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October 2013

The Power of Visiting

When did the Church become afraid of the door?Visiting Is A Lost Art in the Church

Redeemer adopted a project that is surely unique in Christianity. It is unique because we are unique.

We are denied access to our church home, so we go visiting. We visit a different church about three times a month. We call ourselves the Redeemer Ambassadors.

We made our first visit in August of 2010 — about a year after we were first locked out of our church building by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The idea was sparked after one of our home church worship services. One of our members commented, “I don’t understand why they want a church without us in it.”

The group response was “Good question. Let’s find out.”

Here we are in 2013. We have visited 75 of our neighboring churches—all of whom, it is safe to say—like the idea of taking one church’s property to pay for their debt. At least that’s how they voted. And they voted without bothering to visit us!

We didn’t know quite what we were getting into. We laid some basic ground rules.

Our mission: “to worship, learn, and share.” We would share during our visits only if we were invited. Few do.

At first we wrote letters to congregations. Now we just write about our visits online.

We have a unique vantage point in the ELCA. We’ve seen common problems. We see occasional attempts to solve problems. We can see what is working and what is not. Our view has its limitations to be sure, but it is broader by far than other congregations’ views.

Waiting for Visitors vs Outreach

The typical approach to evangelism is to entice people to visit us. That’s not really working very well.

Redeemer was a church with a high rate of visitation and we were doing a pretty good job of following up as well, relying (like most churches) on our pastor to do the legwork. We experienced moderate success. But our pulpit was somewhat of a revolving door. (SEPA was waiting for us to die and was not helping to fill our pulpit). Often people joined for relationship with the pastor more than with the congregation. They disappeared when the pastor disappeared.

We began to grow in a more solid way when our members started visiting within their network of friends. We had no pastor at the time, although two pastors were helping us and were interested in a call to our congregation. This was remarkably effective. 52 members in about 18 months. Enough to alarm synod that they were losing the “waiting for them to die” game. Better act fast!

Add this to our three years of church visits and we know something about the power of visitation.

We can place our experiences side by side and see trends. Sometimes we see opportunities that remain untapped staring congregations in the face. Sometimes we can see why.

There is great potential for sharing and ministry in visitation.

This is probably true on the parish level, too. Yet neighborhood visiting is almost a lost art. We don’t even bother. We cite demographics as a code word for “why bother trying.”

People who are not just like us are not worth the effort? Really! Have we so little faith in our message!

Finding a way to visit with people is key to church growth. It may no longer be a simple matter of knocking on doors, but it does involve putting ourselves out into our communities so that we can interact. Waiting for people to visit us is death row. (click to tweet)

Visiting Is Powerful

So powerful it can be seen as a threat!

For our third visit, we chose one of the churches closest to our own. If any of us had been inclined to transfer membership, it might have been to this church—at least that was the chatter among our ambassadors at the time.

The pastor of this church reported our visit to the bishop. The bishop became alarmed and issued a letter of warning to all pastors. It advised congregations to greet us with Christian love—as if they needed instruction! It included a contact phone number in case we caused trouble. How inviting! How paranoid!

Ironically, this is the only Lutheran Church in a 4×1-mile stretch of Philadelphia. Our members live within about a mile and a half of this church. One of our members has lived for 25 years just a few blocks away. None has ever been visited by this church. Yet our visit to them was seen as a threat.

It is not likely that this church will survive to call another pastor when their current pastor retires. Another lost mission opportunity.

There is just one question a church visitor should ask. We’ll cover that in our next post.

(By the way, we haven’t visited a single church that we would vote to close and relieve of their property—even though many of them seem to be no stronger in numbers than Redeemer.)

photo credit: Kevin Conor Keller via photopin cc

18 Oct 2013

The Church Without Offerings

offering

How would ministry priorities change
if we didn’t rely on offerings to fund ministry?

So much of church life revolves around talk of mission. Who should we serve? What causes might we adopt?

However, we serve no one without offerings. Maintaining the offering base can quickly replace our lofty mission plans.

