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.
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!
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).
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.
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.
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
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.
Christians were targeted because Muslim extremists equate America with Christianity.
The survivors fear that that Muslim hospitals will not provide adequate care to Christian patients so church members are providing as much care as possible themselves.
Relief efforts will help with medical care, food and clothing for victims.
Imagine your church being blown into the sky some Sunday morning.
I have been blogging on behalf of my congregation (Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls) for nearly three years. It has become a discipline which has created many interesting mission opportunities for our little church without a building. It is something our members follow and discuss when we get together. It is our church blog.
There is always something new to learn! In 2011 we inched our way up from one visitor each month to 500 a month. In 2012 we improved our statistics about tenfold and doubled that again in 2013. We have used no gimmicks or strategies—no Facebook ad campaigns, no contests or elaborate opt-in schemes. We just created and posted content almost every day.
But how do our statistics measure? I had no idea.
Today I saw a recommendation for a utility that analyzes a website in comparison with others in a similar field. I think it does this by analyzing key words and results of key words. How would three years of work stack up in an independent, purely statistical, algorithmic review?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Nevertheless, I started exploring.
The results are amazing.
2×2 is in the upper 20% of most church social media ministry categories and is NUMBER ONE in the category of church blogging. The lowest we ranked in any category was 47%.
Within the next two weeks we will tally our 40,000th unique visitor. We now have about 200 readers everyday (about half unique and half followers).
We are putting our four years of exile from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to good use. What we have learned could help many! Statistically, we may be the largest church in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod — measuring modern statistics!
But we are shunned. Our skills, our loyalty, our faithful mission, and our people are worth nothing in the ELCA. Our property and the protection of the people who created this mess are priorities.
Lutherans teach that the church is not a building. The church is the people.
But Lutherans don’t really believe what they teach. They have our building and evicted the people. They declared us closed—with no consideration for the people. A new church is now worshiping at the same time we once worshiped — right across the street from our locked building—proving that ministry is totally possible in our neighborhood.
But we knew that all along.
Will the ELCA ever see us as viable?
Not without some help.
Redeemer is not closed.
We are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.
10 Oct 2013
East Falls: Religion’s Bank
East Falls, an eclectic Philadelphia neighborhood, was once populated with a vibrant spiritual community. Recent decades have seen several church struggles with their form of hierarchy. East Falls is always the loser.
The churches of East Falls, for the most part, were built by working class people with occasional gifts from successful East Falls entrepreneurs. For example, Hohenadel’s Brewery, now long gone, gave annual gifts to the churches.
Redeemer was the unexpected recipient of one such estate in 1987—the Steinle Estate. That’s when the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America started salivating.
First, came the claims of Lutheran retirement home, where our deceased member was planning to move. She died before that happened, but Paul’s Run wanted to keep her hefty deposit. We settled out of court giving them about $20,000. (I was present when our church treasurer visited Paul’s Run and asked to see the director. He was turned away. “The director is not in,” the people at the front desk said. Our treasurer turned and started to leave but abruptly opened an office door by the reception area. There was the director, sitting pretty as he pleased!).
A decade later, Bishop Almquist grabbed $90,000 from our bank account, but returned most of it after two years—a sort of forced, interest-free loan.
A decade after that, SEPA tried again, this time claiming everything but our people. They went after our people in court.
No one can say that Redeemer was not contributing to the Synod! By the way, contributions to the synod are not required constitutionally.
Why East Falls?
Denominations have few ways of raising money except to seek more offerings from fewer people. Far fewer people. The suburbs are feeling the pinch, too!
There have always been rich people in East Falls going back to the 1700s. Our streets and schools are named after them. Today, the richest live north of Henry Ave or along Warden Drive. The middle of East Falls—roughly Henry Avenue to the railroad tracks remains solidly working middle class, but rising within that class. The positive trend for East Falls is that the other side of the tracks, the homes of mill workers and the mills (turned condo), is experiencing gentrification. East Falls is coming up in the world!
Redeemer is centrally located to all of East Falls.
Government housing projects on three sides of East Falls had plagued this neighborhood for decades. It was difficult for the community to connect and they became havens of desperation and crime. This had always been a challenge to our churches (for which the higher church had no answers. I asked!). But now two of these projects are gone and the third is better managed. There is nothing stopping the value of East Falls property from rising. Entirely new populations are making East Falls home. Many were finding their way to Redeemer.
Good time to rethink ministry, one might think. And Redeemer did!
Many of those who fled the city in the 60s and 70s became cornerstones of suburban churches. Now the regional bodies are returning for what they left behind.
The land their heritage churches sit on has risen in value.
Denominational regional offices have noticed. One by one, the communities of faith have struggled with their hierarchies with land being the rope in the tug of war.
When Catholic and Episcopal leaders need money, they hold title to congregational properties. Their people can fight, but winning is tough!
Not so under the rules of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But they flexed their muscles in East Falls anyway, hoping no one would know better. With all the land issues in the news with Episcopal and Catholic denominations, people wouldn’t notice that the Lutheran Church does not own congregational property. The scheme worked. The courts never heard the case, ruling they don’t have jurisdiction in church issues. If they say they own the property, that’s good enough.
