Poinsettias are already for sale. What a perfect object lesson to go with the parable of the fig tree!
You know summer is coming when the fig tree sprouts. You know the celebration of Jesus’ birth is coming when you see poinsettias for sale in the grocery store. Talk about the other signs of Christmas—TV and radio ads using Christmas music to grab your attention, charity solicitations in the mail, and your neighbors Christmas lights brightening your lawn in the evening.
Talk about the prophecies in Jeremiah and the sentiments of the psalmist—how the signs bring both hope and anxiety.
There is a fad in the church first noticed ages ago by one of our ambassadors. We dismissed it as his pet peeve, but he has a point. It is getting annoying. Why do all pastors feel compelled to add the phrase “if able” to every worship instruction?
If people are not able, they won’t do it! And if people don’t want to follow instructions, it calls attention and question to either their disability or their orneriness! Why don’t worship leaders just say, “You are invited to stand.” and leave it at that? Most able people will follow instructions. Those with disabilities will not feel singled out…and ornery people…they will always be with us!
Really, we don’t know what we are “able” to do, until we try.
The beauty of this church is unsurpassed. Modest brick and marble or granite (low maintenance) walls and columns frame exquisite stained glass windows depicting the life of Christ.
Attendance at the 11 o’clock service was upwards of 80 but shy of 100. It was difficult to count as there was movement among worshipers, playing different roles in the church service.
The service itself was similar to a Redeemer service, mixing modern praise songs with various elements of the liturgy. We noticed that they haven’t bothered purchasing rack editions of the ELCA’s new worship book, and we don’t blame them. They had a 20-page bulletin and 12 additional pages of announcements. One of our Ambassadors was grateful for the help of a member in finding the hymns which were reprinted from various sources in the back of the bulletin. You would have had to read through the whole bulletin to discover this, though. Singing was strong. They skipped the epistle reading.
A four-member children’s choir sang a Thanksgiving hymn. A larger adult choir sang an Offertory. This followed an extended “passing of the peace” which continued through much of the anthem. The people sitting near us were heavily involved in loud conversations throughout the anthem.
Liturgically, there always seems to be a problem transitioning from the passing of the peace to refocusing on worship. At Redeemer, we solved the problem by having a musical call to prayer ending the passing of the peace free-for-all. This works very well.
There were about a dozen children, far fewer youth and a couple of infants. There were about ten people sitting in the chancel.
This is a program-sized church and suitably the bulletin listed many programs. We noted that the pastor encouraged creating some respite time during Advent. Not a bad idea.
On this Sunday morning we found St. John’s in “transition.” Their pastor of ten years left at the end of October.
We were aware that this was the church of The Rev. Lee Miller III, the lead “trustee” who came to Redeemer in the summer of 2007 and told us he was there as a “fact finder” who “wanted to help.” He then did very little fact-finding nor did he ever offer any help. He did not reveal to us at his first encounter with our leaders that he actually was a “trustee.” We learned of his deception five months later. He explained, without apology, that he lied because he didn’t want trouble.
Well, there has been nothing but trouble ever since. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. . .
His involvement in our community was confusing. He seemed to be in favor of supporting our ministry, but changed his tune (never in discussion with us) sometime during months of silence. We suspect that his position as head of the trustees was an exercise in brown-nosing and personal career advancement.
Having received just 15 votes at the last Synod Assembly election for bishop, he has abandoned the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for fairer pastures, leaving us to deal with the substantial mess he created.
The Rev. Lee Miller III was the person who first suggested that Redeemer “wanted to have the bishop arrested”—an impression we corrected immediately, but which nevertheless found its way into the trustees “report” and all subsequent court documents — even after we asked that this and many other false statements be corrected as long ago as May 2008—four and one half years ago!
No one at Redeemer EVER tried to have anyone arrested.
Oh, well, the Rev. Lee Miller III is gone, if not forgotten. Philadelphia’s loss is Buffalo’s gain.
“Transition” is an odd term. This is not to be confused with “transformation.” Transformation, in Synod-speak, occurs only after transition and ideally under their watchful eye. It can easily go unrecognized if it happened when they weren’t watching.
Church communities are always in transition. When SEPA uses this term, it refers to a time between pastors. As a congregation that existed without a pastor for most of the decade before Lee Miller intruded and four years after he came with the bishop and a locksmith, we at Redeemer find this official designation to be curious.