We camouflage this search for offerings with rhetoric. The “D” card is played—demographics. When church leaders talk about demographics changing they mean that the people who are most likely to tithe are gone. There may be twice as many people living in the zip code, but they are not seen as offering givers. Better to close the church than reach out to new demographics. If those people of the new demographics actually started coming, they might cost us more than they give. We can’t have that.

We really don’t want to reach new people. We are looking for people like us or like those who are gone.

The first thing offerings go toward is funding the structure for the collection of offerings— the weekly church service, the passing of the offering plate, and the annual pledge drive.

Consequently, we fund ministries which we think will guarantee offerings. Often they benefit only the people funding the offerings. We tend to think this is families, but we are probably wrong about that.

In most churches, the percentage of offerings that actually go toward mission work is very small. Some even rely on special offerings or fee-based Vacation Church Schools and mission trips.

We set out with the best of intentions to change the world. We end up working to keep our collective heads above water.

What if there was a way to fund ministry without offerings?

We’d still expect people to give, but we might start looking at our members differently. We might restructure staff and priorities. We might see people for their skills, passion and talent. Our ideas of ministry might change in major ways.

It’s a question worth asking even if it’s unrealistic. How would your church minister if money were no object?

But what if it actually might be realistic?

photo credit: k.landerholm via photopin cc
17 Oct 2013

2×2 Reaches 40,000 Unique Visitors

Redeemer’s website/blog, 2x2virtualchurch.com, is about to log its 40,000 unique visitor in its 30-month history. We’ve grown from 2000 visitors our first year to 13,000 visitors our second year and are well on our way to surpassing 30,000 visitors this year.

2×2 has grown by offering content. Our editorial mix is one third about Redeemer’s unique ostracism from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Being quiet only fuels the notion that it is OK to treat congregations this way. We have to speak out.

Another third is devoted to commentary about the future of the Church, which we think will suffer less from member apathy than from a failure of church structure to adapt to modern times. Still another third—and the third that drives traffic—is our resource offerings geared for use in small congregations (most congregations).

You see, first and foremost, we are a church, a people shunned by the church of our heritage, but a church all the same.

2×2 begins each week with two resource features: 1) an object lesson geared to adult learners but often adaptable to all ages and 2) a study of art or poetry/prose that is spiritually enriching.

Seven hundred readers find our spiritual content every week as unique visitors. Another 200 follow our content through social media.

We have other features, too. We have written extensively on the topic of social media and the church and have gained national and world recognition. In the topsy turvy world of the 21st century we are beginning to be noticed locally, long after readers from far away began following us.

We respond to people who write to us and have formed an interesting network of Christian alliances all over the world—impossible 20 years ago. We believe this ability to connect directly will change evangelism forever. Geography will become less and less important to viability.

Our exploration of social media has been self-guided—brand new territory for everyone. The church is very slow to realize that using social media will spark the transformation they seek.

We have used no gimmicks in growing our following. No contests. No email opt-ins. No special offers. We just plod along as volunteers with no budget, figuring things out for ourselves.

As we enter 2014, we will begin exploring more methods for intentionally growing a church website and following as a mission model.

What holds Redeemer back is the strained relationship with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod, who, hungry for our property and endowment funds, stopped seeing our congregation as children of God. We were an obstacle to their goal of taking our property.

We tend to be no better than way we treat the least among us.

If your church is exploring internet outreach and would like to learn from the 2×2 experience, let us know. We are always ready to share.

Meanwhile, we will spend the next two months establishing some hard goals for our 2014 ministry, which continues in spite of four years of locked doors and lawsuits as our only connection to the church which took $2 million of property and cash assets, reasoning that they had better uses for our resources. They have spent the last four years mowing the lawn of a locked church.

16 Oct 2013

Art: The Persistent Widow or the Unjust Judge

This week’s Gospel lesson (Luke 18:1-8) features only two people engaged in an undefined disagreement. The widow is seeking justice. The judge couldn’t care less about justice but is more interested in clearing his docket.

Story sounds familiar!

Artists have at least four choices: focus your expression of this story on the widow, focus on the judge, focus on the interaction between the two or try to tell the whole story.

