Another Lively Redeemer

Today our Ambassadors set out early to visit a namesake church, Redeemer, in Bucks County.

One of our Ambassadors passes this church often to visit family and noticed over the years that they recently improved their property by building a new sanctuary.

The small sanctuary appeared to be reasonably full with at least 70 worshipers, although we didn’t really count. We were sitting toward the front.

They are a congregation that has just come through a transitional period. Not much was said but we sensed that they are emerging from a difficult time. They seem to be happy with the pastor they are calling. From all appearances it seems to be a good match. The Rev. Nathan Krause is probably the youngest pastor we have encountered in our 69 visits. It is rare to encounter a pastor under 50. I can recall only one or two others. We hope that his years of service are a breath of fresh air for the whole church and not just at Redeemer, Jamison! He will be installed in September.

Post VBS Sunday

Today’s service was feeding off a very successful Vacation Bible School week. The talk reminded me of the atmosphere of Bible School from my childhood. There were about ten children under 12 in worship this morning. There were about 50 involved in their five-day Bible School. Most impressive, though, was that nearly as many adults had been involved in the event as was evident in singing the VBS songs at various points in worship. It was a joint congregational effort. The oldsters were helping lead the youngsters in the songs with hand gestures. There were also a good number of youth and most (about five) were involved in leadership roles as ushers, acolytes or communion assistants.

In general, the atmosphere was friendly and happy, similar to the experience we had in Secane a few weeks ago. It’s worth mentioning because it is not that common that people seem to be engaged and open with everyone present, including visitors.

They have two music directors who jointly led some of the singing. One specializes in a bell choir which provides music about once a month. The other is organist/pianist. This morning they pumped the congregation up with upbeat Bible School songs. One man called out during announcements that a men’s chorus was going to rehearse after church. We haven’t run into that before!

Redeemer was close to the Keystone State Boychoir which had our young men singing through high school. It’s a good concept! Sounds sexist to modern ears, but the fact is men like to sing together and they are more likely to participate in mixed choruses throughout their lives if they have a tradition of male group singing. Good luck!

This church has an excellent chance at thriving through the next generation.

Pastor Krause led a very good children’s sermon which was not limited to tots but included all elementary and younger. That’s good and we’ve seen that only a couple of times before. The tots learn from the older children. He did not use an object (Yea!) but engaged the children in talking about the message which reinforced the Bible School theme.

Wise Words Require Action

This is where the service became difficult for Redeemer. It was all about “being strong” and five things that are to help us be strong—including the support of family and friends. Unfortunately, we at Redeemer have been encouraged to be weak by all our sister congregations. We have been attacked rather brutally for trying to be strong in our mission. Every weakness—real and many imagined—has been stressed. Our many strengths continue to be squelched. When Bishop Burkat announced the end of the conflict in February we noted that her report was not accurate. We waited a few weeks and then commented that we doubt it is over. Even the judge didn’t think it was over.

Guess who was right!

More court actions took place this week and more are expected. It isn’t enough that the Synod claimed our property and all our congregation’s assets — now they want punitive damages for our members who led the congregation in a successful attempt at “being strong.” We grew our ministry while we were locked out of our house of worship while we were shunned by almost ALL the other churches in SEPA Synod. We did this with no budget and no property. (SEPA thinks we are dead.)

We were supposed to die by edict. We are still alive and stronger in mission than ever! We took our ministry on-line and reach 1000 readers from all over the world every week! We come up first in the search engines for several topics! Still we go unrecognized by SEPA leaders who talk about innovative ministries but don’t know one when they see one—because Redeemer doesn’t look like the church THEY think we should be—and we had this endowment while they have (still) a significant shortfall in funding.

So the message of the day was difficult for us to sit through — although we know it was well-intended. I fought walking out to tell the truth. We are just looking for a little practicing of what we preach from our sister congregations.

We know it’s not easy. We’ve lived under synodical aggression for the past SIX years.

I must confess that the children’s sermon was so upsetting to me that I didn’t hear much of the adult sermon. The other Ambassadors discussed it over brunch. All I remember is the reference to Hebrews.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Nehemiah Remembered

On the way out of church we passed many of the posters from Bible School. The first featured Nehemiah. The story of Nehemiah resonates with Redeemer, East Falls. Nehemiah’s worst enemies were church leaders who didn’t want to see Nehemiah, on his own, with no organizational sponsorship (except that of a foreign king), succeed in rebuilding the temple walls. After all, church leaders had failed to lift a stone in decades. Nehemiah’s story, with all its conniving and intrigue is Redeemer’s story. Read it!

We love the part where leaders exhort Nehemiah to come out. (Chapter 6) “We just want to talk.” (They really want to kill him.) Although not quite so dramatic, the same thing happened at Redeemer, East Falls. “We just want to talk,” the bishop and her colleagues said. There was a locksmith waiting behind the church, ready to lock us out and seize our land.

A good portion of the book is a list of names of all the people who had anything to do with rebuilding the walls. Skip over the names if it helps you get to the meat of the story, but when you do, think about how nice it is that someone recorded their ministries! Thousands of years later, they are remembered — long after anyone knows how to pronounce their names! And long after the walls they carefully built were plundered again.

Ministry is an ongoing struggle! How well we know!