SEPA thinks congregations fall apart when a pastor leaves. The seeds of this thinking were in all this morning’s talk about vulnerability. The congregation was told repeatedly, “We are vulnerable. You are vulnerable. I am vulnerable.” Maybe they are. Perhaps the synod was creating fear and need to make it easier to reach their version of “mutual discernment.”
There were no obvious signs that St. John’s was falling apart because Pastor Miller left. That’s a compliment to both pastor and congregation.
In clergy’s view, lay people need their oversight to do anything constructive. This view, which reflects clergy vulnerability more than lay, creates an uncomfortable period of limbo. Laity will live lives on eggshells as they are questioned, observed, rated, evaluated, defined, assessed . . .
Our Ambassadors reveal just how confusing this process is for lay people. Our account, Undercover Bishop, is drawn from our observations of congregations in “transition.”
The associate pastor, the Rev. Patricia Neale, confessed as a Synod representative looked on that she is in a vulnerable position during this process. Church “rules” require that an associate pastor leave at the same time a “lead” pastor leaves. Rules are made to be broken and in SEPA they are rewritten for convenience. Wait and see!
Rev. Patricia Neale, was called to St. John’s upon graduation from Philadelphia Seminary in 2007. That means she has identical parish experience as Bishop Claire Burkat who served just five years as associate pastor of Holy Trinity, Abington, before joining SEPA Synod staff.
Pastor Neale’s sermon talked about Pilate and his need to control the situation festering among the Jews, Jesus and civil authorities. Doing the right thing in regard to the troublesome Jesus was less important than doing the thing that protected his power. Some things never change.
Control is similarly part of the “transition” process, although it is never presented this way.
Pastor Neale probably knows the congregation well. She gave both a good sermon and children’s sermon. Since SEPA has their interim person coming once a month and not every week, we suspect the decision has already been made about St. John’s future.
Hurry! Gobble down the dinner some thoughtful matriarch spent days preparing. Break out the camping equipment and claim your spot on the Big Box Store parking lot.
The United States is a blessed nation in that we ever thought to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving. Proclaimed to be held on a Thursday, at a time in history when the concept of “weekend” meant little, it is one of few holidays that seems safe from the corporate need for Monday holidays.
That Thursday timing is a great opportunity. Many people don’t mind taking Friday, too. Plenty of time to celebrate with all branches of the complex American family. Enough time to join with the neighborhood. A wonderful four-day pause to show appreciation.
It is a time to count our blessings as a people: our survival of hardship, our struggles for freedom, our battles for justice and the blessings that we call prosperity and opportunity.
Oddly, it has become a time when our churches are empty and our malls are filled.
If you don’t believe in God, whom are you thanking on Thanksgiving?
Last Sunday, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) held a gathering they called
“Plant It, Water It, Watch it Grow.”
It was supposed to be a presentation on SEPA’s mission work.
Redeemer wasn’t invited. We are the weed, we suppose, in the SEPA garden.
SEPA Synod evicted a vibrant, growing congregation, locked everyone in town out of God’s House, and sent a caretaker to rake the leaves and shovel the snow. He does a good job, the neighbors tell us.
But GROW! That’s the part SEPA Synod has trouble with. Almost all of its congregations are in decline or flat-lined. In fact, Rev. Hilgendorf of St. David’s, dean of the NE Conference, addressed the Plant It, Water It, Watch It Grow concept and talked mostly of helping congregations save money by consolidating purchasing. This really has nothing to do with planting, watering or growth.
Botanists describe weeds as flowers that are reproductively successful.
What SEPA Synod needs is more weeds — like Redeemer.
They wouldn’t know what to do if they had a garden filled with them.
That’s why Redeemer is about to celebrate its FOURTH Christmas locked out of the church. And none of the people who attended Sunday’s “Plant It, Water It, Watch It Grow” conference have demonstrated that they care.
While all those church leaders were together talking about mission, we wonder:
The story of the Rev. Martin Rinckart inspires us each Thanksgiving.
Let me tell it one more time.
Pastor Rinckart was one of four pastors in the walled city of Eilenburg, Germany, in 1637. The city was a refuge from the devastation of the Thirty Years War. Its over-crowded streets became a breeding ground for the Great Plague.