Here are examples of each. Unfortunately, I don’t have much background on the artistic sources. But I can provide some links.

Here the persistent widow is shown in humility. She looks troubled, doesn’t she?

widow1So now let’s focus on the judge—the self-centered wielder of power. We all get a little like that when we begin judging others. But when the job goes to someone’s head, as in this story, our meek widow above has little hope. The artist is William J. Webbe, who went by the name W.J. Webb when he illustrated Bible stories. See lower left corner. He lived in 19th century London.

widow3The sketches below are simple but they have a lot of life!

These drawings are by Doris Pritchett. She storyboards the whole story which Jesus told in just a few sentences! They are reproduced from Jesus and Courageous Women: Youth Study by Ann Craig (New York: Women’s Division, General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church). I found them on this web post, now 12 years old.

widow8

widow1

widow2-2

widow3Our last artistic offering illustrates the end of the parable. We are often tempted to forget the moral of the story!

Jesus wonders if he will find any faithful upon his return!

widow

15 Oct 2013

Adult Object Lesson: Luke 18:1-8

mosquitoPersistence, Justice and Faith 

This week’s object is a mosquito. BUZZZZZZZZ!

Have you ever set out to enjoy a summer evening when that buzz around your ear alerts you to danger? SWAT. Did you get it? Lean back and relax. Buzzzzzz. SWAT. The dance of the mosquito and the source of its sustenance continues until the little devil alights on an arm. SWAT!. Justice has prevailed. You hope!

Satisfied, you lean back and lift a cool glass of lemonade to your lips. Buzzzzz.

Mosquitos will have their way. They will keep entering the danger zone over and over. Where one fails, another waits.

The lessons today have a common trait. The widow insists on being heard by the judge in Jesus’ gospel story. In the Old Testament lesson, Jacob, having just wrestled with God, is not about to give up on what he is looking for either.

The parable points to the foundation of persistence. Faith. Although the parable seems to be all about persistence, Jesus’ parting volley is about faith. Will Jesus as the Son of Man find any faithful when he returns?

Faith creates problems for the faithful. It is indeed the quality that gives us backbone as a church and as individuals. Yet, frequently, that quality is unappreciated. Faith and persistence are read as disobedience and resistance, even foolhardiness—qualities that deserve punishment. SWAT!

God, the final arbiter of disputes, is not resentful of the persistent. He expects it and promises to reward it. He shows us this in story after story. He applauds the people who persist in getting his attention, even when they have annoyed him.

Think about the stories.

  • Zaccheus who climbs a tree just to see Jesus
  • The bleeding woman who reaches out to touch Jesus’ robe
  • The centurion who is sure his slave will be healed on Jesus’ command
  • The Samaritan leper, who sent on his way, insists on returning with gratitude
  • The sinful woman who accepts public ridicule to sit at Jesus’ feet
  • and more

Jesus likes the willful. He doesn’t see disobedience. He sees persistence fueled by faith. Exactly what he is looking for in his followers—yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Print out the image of a mosquito and attach it to a dowel. Use it as a puppet to illustrate your talk today.

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

photo credit: Marcos Teixeira de Freitas via photopin cc

14 Oct 2013

Christians in the Middle East Are Suffering

The Pain in Pakistan Continues

Three weeks ago a church with some 250 worshipers was blown up as Sunday worship was ending.

“Go in peace and serve the . . . BOOM!”

85 worshipers were killed. 17 of them were children. 150 were injured and the injuries are serious.

A week later a second bomb just a few hundred yards from the first killed another 40 people and injured 100 more.

Redeemer attended two worship services since this happened and held one of our own. The only church that even mentioned the bombing was our own. Our few people took an offering and sent it to Pakistan. Exactly how to do this took four trips to the bank, but now we know how to do it.

The need is ongoing. Alone we can’t do enough. We tried to find an agency to work with.

The service region for Lutheran World Relief doesn’t include Pakistan.

The ELCA representative for mission in the Middle East did not respond to our email inquiry.

