4/7InkzHVUEQeEdU9vpc1tikzEhChrKmPfvXI-FSDBrBQ

Judith Gotwald

Ambassadors Visit St. Paul’s, Glenside

The Ambassadors resumed visiting after a month’s hiatus due to obligations of individual Ambassadors. Our busy Ambassadors had afternoon plans today, so we visited the early service of St. Paul’s, Glenside. Two of our ambassadors are familiar with their neighboring church, St. Luke’s, but this was our first visit to the St. Paul’s of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

This was our 51st visit and the fifth (at least) Stewardship Sunday we encountered.

We attended the 8 am service and sat in the lobby listening to the bell choir rehearse for about 15 minutes as we were early. The bell choir was impressive. The 11-member bell choir performed two challenging numbers. A vicar led the liturgy.

A children’s sermon was very short and made a good point for the children but the message seemed to be too short with little to reinforce the message (sharing blessings).

The stewardship sermon for adults talked about keeping balance in our faith lives and mentioned about five things that stand in the way of stewardship. When these five things are out of whack, Rev. Henrik Sonntag said, our stewardship lives suffer. Several of them seemed to define the problems Redeemer has with SEPA/ELCA. The Synod’s FINANCES ($275,000 deficit budget) led them to poor stewardship choices in their poor RELATIONSHIPS with our congregation.  He then talked about embracing the cross of Christ as a remedy and as a restorer of balance. We agree. We’ve been reading scripture for five years that point to what is going on in East Falls at the hands of SEPA Synod with the approval of its clergy and member churches as wrong, wrong, wrong. But the hope of this synod embracing their message to reach a good resolution seems to be dim. It’s not the first good sermon we’ve heard that seemed to meet with a disconnect between theory and practice. But as Stewardship Semons go, it was one of the better ones.

The service followed a standard liturgy, the organ was well-played but too loud for the size of the congregation. We couldn’t hear the congregation to figure out which verse they were on. Attendance was about 50. Two children and one youth (the acolyte). The make-up of the congregation seemed to be homogenous as are most of the churches we visit. We returned to the 11 am service to retrieve a forgotten hat and the second service seemed to be better attended.

A woman spoke after church of the congregation’s participation in feeding the homeless. She acknowledged the volunteers who participated in the project.

Church was followed by an impressive fellowship spread. We stayed for a few minutes, but not a soul spoke to us.

We retired to the Moonlight Diner for our own Sunday fellowship.

Our stewardship message is of the Stewardship of Possibilities and the Stewardship of Promises.

18 Nov 2012

The Stewardship of Promises

A promise kept creates a bond.

A promise broken — even a small promise — creates disappointment and distrust at best. Anger and rage at worst.

The Church is all about promises. There are big promises. Forgiveness and salvation. There are little promises. Love and attention.

It is very difficult to reach people with the big promise of salvation, if the Church is not keeping the little promises.

  • When Church politics rely on the “spin.”
  • When little white lies, always self-serving in nature, replace transparency.
  • When we say “All welcome” but have no clue how to make people welcome.
  • When church leaders cannot demonstrate compassion and forgiveness.
  • When we say we care, but have trouble listening, much less acting.

It’s hard to preach of a Savior who commands love when we have such a hard time demonstrating it.

It’s hard for people to set their goals on salvation when they don’t feel safe.

Today’s Church needs to concentrate on keeping the little promises.

photo credit: Flооd via photopin cc
15 Nov 2012

Restoring Lutheran Interdependence

Don’t pay the deans

In days long gone by, the deans of a synod served uncompensated. It was their leadership contribution to their Church. In today’s ELCA, at least in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod, the deans are paid. Not much—but even a penny is influence.

Deans are supposed to serve a cluster of congregations as liaisons between the regional office and the congregation. Unpaid, they represent the congregations. Paid, they are arms of the synod.

Consequently, the congregations have very little access to the regional office except through the clergy — if they have clergy. The interdependence that defines the Lutheran church structure depends on communication between the congregations and the regional office and national church, which the cluster/conference and dean system is supposed to facilitate. With the leader of the clusters on the synod payroll, the integrity of the system is compromised. Forums for the interchange of interdependent thinking are muzzled.

When a dispute occurs, where can the congregations turn? Nowhere!

And so disputes, which the Church could and should handle themselves, spill into the secular courts.

It is an ethical dilemma that is largely unrecognized. Without an independent intermediary, this is unlikely to be addressed.

Recommendation: Don’t pay the deans. Allow them to be the voice of the congregations — as they are supposed to be. It won’t hurt them to serve the church the way they expect lay people to serve the church. It would help reestablish trust — and interdependence.