Death was all around. There were four pastors. They were called upon to perform as many as 40 funerals a day. One pastor fled. Rinckart conducted the funerals of two others and that of his wife. All but three government officials died. Children were hit particularly hard. Rinckart conducted nearly 4,500 funerals before the dead began to be buried without ceremony in trenches.
Famine followed pestilence and Rinckart helped keep the peace when fights broke out over food. He gave away as much as he could without starving his own family.
He mortgaged his future income to help feed the destitute who gathered at his door.
The Swedish occupying forces demanded tribute from the people of Eilenburg in excess to anything that could possibly be paid. Rinckart attempted to negotiate with the occupying forces to no avail.
He gathered his followers and said, “Come, my children, we can find no hearing, no mercy with men, let us take refuge with God.”
His earnest devotion impressed The Swedish general and the tribute demand was greatly reduced.
From this man of God, who knew little but duty amidst profound suffering came the words we sing at Thanksgiving.
Memorize them!
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices, Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices; Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us, With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us; And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed; And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given; The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven; The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore; For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
We crown Jesus king next Sunday, despite his earthly protests.
God resisted the concept of kings until his chosen people demanded one. Kings are an acquired taste!
Kings are a foreign concept to Americans. We read about kings in story books. We respect the monarchs of other countries, but the idea of being a subject under a king that rules by birthright is not easily understood by us.
Yet that is the imagery of today’s scriptures.
Today it wouldn’t be a bad idea to point out what “kingship” entails.
Use a flip chart and start to make a list.
Ask your congregations for words that they might associate with an earthly king.
Add their suggestions to the chart and talk about how the earthly king might correspond to Jesus as King.
Expect words like crown, castle, throne, realm, queen, power, subjects, scepter
Create a little chart, adding the heavenly counterpart to the analogy.
2×2 grew from a small church—Redeemer in East Falls. How small? Well, too small for the ELCA. But big enough for mission.
While we have been locked out of our sanctuary for more than three years, we took on a project of visiting the very people who locked us out for their own enrichment.
We’ve made more than 50 visits. Most congregations appear to be no stronger in numbers or wealth than Redeemer. Several would probably already have been targeted by SEPA Synod for takeover if Redeemer hadn’t been commanding their attention for the last five years. As church experts categorize churches by size, they are either in the family church (under 75 members) or pastoral church (around 150 active members) categories .
A few of the congregations we have visited fall into the next biggest category — the program church.
Program churches are big enough by definition to afford a full-time pastor or two and some additional paid staff. They can offer programs to various segments of the population led by the extra hands they can afford to pay.
There is a stark contrast between these churches and the smaller churches that struggle to compete for pastoral services and attention from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The difference is initiative. It’s not that larger churches don’t have initiative; it’s just more “programmed.”
We can see it in little things.
In last Sunday’s visit, the pastor used five large objects in his sermon. He introduced them one by one and placed them across the front of the chancel as he talked. When his sermon ended, he walked back and forth across the chancel and removed the objects. He sang a hymn as he did so. But it seemed odd that the vicar sitting nearby didn’t offer to help—nor did the acolyte sitting nest to the vicar. I know that had this been Redeemer, one or two people would have jumped up and helped the pastor prepare for the next part of worship. There is nothing wrong with this, understand. The hymn the pastor was singing as he cleaned up was nice. It just seemed odd.
Where initiative is lacking, so is creativity. It shows in the bulletins of program churches. They invariably have long lists of credits. Who is the greeter, the reader, the usher, the offering counter, the communion assistant, the flower donator, or the nursery assistant for this week and the rest of the month? Just check the bulletin.
Presumably, if it’s not your Sunday to greet people, then there is no reason to greet anyone.
In small churches, every job belongs to every body.
Reading through church newsletters and bulletins of the program-sized churches, there are lists of activities. They are similar to every other program-sized church. Perhaps that’s where church leaders get the notion that closing/consolidating churches is good management.
The things Redeemer does aren’t on any of the lists. No Swahili outreach, no experimentation with the web and social media, very little experimenting in the worship and educational settings, no ambassadors.
Perhaps the promise that they will lose their uniqueness is why small churches resist the management “wisdom” of their leaders.
Perhaps it is why the ELCA and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) tend to undervalue their small congregations.
Redeemer is not closed. We are locked out of God’s house by SEPA Synod.
