A 2×2 reader shared a link to a touching photo essay. It captures images of Iraqi Christian refugees, posing with their most treasured possessions—the ones they were able to carry with them.
What would you bring if you had to flee religious persecution?
Watching Dollars Fly Out the Church DoorToday’s topic is almost never addressed in church circles. It goes contrary to “church think.”
What is a church member worth?
I often skirt this issue, but this is the first time I’ve addressed this as the key topic. It is important. Where money becomes an issue, power follows.
Church members don’t want to be thought of as dollar signs. Church leaders don’t want to admit this is ever a consideration.
Like it or not, economics comes into play with almost every decision made by church leaders.
What is a church member worth? What is a congregation worth?
These are difficult questions when sanctuaries are full and denominational offices safely assume adequate support. How do we answer these questions when the going is tough?
My writing today is prompted by one paragraph from Seth Godin’s blog post, published today, entitled, Please, Go Away. The post addresses how businesses fail to address customer problems, wrongly thinking they are saving money. Invariably, they make it difficult for clients to interact. They prefer unhappy customers just go away.
Here’s the paragraph.
He is right! And churches suffer from the same thinking. Out of sight, out of mind.
Many church members have a nagging feeling that they must play along to get along. Dissent—even mild dissent—is not welcome.
Try it, if you dare. Write to your leaders. We did. We were ignored. Shelved. Eventually, one national church lawyer responded: We feel no obligation to address your concerns.
The most important part of Seth’s sentence, paraphrased for Church, is that this action represents the FAILURE OF PROMISES MADE TO MEMBERS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
These promises exist on two levels.
In my experience in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, congregations have no way for members to address grievances that are not controlled by people who are possibly the cause of the grievance. If a lay person has no pastor to advocate for them, they will be shut out. The Church has a way of rewarding like-mindedness.
The preferred strategy for dealing with dissent (and it predates Martin Luther) is simple. Go away. “Why can’t you people just move on?”
Here’s the problem with this selfish philosophy—the part no one wants to talk about.
We, as the Church, are shooting ourselves in the economic foot.
Bad behavior is often prompted by economic challenges. Congregational and denominational budgets may be stretched. Any reminder that people might be hurting is time-consuming and expensive. We tell ourselves that they drain our “true mission.” We think of them as “baggage.” Undesirable.
The sociology of church is an intricate tapestry of intermarriage, friendship, multiple and overlapping clans, and coworkers. When one bleeds, the other is scarred.
The people who care enough to get upset about things in church are the people who care enough to give.
Most pastors recognize that it takes ten or more new members to equal the giving of old members. And still we approach old members with offensive terminology, inappropriately borrowed from the Bible. Church leaders dismiss existing memberships as “old wine skins.” Others ascribe a twisted interpretation of the Resurrection story—They must die so we can live. Oddly overlooked are all the directly applicable biblical teachings that are inclusive and do not give up on even the weakest.
Problems ignored are problems that fester. New members, as they too become taken for granted, will remember how their predecessor members were treated. They will give with more caution and may never be as devoted as those who conveniently “moved on.”
I can cite numerous examples of the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars to our little congregation because of actions of pastors and decisions of the regional body. I won’t share them publicly, because they are stories of real people with real hurts. I know them by name. They don’t need more hurt. But I make this one note: The problems they encountered were invariably caused by leaders thinking in practical, managerial, often selfish ways, with no love in their hearts for congregation members and no thought of the future—perhaps because they didn’t believe in the future. Perhaps they don’t believe the promises they teach!
Most lay people are not ready to give up on the future. They came to church where they were asked to believe and act with faith. They embraced a God who cared about each one. When circumstances change, it is the job of leadership (the promise-makers) to help. Maneuvering and manipulating, so leaders can start fresh is breaking pastoral promises—and it is creating long-term problems.
Another important point that goes beyond most Church leaders’ understanding. Out of sight is not out of mind! Once people “move on,” the Church loses influence. The members excluded from Church still live in the community, which is likely to be more accepting. Their hurt will be all the more difficult to address by alienating them.
What’s the answer?
If we fail to deal with problems early, we are hiding the “lost coin.”
Perhaps it would help for every church leader to mentally envision a dollar sign on the back of every member. This may not help them serve their congregations spiritually, but it will be the last thing leaders see when they are tempted to stand by the church door, counting devise set to reverse, clicking away as they contentedly watch members walk away.
And then the dollar sign won’t be imaginary.
Be careful. The children are watching.
Not a bad motto for any parent. Children watch our every move and hang onto our words long after we’ve forgotten.
Now Pope Francis reinforces this. He told an interviewer that when he was a child, the Church had one interpretation. All Protestants were headed for hell. He might have grown up believing this and incorporating it into his world view and consequently the world view of millions of Christians. But Francis recalls one exceptional moment—the kind adults don’t even notice.
He was five years old, walking in the city with his grandmother. They passed two Salvation Army women wearing their bonnets—not quite like a nun but not so different either. The boy who would one day be pope asked his grandmother, “Are they sisters?”
Her answer, simple as it was, may still change the world.
“No, they are not sisters, but they are good.”
All of us are shaped by little encounters like this. Some of them hurt and cripple us. Some of them help us grow up. Some change the world.
The problem for parents is that moments like this are so fleeting for us. We might be tired. We might be in a bad mood. We might not have our own answer so we repeat what we’ve been told. We often don’t realize —we might be changing the world.
The new president of the Philadephia Lutheran Seminary wrote yesterday about his trip to a Baptist Seminary. The interfaith effort prompted David Lose to write about cooperation in the Church—something 2×2 addresses frequently.
Failure to cooperate is a key reason the Church cannot pull itself from its downward spiral.
The Church is not set up for cooperation. Competition is everywhere.
We are all in competition for a bigger piece of the same shrinking pie. Competition makes cooperation difficult.
Congregations—upon whom the entire Church depends—need cooperation desperately. We are seen as the pockets of the Church. Failure of all Church entities to cooperate is wearing holes in the linings of our pockets. That hurts the entire Church’s mission.
Years ago, 2×2 proposed a program that encourages cooperation in ways that would benefit all. It would strengthen local churches. It grew from our 80 church visits. We saw congregations eager to reach out that just couldn’t find a way.
A major challenge for neighborhood congregations is aging. The only thing that is aging faster congregations is the pool of available clergy! This creates hopelessness in the congregations. Everyone is worn out!
Many factors led to this—economic and social changes for starters. But the result has been that many neighborhood churches sit in the middle of vibrant neighborhoods and no longer have the volunteers capable of outreach or the money to pay for long-term professional help. The only model for leadership is paid clergy with long-term calls and salary expectations that are increasingly out of reach.
With a little help, this idea could get off the ground with benefits to many.
VBS-Aid recognizes that many neighborhood congregations want to reach community. They just can’t within the usual model of church work—One pastor. Lots of volunteers.
VBS-Aid would provide short-term, qualified help. Well-trained teams of college-aged young people would travel to congregations to provide the energy and hands-on leadership for summer programming. Pastors or pastoral candidates would provide important advance and follow-up help, so that the programs would not be feel-good shots-in-the-dark. They would be connected with the rest of the congregation’s ministry.
The teams would be trained by leaders of church camps—experts in training teams of youth. In return, a visit to church camp would be built-in to the VBS curriculum, giving the camps contact with a fresh audience.
Seminaries benefit because the intensive “internship” of college-aged youth fosters interest in church vocations. They would also be creating a new field experience for pastoral candidates—intensive evangelism experience, something small congregations need in pastors but rarely find.
These teams would be compensated, but the investment would be far less than seeking full-time educational directors or outreach ministers.
Here is where this idea stands.
So that’s where our effort at working together is stalled—at the seminary and regional body level. The problems we foresee will be the problems of hierarchical thinking. Who owns the project? Who gets credit? Who calls the shots? Who controls the budget?
There are answers for all these questions. That’s where most Church creativity and cooperation is stifled. Talk it out!
We still think it’s a good idea and are primed to pilot it.
Take a look, Philadelphia Seminary. Talk with us. There are dozens of congregations within 15 miles of Mount Airy that need this kind of help. There are thousands across the country. We are looking for partners!
Take Baby Steps Toward Lofty GoalsJanuary 2015. Did your congregation set any resolutions for the New Year?
Resolutions are daunting. Yearly good intentions are so easily side-tracked by daily demands.
Try this. Forget New Year Resolutions.
Work on Monthly Resolutions. That’s the true activity cycle of most congregations. Boards and councils meet monthly!
It doesn’t hurt for church planners to look at the longer picture. But it might be a big bite for the whole congregation to chew at one dinner.
Try this. At the end of each monthly meeting, identify one goal that will help you reach the more ambitious goal. Enlist support for just that one goal until your next meeting.
Example: A dieter could resolve to lose 40 pounds during the year. The January goal might be to eliminate snacks. The February goal might be to walk two miles a day. The March goal might be to choose less fatty meats. The April goal might be to add a mile to the daily walk.
Church Example: Your congregational annual goal might be to improve stewardship. January’s goal might be to advertise the needs. February’s might be to help the congregation understand giving. March’s goal might be to demonstrate what giving accomplishes. April’s goal might be to work with every church subgroup to enlist help with the congregational goal. And so on.
The New Year’s Resolution, broken up into mini-monthly resolutions becomes part of congregational life — and may even continue into 2016!
You Cannot Build A Church on Conditional WelcomingChurch Replanting as defined in this post on Christianity Today relies on a Church Replanter or pastor having unconditional control of membership—something that may violate a congregation’s constitution.
The first step is to exclude the most faithful—the people who have invested the most in prayer, time and offering and the people who have the most knowledge of church procedure. It is a way of excluding anyone who might say “Wait a minute. Is this who we are?”
Conditional welcoming adds a new caveat to the typical sign in the church yard.
All welcome
(unless you’ve been here before)
Church Replanters assign themselves the right to toy with the faithful in ways that can be horrifically hurtful. The strategy is cruel. Church Replanters can live with this because they have dismissed the people as undesirables. They don’t visit with them, serve them, or care about them. They are the “old wine skins.” The people have served their usefulness. In many cases that his been to supply the property and endowment funds to support the Church Replanter!
What does this say about Church?
Here are some of results we experienced.
Church Replanters will report without evidence, that the displaced people happily “move on.” They state this and move ahead with their plans.
We recommend this actually be researched. It is difficult to poll people you have excluded.
Church Replanters tend to consider existing members as baggage. They are all for getting rid of “baggage”—not caring for it.
The Church Replanter is dead focused on more important things—finding new people to warm the pews and line the offering plates.
A new church will need a new identity so the community will know it’s a new church. You see, they’ve already decided the old church was not for them. They may decide the same thing about the new church. However, a new identity is a new opportunity for engagement.
This statement is filled with presumption. The foundational presumption is that it is the people in the Church that are “not for them.”
There may be many other factors. Some of them may have had to do with how church leaders treated the people over the last few decades. People already may feel excluded and unworthy—judged. People may determine that contributions of time, talent and wealth are better used elsewhere.
There are so many ways pastoral leadership could engage that are less cruel and more promising.
Excluding the most faithful confirms the feelings of the disillusioned. “I’m glad I stopped going when I did—before they locked the door on me.”
Ed Stetzer admits in passing that the Church Replanting might fail. But this strategy has taken care of the true interest of the replanter—gaining the control of the congregation’s property and endowment funds. If it fails, the denomination has the property and monetary assets, which if the church failed with the people in control, might have been directed elsewhere.
