The composer of this well-known church anthem was from St. James the Less in East Falls.
24 Oct 2013
The Ongoing Reformation of the Church
This Sunday, many Protestants will celebrate the influence of Martin Luther and the 500-year-old movement that forced religious reform on a major power structure of their world—the Church.
The medieval world of Martin Luther was controlled by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. They reached into every aspect of medieval life—home, work and government.
There were very few upwardly mobile career tracks. It helped to be born to wealth. If not, you could use your youthful good looks to marry well. If you were strong, you could fight your way to gaining land and social status. If you were wealthy you could get some schooling. But most people farmed or entered a trade.
But there was one more way. The easy track. You could give your life to the church. Prestige and influence were for sale there. Your chances of a good life were pretty good!
Then came Martin. He had bought into the system. But it didn’t sit well with him.
He laid it on the line.
“Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise.”
The modern Lutheran church fails to emulate its namesake.
Today’s church faces similar challenges. We may not be selling indulgences but we are always tempted to look at congregations—their property and their memberships—with a keen eye for how the hierarchy can benefit. We fall for the same temptation faced by all offenders. “We need what you have more than you do.”
Not surprisingly, the world has changed a great deal since the 16th century. The hierarchies of yesteryear have been crumbling in business and public sectors. The connected age doesn’t need them anymore.
The church, too, is in danger of seeing its tallest spires crumble. Those who reach the most influential stations find themselves in charge of fewer people with less money. Power wasn’t what they dreamt it would be.
This Reformation Sunday let’s return to the foundational teaching of Martin Luther.
- Let’s work to make the family the center of religious education.
- Let’s make sure that access to the scripture is universal.
- Let’s empower God’s people by strengthening them rather than shaming them, bullying them, or creating dependency.
- Let’s demand that our leaders model their ministries on Christ’s sacrifice.
The Reformation isn’t over. It never will be.
24 Oct 2013
6 Depictions of the Pharisee
and the Publican or Tax Collector
Jesus’ story is a study in contrast. Each of us can probably relate to the story. We may see ourselves as the tax collector even when our actions mimic the Pharisee.
The Pharisee is sure of himself. He is a good man. He has no reason to question his place within the faith. He has followed the law. He does what is expected of him. And he’s thankful for his lot in life. Doesn’t that describe most happy church people?
But the focus is on the little guy—the guy the better people in society look down on. The tax collector is hated. The tax collector is cozy with society’s enemies. The tax collector makes his living at the expense of good Jewish people.
That describes an awful lot of church people, too! It just takes a story from Jesus now and then to set us straight.
And so artists through the ages have visited this story over and over. Let’s start with the iconic portrayal typical of Eastern or Orthodox Christianity.
Icons are painted with meditation in mind. There is enough in this depiction to think about. The relationship of both the Pharisee and the Publican to Judaism is prominent. The artist depicts both men as equal for the purposes of mediation. They are of equal size and position.
Contrast this depiction with another work which is similar in detail but which clearly focuses on the tax collector. Don’t you want to put your hand on his shoulder?
In the next depiction the Pharisee and Publican go head to head. Separate but equal.
Here is another storytelling approach.
The next artist won’t let us forget that this is a story. Jesus is present in the background. His audience is there. The foreground is a stage for his story. The poor tax collector! He even needs a cane to walk!
Last, we show you a modern depiction by artist Bryn Gillette. This contemporary artist painted this rendition in response to a sermon he heard. He tells his story on his website.
The sermon had contrasted the spiritually dead, hypocritical, and self righteous attitude of the pharisee with the persevering faith, obedience, and selfless stewardship of a true disciple of Jesus.
I tried to paint this familiar scene from the more shocking spiritual lens of what was happening within the two figures: the pharisee’s self righteous posture emanating darkness, spiritually dead but covered by a veneer of beautiful color, while the tax collector is contrite in posture, full of life, covered in humble earth tones, and shimmering with God’s anointing. —Bryn Gillette
And so the pharisee is a skeleton and the publican has a halo!
It’s great when the artist is still around to help us understand his work!
Here’s an idea. Paint or draw your response to next week’s sermon!
23 Oct 2013
A Story of Two Birds
This week’s gospel is Jesus’ story of two men praying before God. It is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
The Pharisee prays loudly, thanking God for his life filled with riches, finery and the prestige of having many important friends. He’s a big shot in the church. God should be proud to hear his prayer.