14 Nov 2012

Adult Object Lesson: November 18, 2012-Mark 13

Tuesday is object lesson day.Daniel 12:1-3  •  Psalm 16  •  Hebrews 10:11-14 [15-18] 19-25  •  Mark 13:1-8

Hope Springs Eternal

Today’s object is a jack-in-the-box. This remains a popular toy despite its low tech nature. It is a variation of the even less technical peek-a-boo game—the first game parents play with their infants.

Children’s games evolve as we get older. Peek-a-boo becomes hide and seek. Hide and seek becomes Find Waldo. Find Waldo has its online variations.

The games are all about expectations. We are willing to risk some temporary discomfort for the anticipated reward.

That’s what today’s lessons are about—coping with a sense of despair with the hope of something better. Apocalyptic scripture is all about a promised end for those who endure the uncertainties of the day. Hope is a common denominator.

Hope is what makes us work for a better life. Hope is what makes us laugh. An unpredicted turn of phrase or action that goes against what is anticipated is the foundation of humor. Hope is what makes us believe.

Babies play this game, the disciples played this game, and we play this game.

So turn the handle on the jack in the box and experience hope and anticipation with its fulfillment (however silly)—again and again and again. It will strengthen you for bigger dreams.

photo credit: Brother O’Mara via photopin cc
13 Nov 2012

Stewardship of Possibilities: Part 2

Seth Godin’s blog is worth repeating today. (It’s short).

When you don’t know what to do…

That’s when we find out how well you make decisions.

When you don’t have the resources to do it the usual way, that’s when you show us how resourceful you are.

And when you don’t know if it’s going to work, that’s how we find out whether or not we need you on our team.

Every small church is in this position. Many are finding out that they don’t need to structure their “team” quite the way they have in the past.

The “dead wood” (a term one pastor used in a comment on this site in reference to small churches that the synod wanted to close) may not be the congregations. If you are going to assess interdependent ministries, look for dead wood in all the interdependent branches.

We suspect you’ll find some withering main branches.

Small churches are finding that not only do they not need them on their team but they have been playing without their support for years.

photo credit: Moochy via photopin cc
12 Nov 2012

The Stewardship of Possibilities

Give it a try!The Church, more than any other organization, save perhaps environmentalist groups, dwells on the concept of stewardship.

Sometimes we use the word interchangeably with offerings and donations, but we know it is more than that.

Stewardship is the conscious and wise use of resources. Too often we view only the property and financial assets in our thinking.

Measuring stewardship is a problem, especially when you don’t know what to measure.

Measuring stewardship leads to harsh judgments — often by people who are, themselves, stewardship-challenged. We are tempted to assume that we somehow have a right to judge who is the best determiner of when, where, and how resources are put to best use.

This can be tricky even for Christians without a horse in the race! Is the same $50,000 better used by a small congregation with 100 members or would it be better used to the Glory of God if a corporate church managed that money—or take the resources entirely out of the hands of the people who donated the resources. Let your regional body make the decisions.

Any organization of any size can use resources wisely or foolishly. Perhaps this is why the founders of the ELCA placed the determination of the use of resources in the hands of the congregations from whom the gifts were collected.

But let’s shift gears.

What if we stopped thinking of stewardship as the use of tangible resources?

What if we started thinking in terms of the intellectual property of the Church?

Let’s call it the Stewardship of Possibilities.

The concept is biblical. Jesus turned the attention of the disciples away from the pursuit of riches or status at every turn. Time after time, he directed them to possibilities. Unheard of possibilities. Away from “safe” investments. There is even a parable about it!

With the Stewardship of Possibilities, lame people could walk again. The blind could see. The hungry could be fed. Tax collectors could be honest. Fishermen could lead. People living in sin could turn their lives around. Children, women, foreigners mattered!

Instead of looking at our small churches with a message of impossibility, help them determine what is possible with the resources they have — all the resources—not just the endowment and offering plate.

Other things to consider:

  • The location of the property
  • The talents of the members
  • The creativity and ingenuity present in the congregation
  • Special skills in the congregation
  • The congregation’s spiritual life
  • The reputation of the congregation in the community. (Business calls it good will  and puts a price on it!)
  • The relationships with civic and service organizations fostered over time
  • The stamina of the congregation (Can they weather a storm and work together?)
  • The potential
  • The faith and belief that all things are possible

These are things you can’t put in the bank. But you can bank on them.

photo credit: SweetOnVeg via photopin cc
11 Nov 2012

Another Tale of Two Churches. . .

. . . or Should We Say Three?

2×2 corresponds with several congregations that write to us regularly. Many are start-up fellowships. Occasionally, with their permission, we put them in touch with one another. Several have formed relationships with the common denominator being that they were introduced by 2×2—a project that grew from Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls.