We act as though we are unaware of this horrendous attack against our faith. There is no outrage that Muslim terrorists would attack the Christian Church in lieu of working with governments—the true source of their anger.

In today’s world, do we really think that this action will remain isolated? Do we really think it won’t happen again closer and closer to home?

We ask every church to pray for Pakistani Christians and search their hearts for what they might do to help. Recognizing the Pakistani Church would be a start. Finding a way to demonstrate Christian compassion would be another.

Otherwise, our mission is limited to safe places where happy groups of Americans can make annual feel-good visits.

But aren’t we needed most in the places that are dangerous?

The needs are for food for the families who lost multiple loved ones, warm clothing for winter, and most desperately medical supplies. They try to care directly for the injured as much as possible as they distrust Muslim hospitals.

2×2 is here to help. Contact us if your congregations’ mission efforts might include Pakistan. We know it’s not the way things are done in the ELCA, but that’s not much comfort to the victims!

13 Oct 2013

Ambassadors Visit Trinity, Norristown

trintynorristownTrinity Lutheran Church, Norristown

Three Ambassadors set out today for our 75th visit to a member church in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod  (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

Today we chose Trinity, Norristown. The address puzzles us. We traveled through Norristown, Norriton and Jeffersonville and a bit into the country, but still the address is Norristown. We have already visited Grace, which really is in Norristown and there is another church listed as in Norristown also, but they seem to have let their internet url run out!

Our first step in visiting churches is to study their website. Trinity’s website is well-designed, but like most church websites, it is all about them, missing out on the power of the web to evangelize.

We arrived early and waited in the parking lot for about 20 minutes. We planned to attend the 11 am service. There had been an early service with education and fellowship sandwiched in between, so the parking lot was well-populated. We passed through doors flanked by American flags. This made one of our ambassadors very happy.

Trinity, Norristown, supports three pastors. The husband and wife team of  Rev. Kim Guiser and the Rev. Dr. Asha M. George-Guiser, and newly called associate pastor, Rev. Althea Tysk.

We were greeted upon entry by Rev. Kim Guiser who explained that we would be attending a contemporary service. We entered a surprisingly small sanctuary for the size of the property. The church is set far back from the road. They have plenty of land to build and in fact are planning a capital campaign toward that end.

The TREND REPORT for his parish has not been updated in four years and for several years before that, so it is difficult to decipher trends. Their average attendance is listed as 252 but in this second service there were about 70.

The only thing contemporary about the service was the music, which was elaborately staged with a ten-member choir, piano, percussion, violin and two guitars. The production seemed to be enjoyed by most, but it was rather a shock to our sense of worship. Redeemer is every bit as contemporary but more contemplative with silence built in. There was no quiet in this service! Singing was uninviting since the band and choir were amplified beyond the ability of an individual’s voice to be heard. But the musicians worked very hard throughout the service and were well-rehearsed, seamlessly bridging every divide in the service.

The bulletin was sparse with reliance on projection for the order of the day. This is not uncommon. We used projection a bit in our church but mostly to showcase religious art and poetry before the service. There is something strange about looking up and to the left or right during prayers. The focal point of worship definitely changes. But you don’t spend a fortune on paper!

The finest moment in the service was an enthusiastic announcement made by a  boy who was pumped to speak about an upcoming bell choir concert. Ryan was so comfortable in his message that when the pastor tried to explain what the boy had already ably explained, the boy took the microphone from the pastor and finished his message himself. Get ready, folks! This is the church of the future!

Outside of music, the service was as old-fashioned as can be and high church. The language used was Roman—Mass, Homily, Eucharist as opposed to Service, Sermon and Communion. The distribution of elements in communion was done the old Catholic way—not allowing recipients to touch the host. The historic reason for this is that the people were not trusted to touch the host.

The gestures of Catholicism were also prevalent—crossing, bowing and a tight decorum among the altar servers.

They did not follow the lectionary that both the Catholic and Lutherans follow. The lesson for this week was Jesus and the Ten Lepers. They read Luke 4, traditionally read the First Sunday in Lent. It is the story of the Temptation and the story of Philip and the Eunuch. Our pastor, who was with us, thought the verses chosen to be odd. He was following in his Bible. They used no Old Testament Lesson or Psalm.