The tax collector is of low rank in the community. He prays to God in humility.
Today’s lesson is a parallel story. Who doesn’t like a story?
The Story of the Peacock and Mockingbird
Once upon the time, there was beautiful peacock who lived in a large fenced yard in the center of a very big farm. The peacock did not mind being fenced in. The farmer fed him well and often paused from his work to admire his pet bird’s beauty.
The peacock enjoyed the farmer’s attention. He was proud of his long blue neck and his long feathery tail of splendid gold, green and blue. Whenever he saw the farmer coming his way, he began strutting about the farmyard, dragging his beautiful feathers behind. At just the right moment, he would raise his tail and spread its feathers like a fan. The farmer would always smile with pride.
Nearby, in the branches of a large bush, lived a small gray bird. He often sat on a tiny twig and watched the peacock put on his show. He longed for the farmer’s attention. He’d fly above the farmyard, occasionally swooping low. “Much as I would like the farmer to notice me, I will never be as beautiful as the peacock,” thought the little gray bird. Still, he kept flying, hoping that one day, the farmer would smile at him with the same pride he had for the more handsome bird.
“Hm!” the peacock thought. “Look at that puny little bird. His feathers are so short and they have no color. Of course, the farmer likes me best! Why doesn’t the little gray bird go back to his nest and let the farmer enjoy my show?”
One sunny, spring day the farmer put down his how and leaned against the farmyard fence for a rest.
The peacock took notice and began strutting across the yard. Just as he was about to spread his beautiful tail feathers, the little gray bird began flying above him in wide circles.
“It’s time I put that little gray bird in his place,” the peacock thought. “This is my farmyard. The farmer wants to see me! I am beautiful. He is so very plain.”
The peacock raised his voice to keep the farmer’s attention.
“ACK! ACK! ACK!”
Aha! It was working. The farmer was delighted.
“ACK! ACK! ACK!”
But then the farmer turned his head to follow a different sound. It was very similar to the peacock’s call but so much softer.
“Ack! Ack! Ack!”
The farmer saw the little gray bird flying in circles above the farmyard. He couldn’t help but watch the little gray bird’s graceful flight.
The little gray bird landed on a nearby branch and repeated the peacock’s call ever so softly. “Ack! Ack! Ack!” The softer the little gray bird called, the more carefully the farmer seemed to listen.
The peacock was jealous. “Is he mocking me?” he wondered. His dark eyes, circled with white, flashed in anger. He strutted toward the bush and spread his beautiful tail, intent on blocking any view of the little gray bird. The farmer moved closer to the bush, straining to see around him.
“ACK! ACK! ACK!” The peacock called as loudly as he could, but the farmer’s eyes were on the little gray bird sitting in the bush.
“Why isn’t he paying attention to me?” the peacock thought. “Is he hard of hearing?”
He stopped to consider whether or not his question made sense. But the little gray bird did not stop. The little gray bird repeated his call. “Ack! Ack! Ack!” The farmer beamed with pleasure at the little gray bird’s delicate echo.
Then the little gray bird changed the pitch. One “Ack” was high. The next “Ack” was low. The third “Ack” was somewhere in between.
“He’s ruining my song,” the peacock thought.
But that was just the beginning. Soon the little gray bird added new sounds to his song. He tweeted and twittered. He rasped and he whirred.
The farmer applauded in delight.
The peacock strutted toward the farmer. He stretched his beautiful blue neck and lifted his tiny head. He tried to echo the little gray bird’s song. But all that came from his mouth was a harsh, ugly “ACK! ACK! ACK!”
The little gray bird stopped singing. He flew a few times around the farmyard. The peacock spun in one direction and then the other as he, too, watched the little gray bird.
Then the little gray bird flew off. The farmer followed the plain gray bird’s soft, delicate call through the wide fields.
The peacock watched from behind the fence. For the first time he wished he could trade his beauty for feathers that could fly. His beautiful tail dragged in the dust as he strutted slowly around the yard with neither the farmer nor the little gray bird interested in his splendor.
Talk to your congregation about what God expects of us when we talk to him.