Today, we learned that two of these fellowships are planning a conference together. They are about 350 miles apart in Kenya, but they are planning to travel to have their fellowships meet, worship together, study and get to know one another for three days. One fellowship works with street children. The other is a project of a husband and wife who have taken several orphans under their wing.

We are excited to learn of their efforts!

It is validating to our ministry, which the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA/ELCA) declared closed two and one half years ago.

Redeemer is not closed.
We are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.

God isn’t finished with us!

One little church can make a difference!

10 Nov 2012

What is the goal of forced church closings?

Every now and then a group of people, calling themselves a church, decides that they don’t want to be a church any more. They take a vote and decide to close. It’s sad, but they followed a prescribed procedure. Everyone can move on.

In the Lutheran church, a congregation gets to decide among themselves how to use their remaining assets to the glory of God. Standing on the sideline is the regional body or synod, desperately trying to find ways around their polity to guarantee that the wealth of the congregations goes their way.

To assure this, they have developed a new process. You won’t find it outlined in quite the way it is being implemented in any ELCA governing documents. (But that’s why we hire lawyers.)

It begins with a target painted figuratively in red on the church. This is followed by years of neglect, and knowing nods and glances among clergy when the name of the congregation comes up in Lutheran forums.

The next step is the lock out. They’ll be talk (with no specifics) of the heroic “efforts” that came between these two steps—as if God was at work and failed. Truth be told, the prescribed neglect is just that — neglect, and no effective help was ever intended or offered. This is the written advice of noted church leaders.

By this time, clergy have ceded their influence in the Church to lawyers. The Gospel is out the stained glass window with the law following. Separation of Church and State replaces the laws other people have to live by.

What is likely to follow is a legal battle pitting clergy with their loyalties to the bishop against laity whose loyalties are to their congregation and faith. It’s not supposed to be this way. We are supposed to be interdependent, working together as equals. This is the traditional Lutheran way.

2×2 grew from just such a debacle at Redeemer in East Falls, Philadelphia. We have 15 years of experience on our side.

We’ve heard of similar heavy-handed treatments from bishops in New England, Metropolitan New York and Slovak Zion Synods and there may be more. There are examples in other denominations, including an Episcopal Church in East Falls. (East Falls is a favorite target. It’s a nice, working class neighborhood with soaring property values. The value of our property has outgrown the value of our people.)

So what are the reasons behind these actions.

Some possibilities

  • The congregation cannot pay its bills.
  • The congregation cannot afford to pay clergy.
  • The congregation is heretical in its teachings.

(If the first two are a reality, the congregation is likely to know it and work together to solve the problem or close.)

Here are some other possibilities.

  • The regional body cannot pay its bills.
  • The regional body cannot afford its current staff.
  • The regional body is heretical in its teachings.

In this case, there is the need for a cover story to gain acceptance among church people who might find what is about to take place distasteful — if not sinful. In East Falls, the cover story was that  SEPA Synod intended to close the congregation for six months and reopen it with new and improved Lutherans that wouldn’t ask questions.

Well, SEPA has owned the property by court order for going on four years and done nothing with it.

This was not the real plan. The people of East Falls knew it all along!

The primary question that needs to be asked and answered is “What is the goal of forcing churches to close?”

The goal is usually stated as “better stewardship of church resources” or as a synod representative told Redeemer members, “ministry in East Falls is not good use of the Lord’s money.”

If this is the goal, the results point to high-stakes failure.

The results of this mismanagement, from which clergy and congregations shield their eyes, are ungodly. They include:

  • broken relationships — within the church, among friends, within families—and with God (the definition of sin)
  • children wrenched from the first support system they encounter outside their families
  • elderly living their later years under legal attack from the church they served all their lives
  • disabled or non-drivers, who relied on the local church, totally disenfranchised
  • an economic pit that gets harder to crawl out of every day for both the regional body, haughtily asserting its power, and the remnants of the congregation they set out to destroy
  • a Gospel message, preached weekly, but acted upon rarely

The stated goal—better use of church resources—is no longer even mentioned. The goal has failed.

The evidence is that if stewardship of resources is the goal, it is a far better to work with congregations interdependently — as our constitutions state.

Where do we start? What are your ideas?

09 Nov 2012

Mission Work: Old Ways vs New Possibilities

Several times in the last few years, I have listened to reports from various bishops and high-end church leaders concerning their visits to Africa. Some have visited Ethiopia, some Kenya, and some Tanzania.

They travel at their denomination’s expense. They return with inspiring reports of baptizing hundreds of babies and meeting church leaders.