Pastor Asha George-Guiser spoke about the “blasting of barriers.” She referenced her own marriage as an Indian Christian married to a white, Chester County farmboy from a non-religious family and the difficulty she experienced marrying outside her family’s customs. She encouraged the “blasting” of barriers of prejudice.

Once again, we see the disconnect in the thinking of clergy. The clergy of SEPA Synod, in which the Guisers are quite active, have condoned the creation of barriers in our neighborhood. These barriers were built on impermeable foundations of prejudice fueled by greed. They locked the Christians of East Falls out of their property and made our ministry and lives very difficult and painful. The actions were self-serving, hateful, and hurtful. Four years of pretending otherwise have not lessened this. But SEPA clergy preach about justice and doing right—while remaining hopelessly mired in injustice.

To Pastor Kim Guiser’s credit, we were introduced at the end of the service and he did not stumble over our name, something Bishop Burkat and several other pastors we have encountered have been unable to do! We were from Redeemer-East Falls. See, it’s not so hard. We do exist!

After worship a former Redeemer member approached one of our Ambassadors. He is the son of former church leaders and son-in-law of one of the matriarchs of our church. He was totally unaware of what was going on in his hometown. Our Ambassador pointed him to our website. I couldn’t help but remember how his mother-in-law, Betty Little, was always able to negotiate peace when there were disagreements within the church. SEPA could use her skills!

Trinity has a thriving preschool (as Redeemer would like to have and is fully prepared to open, if SEPA ever rightfully returns our property and restores our ministry).

Trinity is intentionally trying to develop the skills and volunteer service of members. They are having a service sign-up event in a week or so. They seem to be concentrating on a book, Outlive Your Life, which was referenced several times in worship. This may be the reason for the departure from the lectionary.

We wonder, is there is an opening for a muralist, two retired pastors, an architect, a finance expert, a hospitality expert and a communications expert with credentials in education leadership, and a blog coordinator? (Redeemer’s Ambassadors—all locked out of the ELCA).

13 Oct 2013

The Ancient Church in a Modern Age

exitramp copyCan the Church As We Know It Survive?

Some things never change. Some things change a lot.

A problem in today’s Church is that we aspire to be modern and boast of “doing something new.” The truth is —and this is not necessarily bad—our feet are planted firmly in the past. Try as we like, we just can’t take the exit ramp that leads to the future.

We want to find that ramp. We’ve pulled over on the shoulder with the exit sign in sight. We are checking and rechecking our maps, plugging a new address into our GPS, waiting for the GPS voice to give us instructions . . . but it just keeps saying “recalculating.”

We are lost.

Or are we just afraid of what we may face if our over-stuffed luggage flies off the car rack on the sharp turn?

The Interconnected Church

One term for our era is the “The Interconnected Age.”

The Church has been big on that concept for centuries. We should be thriving.

However, today’s interconnection is different. We approach it not from need and dependence but for empowerment—long-overdue empowerment.

In the past our interconnectedness defined who we are and who will fit in. It gave us structure, complete with rules.

The result is hierarchy. There is much less need for hierarchy today but hierarchy does not like to be messed with!

In the beginning, hierarchy was cost-efficient and helped many lowly churches do great things in a big world. The rank and file didn’t have to be educated. They just had to follow leaders and things would be fine. This continued long after the Renaissance and public schools and any need for such strict structure. But change is slow and in the Church is slower.

The currency of this system was threefold—offerings, prayer and volunteer labor.

This isn’t working any more.

Today’s people will give, but they prefer to give directly — not out of rebellion or disdain for authority — but because people know it is more efficient to give directly and  because for the first time, WE CAN. The established hierarchy actually stands in the way of innovation.

The result?

  • The Church is not ready for today’s world.
  • Individual congregations are not ready for today’s world.
  • Individuals ARE ready but won’t sit in the pew for long waiting. They feel more useful outside the Church.
  • The effectiveness of both the greater church and the congregation is weakened.
Congregations are like small bubbles within the larger bubble of the church. All are fragile.