You can post these links of a strutting peacock and singing mockingbird on your website. The peacock sings at about the 13-second mark. The mockingbird never stops singing. You might even play the recordings for your congregation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MhZPqHeEAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMpe34Aign4
You can make stick puppets of a peacock and mockingbird from photos found easily on the web. If you use the story with children (or even with adults) you could divide the group with one singing the harsh peacock ACKs and the other singing more delicate Acks whenever you point to them.
Have fun!
20 Oct 2013
2x2virtualchurch doesn’t get a lot of online engagement. But people do contact us. We get direct emails and sometimes even phone calls about our posts. When I encourage readers to comment on site, they say it’s too hard from their mobile phones—which tells us something about how the world gets their information today! Easier to use that phone to autodial us!
Friday’s post drew a phone call that raised an interesting question. It is a question that no one has probably thought about, because there was little need.
Our post advocated for “repurposing” the sermon.
The sermon, always central to Lutheran worship, is very ineffective for the purpose of spreading the Good News. Yet it is a focus of our expectations and budgets.
Most churches say something in their mission statements about reaching beyond that limited audience. Yet finding a way to do that has been a challenge, despite the tools in our modern hands.
Sermons—even great sermons—aren’t going to do it! Our post began exploring ways to maximize a congregation’s investment in providing a weekly sermon to a shrinking, limited and static audience of people who are predisposed toward the message. Our reader raises this question:
Who owns the rights to the sermon?
The caller is well-versed in both the corporate and church publishing worlds, especially the higher end of the Protestant Church. She commented that in the corporate world, if the corporation subsidizes the creation of content, the corporation owns the content. We are guessing the church world will argue that the pastor is self-employed and therefore owns his or her words.
I am self-employed but I know from experience that my clients consider my work to be their property. I often know that I have legal rights to the work product, but usually decide to not argue with clients. I value the relationship and the next job above the value of past work and insistence on accepted professional rights.
All this thinking may belong to the past—when publishing was the business of publishers. Today every evangelist or entrepreneur must publish if they hope to succeed. Hair dressers, chefs, dog trainers, roofers, lawyers, doctors—everyone will publish.
Congregations can (and we would argue MUST) be publishers. (Click to tweet)
What roadblocks will congregations encounter when they try to get more mileage from their considerable investment in spreading the Good News? They will have to get content for their evangelism efforts. Can they rely on the cooperation of clergy? Will everyone be stepping on toes? Will congregations seeking to call pastors insist their candidates understand modern publishing? They should.
The question probably enters no one’s mind now. As it is, very few pastors publish. Those that do are likely claiming all royalties without anyone questioning who subsidized the time they took in writing the book.
Will pastors value relationship over work product? Will they argue that Jonathan Edwards published his sermons for his own benefit and therefore they have the same rights? I don’t know the answer, but it is something to think about as congregations — like everyone in the modern world — realize that they have the power and need to publish. Publish or perish, for real!
These will be refreshing legal battles after the church has wasted so much of its resources in arguing about physical property, land, and monetary assets. Maybe church leaders will at last realize that their message is a major asset!
Realize this. A congregation’s content could fund their ministry. (Click to tweet.) They must create and own their content.
This is a game changer. It can be the salvation of the small church. If we make it a contest, all will lose. Congregations should think about this now before their regional bodies start to tweak their constitutions to favor them and the clergy. Clergy are a pretty big voting bloc in that regard.
Congregations must become involved in any upcoming debate. They may have to spark the debate or watch decisions made for them — and not in their favor!
This has happened before. The Lutheran Church in America (the predecessor body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) forbade congregations from publishing. It was seen as competition with the national church publishing houses. Now there is no way to stop congregations from publishing.
Denominational leaders will be shooting their mission in the foot if they start to legislate these rights in their favor, but they’ve been doing this in their lust for land for years.
Prediction: This is going to change—dare I say transform—the relationship of congregation and clergy. (Click to tweet)
Congregations, think about this now! If your next pastor is uncomfortable with publishing and uncomfortable with others in the church becoming involved in publishing, they will be unprepared to bring your congregation into the future.
20 Oct 2013
Preaching Past the Pews
Think about what goes into the staging and delivery of the weekly sermon.
- Divide your pastoral salaries by 52 and then divide by five. That’s what you paid your professional leaders for the week’s sermon.
- Then add the costs of maintaining a building.
- Add heat and air conditioning costs.