They give these reports because they want us, here in the United States, to give offerings to these “approved” mission efforts in other parts of the world. They want us to sense that their denomination is actively engaged in the universal Christian mission to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every nation.

This approach to mission work has decades of experience behind it. It also has decades of pre-social media traditions dimly lighting the way.

Is continuing this style of mission work effective for today’s world?

We serve an interconnected world. Sending official denominational representatives for on-site visits may once have been the only way for congregations to interact with mission efforts overseas.

Today, each individual has the power to connect. If the Church does not harness the power of the individual using social media tools for world mission, we are failing in our stewardship of possibilities.

Each congregation and its members have the power to communicate daily with Christians around the world. No intermediary is needed.

We can share ideas and first-hand accounts of our faith journeys. The exchange can be very personal — they with us and we with them.

A forward-thinking denomination would be working to create their own online mission communities. That would be providing a service many direct benefits. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel. They can simply harness the social media platform that suits them best.

The money spent on junkets might be better spent in building these social network circles.

It would bring new life into mission work.

2×2 is experimenting with this concept now. We correspond with several such mission ventures. We identify ourselves as Lutheran, but we’ve found no need to dwell on denominational distinctions.

As a result of our online outreach, we have first-hand reports of their work, almost daily — not just on mission Sunday. We get firsthand news! Our friends in Pakistan shared that a Lutheran Church in their city had burned as a result of recent violence. We prayed for them during the unrest. Two weeks ago they sent word that they were holding a prayer meeting for us as we faced Hurricane Sandy.

We know many in these fellowships by name. We exchange photos. We pray for one another and offer ideas and strategies. The exchange is truly two-way.

In case you are wondering, we have never sent money.

What will grow from this initiative remains to be seen, but we know this. There’s no holding us back.

God is doing something new in East Falls — and the world.

08 Nov 2012

Branding: Don’t Forget to Be Yourself

How Branding Can Quickly Go Wrong

The Mission Statement is written. The Vision Statement is being drafted.

The process of writing the Mission Statement helped you define your congregation.

The Vision Statement is a congregation’s crystal ball overview. Where do you see yourself as a congregation in five to ten years?

The Vision Statement is an invitation to dream.

You will be tempted to write a beautiful Vision Statement, wrapped up in all your hopes for your beloved congregation. You will stumble over one thing.

You are who you are.

Unless you are a brand new congregation, people already have expectations when they walk through your door.

This is nothing new. It’s how denominations came to be and how they continue to be defined. We expect a bit of pageantry when we enter a Roman Catholic or Episcopal Church. We expect a different focus in a Baptist or Methodist Church.

Example of Branding Challenges

The Lutheran Church (ELCA) is a good example of branding gone awry.

Lutherans are a congregation-based denomination that spans the liturgical tradition. The broad definition provides a wide door for participation, but no one quite knows what they will encounter when they enter a Lutheran Church.

The local congregation, therefore, must be diligent in defining its image.

Without definition, there is a subtle competition to be more of whatever the current trend might be. This changes over the years and varies culturally and geographically.

Currently, Lutherans are trying to emulate the Episcopalian traditions. Leaders worked hard to reach agreement at being in Full Communion, a concept that benefits only top leaders. A document was drafted accordingly. And then a disclaimer was added. The disclaimer is rarely read. It negates most of the agreements made in the document! We are in full communion — just kidding.

The result is a classic “branding” problem. Compare this to the business world.

You expect a certain type of movie from Disney. You expect a certain type of thinking to come from Apple. You don’t expect lullabies from Mick Jagger.

If a company strays from its mission, confusion and disappointment results.

What do we expect from our Lutheran congregations, especially when there is a difference between the leadership of our denomination and the congregations?

Local congregations must find a balance between sudden change and its established image.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Denominational pressure encourages change. Demographics are examined with a marketer’s eye. The real, unstated mission is to find members willing to support the denomination.

Congregations may decide that they will attract young professionals if they offer a praise band. But that offering may go against who you actually are as a congregation and the community may read this as desperate marketing. Result: no one is comfortable. Pretty soon, your congregation doesn’t recognize itself.

On to the next marketing “hook.”

Like it or not, the Church is involved in marketing.

Know Thyself

A congregation’s “branding” must grow organically from who we actually are. Any changes on the road to transformation must first enhance the life of the existing congregation so that our members are confident in their evangelism efforts. Presumably, the drafting of a Mission Statement helps this process. Know thyself and don’t try to be all things to all people. 

Otherwise you may as well lock out the faithful members of the congregation. With this unwelcoming behavior on display to the community, you can then try to build a new membership more to your liking.

This may sound absurd, but it is the actual strategy of some synods in the ELCA!

07 Nov 2012