensive undertaking) usually means closing churches.

The people who are in closest touch with the changes in neighborhood churches are the people who serve on church councils and know what skills their churches need and how hard they are to find. They face modern challenges alone. Inadequate leadership drains resources and morale.

Lay leaders are not paid so their only horse in the race is their faith and passion. If they don’t accept the leadership presented to them by their regional body, they may be labeled as “difficult” or “resistant.” Neither are bad words but that is how they are perceived. More positive words might be “persevering,” “resourceful,” or “faithful.” They may simply be insisting on leadership skills that they need—but don’t exist.

Lay leaders struggle to keep up economically. The offering plate is the only recommended solution—and lots of people these days want a piece of that pie (including seminaries and regional bodies). Many lay leaders have developed  skills that those teaching in seminaries may not know exist.

The Marketing Answer

The marketing blogger applauded one university program that opened their marketing classes to business people. They make it easy for seasoned business people to return to school. They schedule classes so that business people can attend. They create a forum with young students and professionals that is resulting in what he claimed was the only program he could recommend as truly preparing students for the real world of marketing. He actually invited his readers to enroll in some classes at a discount!

Hmm!

What if seminaries made an effort to put students side by side with the lay leaders of the churches they will one day be serving.

This would differ from the usual field experience, which is under the tutelage of clergy.

Finding a more direct way to connect lay people with tomorrow’s leaders might help pastoral candidates learn before they have relationships to protect.

They might begin to see that many parishes are not dying from the most frequently cited reason—demographics. We just haven’t found ways to deal with changing demographics. (Isn’t this our mission?)

Congregations might, in reality, be dying from leadership that is not prepared for the work that needs to be done.

What If?

Putting seminarians and lay people together in this way is not a big “what if?” It wouldn’t be that hard to try.

  • Evening or weekend forums could have seminary students sitting next to lay church leaders and discussing the issues of local churches.
  • You want the congregational leaders from the trenches—not the accredited lay leaders who routinely serve on church boards and are part of the approved way of doing things.
  • You want small churches to be well represented. Most churches are small.
  • Some of the forums might actually be held in the small churches!

This dialog would occur on neutral ground. No one would be protecting sacred turf or answering to hierarchical authority. There would be no paycheck or career trajectory to consider.  Students and lay leaders would be discussing the real problems of today’s congregations.

And they might—together—find some solutions.

We might grow some new leadership all around—both clergy and lay!

What the Church needs (and needs desperately) is some new thinking. New thinking comes from new understanding.

Worth a try?

04 Sep 2013

The Beleaguered Life of the Laity

It isn’t easy being a lay person in the church.

Sometimes we come to the church by birth and tradition. Sometimes we buy into the message having had little church background. Ultimately, it’s a life we choose. It doesn’t matter how we got here. Neither door warns us of what is in store. 

  • We will be relied upon to do much of the work with little recognition and no compensation.
  • We are expected to adapt to every changing leader, shelving our lay talents if necessary.
  • All our work and passion can be dashed at any moment by political forces in the church that consider neither the contributions of nor the consequences to the laity.
  • Our beliefs, fostered by passion, can be sorely tested.
  • At worst, we risk family, friends, social standing, profession and earthly possessions—while clergy carefully watch their compensation plans.

It’s exactly the life Jesus foretells in next Sunday’s scripture (Luke 14:25-33), but it isn’t what today’s church is selling.

There are few enough people in church today. Best to preach the happy life. Church membership is a rabbit’s foot.

In our Ambassadors 71 visits, we have spoken with countless lay people. They often share the same aura—a sense of  futility. They are stuck believing in a message that their leaders don’t really believe anymore. They continue to work and sacrifice and see little benefit to the communities they love. They are taken for granted. They face a very real and ugly possibility. Church leaders may be waiting for them to fail.

In one of our recent Ambassador visits, I spoke with a woman who admitted she was one of the old guard. She was genuinely happy to see some new life in their church but seemed resigned in her new role as bystander. She was clearly worn down. There was a sense that the new people, welcome as they were, mattered. She and her friends were has-beens.

As we left, I told her that we had visited dozens of churches and her church was as good as any of them. I was surprised at the look of gratitude that swept across her face. A cloud lifted—the cloud of living under a judging eye. She suddenly seemed happy and enthusiastic.

A little validation goes a long way.

Why don’t we work a bit harder at pumping up the real rank and file—not just the ones who gain status by attending church-wide functions but the ones who stay home and teach the Sunday School and sing in the choir and sweep the floors and fold the bulletins—the ones who live with the problems church leadership would sweep away.

The annual rallying cries at Synod Assemblies fail to recognize the basic problems most congregations are facing.

  • There are very few people in church under 40. Therefore, probably half our congregations will be facing serious problems of survival within 20 years.
  • The modern cost of living has outpaced many churches’ sources of income.
  • Most congregations can afford ministry but they cannot afford benevolence.
  • There is no infrastructure to welcome the diversity we seek.
  • The pool of pastors who are willing to commit to neighborhood ministry is very shallow.
  • Church life is slow to embrace or connect with the fast-changing world that lay people face every day.

The Church’s survival depends upon the lay people.

Jesus’ message—it was for us!

03 Sep 2013

Adult Object Lesson: Luke 14: 25-33

blindfoldJesus Advises His Followers
It’s Going to Be Tough Going

If anyone thinks for a moment that following a Christian life is a recipe for happiness, think again.

Jesus is clear that He asks a great deal of those who follow Him. It’s not going to be easy.

This passage contains some harsh words. Jesus actually talks about hating your family!

This week’s object is a blindfold. (This week’s lesson could work with older children, too.)

Arrange in advance to have a volunteer from your congregation who is articulate. Have him or her wear a blindfold and try to follow you as you move around the chancel or part of the church—following nothing but your voice.

Ask him or her how it feels. Give them time to consider their experience. The answers might not come right away.

Perhaps they longed to grab hold of a family member or friend. Perhaps they longed to just sit down and find something they could do that might be easier. Perhaps they were tempted to peek. Perhaps they will describe how all their attention—every faculty—was focused on just one thing—following you.

That’s the kind of devotion Jesus expects of his followers. He wants no distractions—not family, not work, not studies or hobbies. None of the usual excuses. He wants us to be ready with every molecule of our existence to follow.

Pick up that cross.

photo credit: stars alive via photopin cc
03 Sep 2013