- Now add the costs of the other professionals who help set the stage for delivery of the service—the sexton, organist, and choir director.
- Add the cost of the church secretary and the cost of printing the bulletin.
- We won’t add the costs of the many volunteers, but they added to the experience, too.
These costs and efforts are repeated every week. The beneficiaries—the people in the pew—are likely to be the same people every week. They number between 15 at the low end and 700 or so at the high end. The median congregation is probably less than 75 per church.
Advertisers call this calculation the cost per impression. Church costs per impression are very high indeed.
Oddly, this is never seen as squandering resources. Why not?
Because it defines Church. This is what churches have done for 2000 years.
We are well into the 21st century. The internet has been around for about a quarter century. It gets more powerful every day. It also gets easier to use. We are capable of so much more than monks with their parchment and pen.
The same message delivered in your church on Sunday can and should be preached beyond the back pew. This does not mean printing the sermon on the web site. This will attract practically no readers—except perhaps other preachers looking for ideas!
Put the Same Information Into Different Formats
Reach Far More People
There are ways that a sermon delivered to very few (even in well-attended churches) can reach into the neighborhood. Done consistently it is likely to attract people to your ministry.
We could take any sermon as an illustration. We’ll take for example the sermon that our Ambassadors heard last week at Trinity, Norristown. It’s fresh in our experience. Like most people, we don’t remember sermons very long.
The source scripture for the day was the story of the Apostle Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch was sitting in his chariot, minding his own business, trying to make sense of the book of Isaiah. Along comes Philip, who might have passed up the opportunity to share, except that he was following orders from God. Soon the two were chatting about Jesus.
The sermon was delivered by one of Trinity’s three pastors, the Rev. Dr. Asha George-Guiser.
The gist of the sermon was the “blasting of barriers.” She pointed out that Philip and the eunuch could not have been more different, yet both were able to come together and talk about scripture.
Dr. George-Guiser focused her entire sermon on just one illustration—her marriage. She is of Indian descent, tracing her Christian roots to the evangelistic efforts of the Apostle Thomas, father of the church in India. Her husband of many years is also a pastor of Trinity. He comes from a non-religious Pennsylvania farm family and is racially White.
Dr. George-Guiser talked about how difficult it was for her family to accept her marriage. Their many differences were barriers that took years to blast away. Blasting away at the barriers led to a long and happy union.
Great illustration. It probably resonated with the congregation of about 70, many of whom probably know both pastors very well.
The service was at 11 am. By noon, the sanctuary was empty. The message and sermon were already on their way to oblivion to await the message of next Sunday. The shelf life of a sermon is very short.
How could the same sermon be repurposed to reach many who were not present in church last Sunday?
- What if earlier in the week, the congregation had been invited on a church blog or Facebook to identify barriers in their lives? Anyone taking part in that conversation would be more invested in the worship service.
- What if illustrations of barriers in the community had been identified and addressed on the blog? People who might never set foot in a sanctuary but who discovered the blog because of their community interest would see a church in action. The church web site would find more and more readers.
- What if photos of barriers in the neighborhood had been posted on Pinterest with a link back to a discussion on the church blog? The congregation would have even more exposure in the community.
- What if a few memorable snippets from the sermon were recorded as a podcast? Commuters might listen during the week as they drove to work.
- What if a Powerpont with key sermon ideas had been posted on SlideShare? Other churches might share it.
- What if the same Powerpoint were used in worship to illustrate the sermon? They were using projection for every other part of the service. It might extend the short life of the average sermon.
- What if a children’s version had been posted on a kid’s corner on the web site?
The possibilities are many.
It’s more work to be sure, but suddenly that $1000 investment in a weekly sermon is going much farther.
Your church can go from talking about “blasting barriers” to actually lighting a fuse!
Do you see why having a communications expert is just as important to today’s church as an organist or a choir director? They can help maximize your investment spreading the Good News. It changes everyone’s job description a bit, but if transformation is to occur, something’s got to give!
Warning! The effectiveness of a church communications plan fashioned to reach beyond the pew is a marathon. If you want to give it a try, plan to dedicate a year minimum to begin to see results. By year three it should be reaping benefits you’d never imagine going without!
photo credit: kern.justin via photopin cc
18 Oct 2013
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
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
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
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?
So 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.
The 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.
Our 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!
15 Oct 2013