My Dad is not a city person. He is the child of missionaries and a career parish pastor who served in several Pennsylvania small towns and rural communities. Those towns are still too small to support a church according to ELCA experts, but they always supported us.
Retired for the last 20 years, Dad now divides his time between his children. He takes his frequent visits to Philadelphia in stride, despite some measure of culture shock. I was with him in the small towns until I was about 23. Since then, I have lived the rest and majority of my life in cities. I remember my previous “country” life and am aware of differing city ways, which I, too, had to learn. My city-born husband used to scold me for talking to strangers. Today I was reminded of where I got that terrible habit.
My Dad doesn’t know the rules of city life. If he did he wouldn’t care. He talks to everyone he passes. Sometimes people are receptive. Sometimes I catch a look of suspicion in their eyes. More often than not, he is ignored. I explain to him that city people protect their space. He pays no mind.
Today, he accompanied me to the grocery store. As I ordered some cold cuts he attempted to strike up a conversation with the person holding the customer number after mine. I noticed the woman looking at him suspiciously as if his kindness was an intrusion. Her face said, “Who is this old guy and what does he want from me?” Dad didn’t seem to notice, so I caught her eye and made light. “He’s harmless,” I said. “He’s my dad, an old preacher. He talks to everyone.”
She processed this for a second or two. She looked angry. My dad continued to talk to her as if I’d said nothing. Suddenly, she let down her guard and responded. They had a short conversation. I breathed a little easier as I waited for my pound of provolone. As I turned to leave, she commented to me, “This world needs more people like that. It needs them very bad.”
She may be right.
Our Ambassador visits reveal that many pastors lack my dad’s skill in striking up conversations. Some disappear after church. Some go off to a corner to talk to one person—probably a council member. Few show any inclination to circulate among either members or visitors. Have they adopted city ways? Are they living in their own worlds? Does the work of the church trump fellowship? Do they think someone else is going to do the work of evangelism? Are they afraid to tell the Story? Are they too good to talk to strangers? Are they unaware that the entire congregation follows their lead?
I don’t know the answers. But I suspect that talking to people is more likely to grow a church than not.
We need good people in all the standard artistic slots — music directors, choir members, wordsmiths. But there are so many more artistic skills needed.
Visual artists are underused and under-appreciated in today’s church. Painters and artisans used to be so important that their roles in the church were subsidized. That is why even small churches across Europe are filled with beautiful windows, murals and sculptures. This was also the age of great church musicians — the Bachs and Handels. But the love of art extended to things we consider mundane. The doors, furniture and fixtures of small churches built hundreds of years ago were created by artists. Art mattered!
This has been less true in the New World church. Where once we might have commissioned a great tapestry, we now buy from the catalog or fall back on homemade banners, etc. which are nice but would fail to qualify as artistically belonging to the ages.
And then there are the property artists, financial artists, leadership artists.
Many small churches are able to continue ministry because somewhere in their history, some member was an artist in caring for property, making investments or inspiring and rallying people.
In the days before the Church recognized the talents of half the population, small churches often prospered because of the people skills of a pastor’s wife or deaconess. They worked largely unrecognized and poorly compensated (if at all). They used their social gifts to see the potential within the community and instinctively knew how to nurture it. They never had any “power,” so protecting their power was never at issue. They are rarely mentioned in church histories.
Regardless, of the area of expertise, artists thrive on something the Church doesn’t really have much time for — chaos.
Artists are happiest when life is not predictable — when the rules don’t stand in the way of initiative and experimentation.
Many Church leaders have stifled creativity. It was probably not intentional. They may have had the congregation’s best interest (from their point of view) at heart. But church leaders tend to like structure, order, predictability, and comfort. They want their jobs to be easier. They surround themselves with people who complement these goals. They are rarely artists.
This sends creative people already in the Church packing. And those who are not in the Church will sense that they will never be of any use — so why bother.
While we say we are working for change and growth, we are actually judging members by their obedience. Choices will be made based on order, ease and comfort.
In reality, artists and non-artists need to exist together in amiable friction. That’s the spark of life. That’s what’s needed if congregations are ever going to live up to their lofty mission statements.
That’s why in spite of decades of talk about growth, the momentum in the Church is decidedly in the other direction.
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
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).
2×2 Sections
Where in the World is 2×2?
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