No one in the Lutheran Church seems to care about this. They should. It is foundational to their future. Once seized land is sold for a quick financial fix, the ability to make an impact in neighborhoods is gone. Mission fails.
The Lutheran way has always been to empower the foundation—families first (Martin Luther felt the home was the hub of Christian learning), congregations second, neighborhoods third. Regional and national entities are supposed to serve that end. No more.
Land values in East Falls coupled with a working class population makes us seem like easy pickings. We are not supposed to be smart enough to know the rules they are breaking.
St. James the Less lost their battle with the hierarchy ten years ago. The ploy there was to fabricate doctrinal issues.
There were no doctrinal issues raised with Redeemer Lutherans. Any justification for the actions of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod was fabricated to support greed and prejudice after the fact. There was never a discussion with the congregation to test the claims. The synod made claims; that’s good enough.
It wasn’t supposed to stop here. SEPA lawyer stated in court that Redeemer was the first of six or seven churches they intended to claim, close and reopen as MISSION churches. Sounds good. Don’t be fooled.
SEPA STRATEGY: This is part of a complex strategy. Lutheran rules assign certain land rights to churches started by a Synod and initially funded by Synod. They are called mission churches. Congregations with roots as a mission church cannot leave the ELCA WITH their property. Many Philadelphia churches were NOT started by synod. SEPA strategy is to seize control of these congregations and make them mission churches so that property rights revert to Synod. That’s what all the incremental tweaks about Involuntary Synodical Administration in the constitutions are about. That’s why it is so important to SEPA that churches close first and reorganize rather than just outright serving them under their existing names and constitutions. They say its about eliminating baggage of the past. Part of that baggage is land rights. They want property rights. In some cases, the Synod may actually be spending the congregation’s money, but by claiming it as theirs first and then spending it, they gain property rights.
Redeemer’s Neighbor: St. Bridget’s
In recent months, the heart and soul of much of East Falls — St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church — has been feeling the impact of the hierarchical clenched fist.
Last year, their school was closed by the archdiocesan “blue ribbon” committee. How can you argue with people who have blue ribbon status before they do anything?
In community discussions, the voices of outrage are heard.
The school had weathered four years of recession better than others. Their closure was supposed to boost the enrollment of schools which were struggling but which the archdiocese had sunk some money into refurbishing. Now both schools are closed.
The school is now the focus of commercial and community developers. The opportunity to use the land to foster religion may be gone.
The congregation had been subsidizing the school by as much as 35%. One community member stated. “Our church is in the black without the school.”
They are in the black for now. The school was an investment in their future. School’s create family involvement and long-term loyalty. Check back in 10 years to see if St. Bridget’s is still in the black without their school.
Meanwhile, the finances of the archdiocese were not discussed. Funny how the focus is always on the finances of congregations and not leadership. The archdiocese is struggling with major legal problems stemming from wide-ranging clergy sex scandals. Children were the victims then. Children and their education are the victims now. Millions of dollars are being spent to settle claims. Schools are closing.
SEPA Lutheran Synod (diocese) is also financially strapped, running six-figure deficits or shortfalls every year.
When regional church bodies cannot support their salaries and rent, they know where to turn. To nice, working class neighborhoods with rising property values.
East Falls fits the bill.
The spoils of East Falls will last only so long.
It will be someone else’s turn tomorrow. Maybe other Lutherans will start caring then!
I led a workshop on writing press releases this evening.
We discussed the basics of writing a release, adapting it to different news outlets and audiences, understanding the interest and needs of news editors, developing your own distribution channels and more!
Some attendees had an interest in church communications so it was a great discussion.
We are nearing the end of the year exploring Luke’s Gospel. Soon Jesus will be entering Jerusalem for his final trial.
But as he sets his face for Jerusalem, he encounters still more marginalized members of ancient Palestine—the lepers.
The disease was so feared that colonies were created in the most bleak areas to separate them from the healthy.
Leprosy is rare today. It can be cured. In Jesus’ day it was a disease that you could not hide. It was a death sentence, at least as far as living with any quality of life or ever living with anyone but other lepers ever again. The tenth leper was separating himself from the only people he had probably known since his disease became apparent.
This painting is by William Brassey Hole who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Hole was very fastidious in his details. Here is a link that discusses his methods. He traveled to study and learn the culture of the regions he painted. However, he couldn’t escape his time. He often depicts architecture that wasn’t built in Bible times and the wardrobe (which he collected for his models) was often more Arabic than Jewish as the demographics had changed in 1800 years. What I like about this depiction is the focus on the face of the thankful leper. The happy lepers are blips in the background.
Also from the 19th century is this version by French artist Jean Marie Melchior Doze. He takes a much more dramatic approach to telling this story. All those lepers just begging for Jesus’ attention. Doze concentrates on cure—not the reaction!
The story has long caught the attention of artists for centuries. This dates back to medieval times.
I like this one with the life of the times depicted as much as the key characters. Jesus is walking along probably passing many a shepherd, goatherd or cowherd. Then he encounters people who need care just as much as the animals need care.
Don’t you just want to join the happy dancers in the background? They are leaping off the page with joy. This image appears in several places on the web. No one seems to know the artist. If you know, please share. I have a guess but I haven’t been able to verify.
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Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
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On Isaiah 30:15b
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther