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Judith Gotwald

Why should churches blog? 5 unexpected reasons!


The Alban Roundtable discussion this week presents cautionary tales on what can go awry when using email to communicate.

Comments so far have been: We know, we know. But this is the world we live in.

They are right. If people are going to email, there is nothing you can do to stop them. You CAN, however, provide good content to encourage reasonable and helpful online dialog.

Create a church blog.

2×2 advocates the development of church blogs as a less emotionally charged way of promoting online discussion. Blogs invite participation. Thoughtful posts will result in thoughtful comments—moreso than on Facebook and Twitter. Blogs allow you to moderate comments, but generally we recommend that you moderate the first comment only, simply as a way of verifying that the contributor is not a spammer. Access to the online discussion must be fairly free. If you start editing or rejecting comments, your blog will be seen as the voice of the favored in the church.

Establish guidelines for your commenters. People will cooperate. If you feel you must edit a comment, you can tell the contributor (offline) why it violates your community rules.

There are many advantages to blogs. Some you can anticipate. We’ve listed some above.

This morning, Blogger Mark Schaefer posted five unexpected benefits of blogging. Although Mark is a businessman, his words are very personal. His insights apply to church. 2×2 has been blogging for more than a year. We have experienced the same benefits.

Here are Mark’s insights as they have applied to our church blog . . . and can apply to your church blog as well.

Blogging heals

Redeemer, the sponsor of the 2×2, is a congregation experiencing ongoing rejection and bullying within the Church. It’s painful, and the Church has been unresponsive—hoping we would just roll over and die—even five years after that tactic has proven ineffective!

Blogging has given us a voice which is healing to our community. It has given us reach and it has validated our ministry (to other Christians if not to our nearest neighbors). We know we can still fulfill our “missional purpose.”

Blogging connects

This has been the most amazing benefit of our blog. We have connected with other Lutherans, other denominations, other religious institutions and ministry efforts all over the world. We have come to know many by name and hear from several daily. Some have been helpful to us. We’ve been helpful others as well. We have invitations to visit in Asia and Africa!

Blogging defines

Where does the church stand on issues? Often we allow church experts to draft statements about what we believe, but let’s face it. They are rarely read or used more than a month after they are published.

Why do we allow others to decide what we think? In the past, there was little choice, but dialog online can help congregations participate in issues and respond at the local level. The official response can be helpful but it shouldn’t replace our own consciences.

When you take an issue you aren’t quite sure about and start to write, you can begin to sort out your thoughts and realize what you believe. Sometimes it surprises you!

2×2 posts some ideas, knowing they are not fully defined. Sometimes the ones we think are most nebulous start to get responses — often by email—thanking us for our position. We often learn that others are struggling with the same issues. They add a penny or two to the dialog—which we incorporate in future posts.

Blogging teaches

Mark Schaefer points out that his blog opens his eyes and teaches him. 2×2 says “ditto!”.

Blogging inspires

2×2 looks for messages that inspire and includes them in our editorial mix. We often get emails thanking us and telling us how they intend to use the information in their ministry.

These are five things every church needs. Why aren’t we doing it more?

We have one answer to this question! Tomorrow’s post.

04 Sep 2012

Adult Object Lesson: September 9, 2012

A Gospel Story for the Dogs

Mark 7:24-37

Today’s object is a dog. Use a stuffed dog, a picture of a dog, or even your own pet. You might consider using two stuffed dogs—one of pedigree to represent the Jews and one of less definite breeding to represent the Gentiles.

Mark tells two stories in this Sunday’s Gospel.

The first story tells Jesus’ hesitance to extend his message  beyond the people of Israel. Jesus uses the metaphor of children and dogs.

Is is right to take the food meant for your children and throw it to the dogs? he asks.

The Gentile women is quick-witted. Her answer impresses the great teacher. Even the dogs eat the children’s crumbs and that’s all I’m asking for — a crumb.

Jesus hears the woman and is moved. Her daughter is healed.

Point out the woman could have stormed off in a huff at being likened to a dog. Even today, as lovable as our pets are, we don’t refer to someone as a dog without expecting a fight! But this woman stood up to the miracle worker — who might have struck her down on the spot for impertinence.

You can talk a bit about the most endearing quality of dogs — their loyalty and trust — qualities that played out in today’s lesson.

The second story is about the man with a speech impediment. It, too, is a strange story. Jesus takes the man aside and heals him in private of his speech impediment. For the first time in his life this man can speak and be understood. Jesus orders the crowd, who reappear at the end of the story, to keep the report of this miracle under wraps.

You can tie the dog analogy to this second lesson. A favorite trick to teach a dog is to speak or bark upon command. It’s a lot harder to teach a dog to be quiet! Yet that is what Jesus asks of the healed man and the crowd of people.  “Do not tell anyone.”

Order your dog or dog object to not bark. If you have a group of children or youth, you might enlist them in your story-telling by asking them ahead of time to bark whenever you give the order “do not bark” or “be quiet.”

These passages remain a bit puzzling. Why was Jesus reluctant to heal a child of a non-Jew? Later, why did he charge people to do something that goes entirely against human nature?

Why do we hesitate to embrace people different from us? Why do we admire dogs of pedigree?

What stands in our way of telling the Good News?

photo credit: 27147 via photo pin cc
04 Sep 2012

Laborers in the Field: The Changing Jobs of Ministry

Today is Labor Day. We are celebrating the American worker.

Recent years have seen a lot of change within the American workforce. Some once common jobs no longer exist. Many of the specialty niches have been replaced by technology.

Similarly, some of the movements that helped create the concept of Labor Day are challenged. Unions must weigh their actions or risk rubbing a troubled society the wrong way.

The jobs involved in ministry haven’t changed much, but then change comes slowly in the Church. Maybe the job descriptions need to change.

  • Does every church need a pastor?
  • Does every church need a building?
  • Does every church need an organist? Does every church have an organ?
  • Do we train our pastors to do diverse ministry tasks or do we teach specialty ministries (youth pastors, interim pastors, country pastors, urban pastors, etc.?)

The formula most parishes follow today is the same formula used for the last 100 years. Call a full-time pastor. Add special skills only as the budget can afford to add skills. Ministry needs are neglected until churches can afford to hire personnel to answer the need. Often that never happens. Needs go unaddressed. Ministries fail.

Unlike the commercial market place which strives to identify needs and fill them, the Church keeps doing things the same way, hoping to one day have resources to address the needs that are staring them in the face today.

The Church is relying on volunteers at a time when few hands are raised. We continue to hire staff as if they will have ready help from volunteers.

On this Labor Day, churches should take a fresh look at what skills they need to accomplish their goals and stop putting all their mission dollars into one staff member.

It is poor stewardship to allocate the majority of resources to filling positions that are statistically unproductive.

03 Sep 2012

Making Innovation Part of Church Transformation

Reining in the Laity; Hobbling Transformation

The world of education is on the threshold of impressive innovation made possible by exploiting the capabilities of the internet and technology.

While hundreds of educators study educational methods and struggle to find new and better classroom practices, the Kahn Academy, a free online learning system provided to anyone with internet access, grew out of one man’s attempt to help a young cousin with math homework. It attracted the backing of Bill Gates and the attention of CBS’s 60 Minutes.

Religion, too, is in dire need of transformation. The need has been largely unanswered for decades, despite intense study among clergy.

The call for “transformation” is at least a decade old with little success.

The economy is causing small churches to focus on their own needs, sending less of their offerings to regional or central body. If something does not change, the regional and central church leaders will face extinction—but they don’t intend to be the first to go!

Church leaders are lost.

The Kahn Academy allows for a restructured classroom, making more teachers available to help more students. It is successfully restructuring the traditional classroom for a new era in education.

Google’s Eric Schmidt commented on Kahn Academy:

Many, many people think they are doing something new but they are not really changing the approach. Innovation never comes from the established institutions. It’s always a graduate student or a crazy person or somebody with a great vision.

We suspect that this is the big hiccup in transforming the church.

Church hierarchy is calling for transformation with no vision for change and an unwillingness to allow change without institutional oversight.

Change in the church is going to happen on the front line, where one or a few faithful people, with little loyalty to old ways, prayerfully try to solve problems.

Many small churches are the victims of regional leadership practicing what they call “triage.” Triage is a euphemism for neglect.

In some cases, congregations have had little or no leadership for a decade.

Left alone, dedicated lay people are free to experiment. They are not restricted by seminary education. They look for answers outside the usual parameters. Such small churches are ripe for change.

They face a major obstacle. The institutional church will be ready to step in and rein in “errant” lay workers. They will restore the old order and assign an approved pastor to help the congregation draft a stale, treacly mission statement—or they will flex their muscles and demand closure.

Redeemer was a small congregation engaged in such experimentation—and experiencing success. Our regional body, desperate for dollars, took the muscle-flexing route.

We are still experimenting with no support of any regional body . . . and still experiencing success.

Redeemer has visited 50 other congregations and we’ve seen similar lively efforts in small congregations. There is often a scent of fear hobbling their efforts. Will the regional body approve?

And that’s why transformation in the Church isn’t happening. God is trying to do something new . . . but the hierarchy won’t let anything happen that they can’t control and take credit for.

photo credit: Jeffrey K. Edwards via photo pin cc
03 Sep 2012

Counting Our Blessings in East Falls

It’s the first Sunday of the month, the week Redeemer members pass our locked church to worship together in a community theater and gather across the street in a neighborhood bar afterwards for fellowship. The bar even added us to their calendar. (God is doing something new!)

We had many things to celebrate and give thanks for today. Two of our members were awarded good jobs and one is starting a business. We were particularly grateful that one of the retired pastors who worships with us regularly was back with us after a four-month rehabilitation after surgery.

We enjoy having our own worship—singing the hymns we choose, praying our own prayers, enjoying our own fellowship. We also enjoy our Ambassador visits on the other Sundays of the month. But there is nothing like being at home.

We know that the only reason to lock our people out our church was to destroy our community. Lesson to church hierarchies: Find another way!

We were reminded in today’s sermon of an ongoing theme of our Australian pastor — that church is not about what we “get out of it.” It is about God and His relationship with us and our response to His love.

There isn’t a church in East Falls that isn’t challenged. Some of the challenges come from the religious apathy of the community. We can’t blame them to some extent. It’s rather dangerous to be a Christian (or at least a Lutheran) in East Falls.

The greatest challenge is from the Church itself, who values property above community. It is too expensive to operate religious schools. Send the kids elsewhere. Rent the buildings.

The people who invested their time and offerings in Redeemer and St. Bridget’s (and perhaps a few other church communities before them) have had their gifts squandered by outside interests. Fallsers gave to contribute to their community. Their gifts were confiscated or devalued by people who thought they had better uses for our resources but haven’t a clue how to serve East Falls.

If only the courts could hand out consciences as easily as property!

There are reports that the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is negotiating the use of Redeemer Church with community leaders. SEPA spent no time considering the use of Redeemer Church with the people who built the church — the Lutherans of East Falls. They continue their attacks on our members in the courts. That should give the people of East Falls some idea of the character of the people with whom they are negotiating. East Falls beware!

At the heart of SEPA’s problems in East Falls is loss of mission — or to use church-speak — the loss of “missional focus.”

If SEPA cares, they should note: Redeemer is still a worshiping community.

Talk to us! You have a better chance of serving East Falls with the Lutherans of East Falls than without us.

As for the excommunicated members of Redeemer, we will serve the Lord.

02 Sep 2012

Change the Dynamics of Church

Give the People A Voice

The patriarchs and matriarchs who populate the pages of today’s Old Testament had a very personal relationship with God. Communication was anything but one way. They argued with God and did their share of ranting. They felt confident enough in dialog to attempt to make deals. They praised God and laid their sorrows and shortcomings at his feet. The result was a lot of creative energy. Something worth writing and remembering. Compare the Old Testament record with a typical congregational history today, which usually details a list of pastors and building projects.

Jesus continued that relationship in his discourse with the disciples and the growing tribe of followers. Jesus gave God a face, making it still easier for people to engage with God.

God wants to be part of our lives. The Bible encourages us to be in regular conversation.

A pastor in one of our recent Ambassador visits exhorted people not to go to God with their little problems. Solve them yourself and save God for the big things was her message. That’s not a limitation placed on us by God. God wants us to feel free to turn to him with matters big and small, joyful and painful.

God is big enough to handle everything.

The thinking that God needs a gatekeeper to handle our needs has fueled the ego of Church leadership through the centuries. It creates an illusion of power. Church leaders have God’s ear.

Church leaders speak; people listen.

This makes sense only among managers—not leaders.

This can change. The internet returns the voice to the people.

Even the pope cannot expect to make pronouncements that are met with silent obedience. Recently, the long arm of the Vatican reached across the ocean to slap American nuns on the wrist for not doing more to enforce Church teachings on contraception and abortion. Their response was something on the order of: Sorry, you’ve got us all wrong. We can’t be all things to the Catholic church. We know what our mission is and we aim to follow it.

Such cheekiness would have been unheard of decades and centuries ago. Today? It’s just the way it is going to be.

This will make the Church far more effective — if not powerful.

The old system is unwieldy. A church leader makes a pronouncement which probably must be repeated for years before the message hits home. Church members may ponder it. They may go home and do nothing about it. Action will probably result when something becomes dire, The Church does good, to be sure but in many areas, social action in the Church lags years behind actual need.

Today, no Church leader can expect to lead from the pulpit without being questioned. In fact, we should take a lesson from the Bible and encourage religious dialog.

God wants us to be involved. Our ears and voice is where that begins.

Today, laiity have equal voice. When they learn to use it — Watch out, world!

01 Sep 2012

Singing Together Is Fun and Creates Community

Today there are just three songs outside of church that people sing together—the National Anthem, Happy Birthday, and whatever the pop star that people paid to hear is belting out at a concert.

Singing is fun. Yet, once we graduate from lower levels of school, many of us never again experience group singing. Recognizing this, some movie theaters sponsor movie singalongs to  favorites like Sound of Music or My Fair Lady.

The power of music is the power to surprise and delight.

We remind you of a favorite video link which illustrates this.

Here’s another from a different part of the world.

Songs create cultural ties. Many of the commenters to the Welsh choir video wrote that they enjoyed the Welsh hymn so much they memorized it. Otherwise, they spoke not a word of Welsh. The second video shows how good music knows no cultural bounds.

Our Ambassadors gathered for Sunday morning brunch recently and someone mentioned a clock, which had been her father’s prize possession. We broke into song, My Grandfather’s Clock, with an African member looking on in amusement. “Tick-tock, tick-tock.” My Grandfather’s Clock was written in 1876, by an American Civil War songwriter Henry Clay Work after a visit to England. 136 years later, we could all sing it together, part of our common culture.

Similarly, the one meeting Redeemer had with Bishop Claire Burkat, we considered such a success that as our members left they broke into song which traveled with them down the elevator from the synod offices and across the parking lot to waiting cars. This time the song was from African culture!

Music was part of the magic of Redeemer’s ministry that was binding our diverse groups. We used  eight or more hymns in our worship. Frequent repetition of select songs allowed for commonality. Soon Africans could sing I Cast All My Cares Upon You and Americans could sing Bwana Awabariki. We often sang popular hymns alternating languages and soon we could sing the chorus to Jesus Loves Me or How Great Thou Art in either language without realizing which language we wee singing!

One Sunday we had a guest preacher. He mentioned in his sermon the hymn Just As I Am. He started to read the words. The congregation began singing the hymn a cappella from memory. The hymn is part of our culture. Oddly the pastor seemed annoyed at the congregation’s initiative.

Church is one of very few places where people gather weekly to enjoy singing. Let’s take advantage of our strong points! Let the music of your church come from the people and shape your ministry.

photo credit: AndrewEick via photo pin cc
31 Aug 2012

Church Politics: Operating on Autodrive

Democracy (for Your Convenience)

Remember when things actually happened at political conventions and networks bragged about “gavel to gavel” coverage.

Today the political events are well-orchestrated ads. The platform is handed to us on a silver plate. The rousing speeches are timed to fit one hour of commercial TV: 10 Eastern, 9 Central, 8 Mountain and 7 Pacific. Hawaii and Alaska, fend for yourselves!

It makes us voters feel less involved. Apathy dilutes our political consciences until something stirs a movement like the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street.

Church government is running parallel to politics of the neat and tidy. Annual regional assemblies once included open discussion and debate on issues. Motions regularly came from the floor. Attending an Assembly was a chance to make a difference.

Today, the Assemblies are orchestrated to achieve desired results. Worship takes a good bit of the business time. Reports are upbeat. Complicated issues are allotted as little as 20 minutes for presentation, discussion is timed and limited and debate doesn’t exist at all.

Decisions, based on little exploration, become binding.

The effort to include as many as possible in church politics sounds noble. In effect, it has welcomed voters who have no background to make church decisions and there is less attempt to prepare them for the responsibility. They are welcomed partly because they can be used.

The vetting of church leaders is done rather privately. Who are the people elected to Synod Council?  Names are presented to voters with scant bios. They are never really known to the people they represent. Their knowledge of the full church is often only what they’ve been told by synod leadership or the pastor they know best, all of whom have a vested interests. A good third of the votes attending a Church Assembly have a vested interest in the votes. Pastors rely on their relationships with church leaders for their jobs.

There are few qualifications for lay delegates outside of membership. Guidelines are a list of “political correctness” that defies logic. Congregations must send one man and one woman. There is an allowance for youth representatives and some congregations are allotted additional votes because they speak a different language or represent a racial or ethnic minority. Beyond this, delegates can have a lot of experience in church or practically none!

Now what if a congregation has mostly women (not uncommon), mostly old (not uncommon) and the men at church have no interest in taking off work for a synod assembly (not uncommon). That church will be underrepresented. The stated goal of hierarchy — to be inclusive — is actually excluding the voice of many congregations.

There is a lot going wrong in church government today. The power structure likes it that way.  This begins as a desire for efficiency. But efficiency soon becomes expediency: How can church leaders get people to vote a predetermined way in the quickest fashion—while appearing to be inclusive?

The result: people feel like obstacles, not children of God who serve and need to be served and who represent even more people who are counting on very few to make decisions in the interest of the Gospel . . . not the interests of professional leaders or the largest congregations.

31 Aug 2012

Encouraging Hymn Knowledge to Create Community

One of my great grandmothers enjoyed playing piano. She collected sheet music and had her favorites bound into books. I have her volumes dating back into the late 1800s. None of the tunes that she found worth preserving are played on the radio today.

On the other hand, the Church is one place in our society where songs of past centuries are regularly revived. Only the words remain to the music of Bible times. The advent of a universal system of notation in the ninth century gave music—both melody and lyric—longevity. Today’s Christians sing songs that span from the Gregorian chant to the current folk and rock genres.

I attended a concert of a contemporary rock-style band recently where the tune to Of the Father’s Love Begotten from the 13th century was used as a motif.

The treasure and legacy of Christian music is most appreciated during the Christian season when even today’s pop singers make albums of music written hundreds of years ago. People who never attend church sing along with car radio (at least to the first verse).

Church music spans other seasons that are less recognized by secular culture but are a treasure of the church. Much of today’s hymnody comes from the Protestant tradition where pastors often wrote songs as a preaching tool. Martin Luther, Isaac Watts and the Wesleys were preachers and hymn writers whose work is still sung in churches around the world.

The legacy of praising God in song continues with a wealth of new music heard by many for the first time on Christian radio.

Often, hymns are a collaboration between the poet and the tune crafter—not unlike the great teams which brought us operettas and musicals. In fact, Sullivan, of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote the tune of Onward Christian Soldier.

Knowing something about the hymns we sing adds to their meaning.

In the 1600s, Martin Rinkart was a village pastor in Germany during the years of the Great Plague. He buried as many as 50 of his parishioners a day, 4000 a year, including his wife. One of the most enduring hymns of thanksgiving came from his pen — Now Thank We All Our God.

In the 1700s, John Newton repented his life as a slave trader and wrote a perennial favorite used in both religious and secular settings — Amazing Grace. Another prolific hymn writer, Isaac Watts, broke with the tradition of sticking to the biblical Psalms as text. When I Survey the Wondrous Cross is the best known of his hundreds of hymns—some of them written specifically for children.

Some great hymns have come from the recognized masters such as Handel, Bach, and Beethoven.

Women, following the biblical tradition of Miriam, gained notice as hymn writers in the 1800s and early 1900s. They included the blind Fanny Crosby (Blessed Assurance) and Katherine Lee Bates (America, the Beautiful).

The difficult process of publishing and printing helped preserve hymns. Prior to 1980, it took about 40 years to compile and publish a hymnal within a denomination, which slowed the adoption of current music but added life to the existing hymns. Today’s publishing allows instantaneous publication and it remains to be seen how that will affect the legacy of hymnody.

Despite the wealth of tradition, many congregations stick to the tried and true. One pastor complained that the congregation he served was content to sing the same 12 hymns over and over.

Later posts will address ways to both preserve and build upon hymn legacy and the way hymn knowledge and tradition impacts faith and Christian community.

photo credit: Barkaw via photo pin cc
30 Aug 2012

Speaking of Niche Ministries —

Small Church Creates Niche Ministry

Dr. John Jorgenson leads a small congregation in a Plymouth Meeting, a vibrant Philadelphia suburb. Prince of Peace Lutheran Church is uniquely situated across the street from a popular and well-appointed township community center.

The congregation has long been supportive of several regional ministries including a food pantry, prison ministry, and a Lutheran Service Agency serving troubled youth, Silver Springs.

Dr. Jorgenson, who developed curriculum for many years with the Lutheran Church in America, helped the congregation focus additional attention on a gift the small congregation is uniquely equipped to serve—the modern family.

Their emphasis is not the typical route of larger churches who dedicate a large part of a budget to hiring a youth minister. Their program relies on using the resources they have and that unique location in their community.

“No Family Left Behind” began with a congregational exploration of three issues that challenge today’s families.

Bullying was the first issue. Bullying is often viewed as something affecting teens. The congregation discussed how bullying spans all ages and is common even within families.

As they focused separately on bullying among infants, toddlers, school children, youth, families, school, the workplace and among our elderly, they identified other areas they could serve in the small church setting.

Families who deal with Autism and similar health problems often have a difficult time feeling at home in structured church programs.

The Aging often are similarly challenged, especially in the many small churches where the elderly are the majority and ministries among them are often viewed by church management as “dying” and not worth their investment in time and resources.

2×2, along with Dr. Jorgenson as guest blogger, will examine how the No Family Left Behind approach is tailored to small church ministry, working with a regional Lutheran Social Service Agency, Ken-Crest, which serves people with developmental challenges, and with the Community Center across the street.

29 Aug 2012