Congregations are like small bubbles within the larger bubble of the church. All are fragile.

Lutherans are proud of their interdependent structure. The structure doesn’t really exist. Congregations for the most part work in isolation. They know very little of what is going on in the next parish or even in their community. Each congregation is its own little bubble.

Structure becomes a pacifier.

As long as we worship and commune weekly, as long as we meet a budget that provides for a pastor and building, as long as we have a choir and some semblance of a Sunday School (even if it’s just sending the children away during the sermon) a congregation can be content.

The same thinking goes on at the regional and national level. Higher levels feel that they are pivotal to church life. In fact, they are far more reliant on the congregations than the congregations are reliant upon them. Shh! Don’t tell.

They work hard at maintaining staff and function but they are well aware that the congregations they serve can no longer afford the expense—especially since it is growing less effective and may soon be obsolete.

Interconnectedness means popping bubbles—one by one, until we are not just interdependent one with another but also with the world we serve.

How do we find that exit ramp into the future?

One way is to start using the communication tools of the future. The Church tends to look down on media evangelism. We are reminded of evangelists who beg for money to support media costs and lavish lifestyles.

But media costs today are negligible. 2×2’s annual operating budget is under $100. We will reach 40,000 people this year with our ministry.

It is true that the Church of tomorrow will be different.

  • It will have more local flavor. We can trust people with that now.
  • It will have less denominational loyalty. Admit it. This is holding us back. We work so hard at being Lutheran, Catholic, etc., that we forget how to be Christian.
  • It will align itself with outsiders—business, charities, community groups and other faiths—and it will be refreshed in doing so.
  • It will rely far less on structure. There just is no need and it costs too much.

Media is integral to modern life—the lives of the people you want to meet, the work of the organizations you want to work with and support, and the community the congregations hope to serve.

A church that has no internet ministry or only a self-serving internet presence, is wasting the key evangelism tool of our age. It may be the exit ramp that leads to the future the Church so desperately prays for.

Bubble: photo credit: cobalt123 via photopin cc
Exit Ramp: photo credit: Ken Lund via photopin cc
13 Oct 2013

Pakistanis Hold Candlelight Vigil for Martyrs

These photos were sent to us by the Christians of Faisalabad.

They are in shock and mourning for the 85 killed when a large Christian church was bombed last month. They are trying to help the families of some 250 who were badly injured in the first bombing and a second bombing a week later.

Christians are under attack because Muslim extremists equate Christianity with America. In fact, most Americans have little or no connection with Pakistani Christians. Pakistan may as well be on the moon!

The dedicated Christians of Pakistan are serving where it is hardest to tell the Christian story. It is life-threatening for every man, woman and child.

2×2 has been trying to raise awareness. Small as we are, we collected $250. We had the money converted to rupees and wired (the most cost-effective way, we learned).

This was not easy! It took four trips to the bank to get the transfer through, but we (and the bank!) now know how to do it and it should be easy for us from here on.

If you would like to contribute, send a check marked Pakistan Relief, and we will make sure every penny will be sent to help the seriously injured and their families.

Our address:

2×2 Foundation
care of Judith Gotwald
591 Hermit Street
Philadelphia, PA 19128

martyr1 martyr2 martyr3 martyr4

11 Oct 2013

Relief for Pakistan

2×2 Raises Money for Bombing Victims

2×2 (Redeemer Lutheran Church) raised $250 to help the victims of the church bombings in Pakistan—one of the most difficult places in the world for Christian witness.

Pakistan is so off the map of western Christianity that raising money is difficult.

It was also difficult to transfer the money, but after four visits to the bank we figured it out. We’ll be able to do better and more efficiently next time.

Every penny raised was converted to rupees and wired. 2×2 paid the wire fees.

Thank you to those who participated. We will continue to hold New Life Fellowship in our hearts and prayers and send any contributions sent to 2×2 and marked Pakistan to help.

Here are the facts:

Imagine your church being blown into the sky some Sunday morning.

11 Oct 2013