Denominations want control of the property. They have to get rid of the property owners to do that. This entire strategy is about gaining control of property.
Church Replanting is a euphemism for theft.
Most Protestant denominations have congregational polity. The congregation owns the property and controls the funds and directly oversees church operations through some form of governing board. Church Replanters need to get rid of previous members so that they can claim property and change the rules so that they have control. Rules and bylaws can be suspended or changed without resistance if you just lock doors. The new management they suggest you advertise is no longer local. Congregational polity has artfully been shifted to hierarchical polity.
Church Replanters’ lofty ambitions cannot work without this measure of control.
This is so important that denominations who send the Church Replanters are prepared for court (where they might lose if the law is applied, but the law cannot be applied because of separation of church and state).
Denominations often have lawyers on staff. They are likely to have helped draft the strategies. They are prepared for the coming conflict, while congregations scramble to get their footing with no denominational support.
Congregations, made up of volunteers who come to church to worship and nurture Christian values in their families, are unprepared for what will come — heavy-handed arrogance and self-righteousness which activates the ugliest characteristics of the human condition. Greed, pride, arrogance will soon justify coveting, bearing false witness, and theft. All for the greater good. Any resistance to the Church Replanters agenda is suddenly the work of enemies—not members. Lines will be drawn and allegiances sought to bolster claims. Denominations, who have access to the decision-makers in the Church will make sure their interests are protected. The Church will be at war with itself—self-destructing.
Don’t think it won’t! We’ve already seen this happen! Our congregation questioned the denomination’s actions under the existing constitutions and found ourselves in court for the next six years—sued as individuals.
Denominations can claim they are Replanting Churches when they are really trying to acquire endowment funds and properties to sell, making sure they receive the congregations’ wealth. That’s about the only thing that makes this strategy, which ignores most of Christ’s teachings, attractive.
Churches grow with acceptance, love, and service.
This is how Jesus grew a following. This is how the disciples grew a following.
It takes time and patience. It takes sacrifice. Humility helps.
And it has far better odds of working for more than 10 years.
Congregations Viewed in Black and WhiteI had favorite book when I was a child. It was old even when I was young— probably dating back to the 1920s or so. Something about it appealed to me. I brought it home from the library countless times. It was a book on etiquette. The rules of etiquette were taught with stories about children living in Good Habit Land and their brushes with Children from Bad Habit Land. Never the two should meet. Everything was black and white. No confusing grey areas.
That view of the world appealed to me as a 9-year-old. But time teaches that things aren’t always so clear.
This is the problem for theologians jumping on the Church Replanting bandwagon. They theorize with a similar simplistic world view. In fact, they go a step further. They attempt to create a simplistic Church with themselves in charge.
Church Replanters think they are creating one new Good Church. But their tactics are divisive. They are creating Good Church and Bad Church—but they call it New Church and Old Church. Old Church is inhabited by Bad Laity. New Church is inhabited by Good Laity.
One approach would be to trust the teachings of the Bible and work with Bad Laity to avoid hurtful and lasting labels and to look for their strengths while treating hurts and fostering understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation. But these teachings may have been neglected for so long that they are now more difficult to apply—even for theologians who truly understand them. Best to unload the problems—for the sake of the Church, of course.
Jesus starts his ministry among family and friends at the wedding in Cana. Then, after he clears the temple of money seekers, he addresses the concerns of Nicodemus — an established church leader. He doesn’t lock him out! He works with him, one on one, in the dark of night. Nicodemus—despite his baggage, confusion, and doubts—sticks with Jesus to the bitter end! He provides the embalming spices for the crucified Christ.
Church Replanters are about appearances. They want to side-step problems to create the illusion of quick and early success. If things don’t work out — well, it isn’t the Replanter’s fault. How can anyone be expected to fix all the problems created by decades of Bad Laity?
Replanters are willing to bypass what Church is supposed to be about in order to create illusions of peace and harmony. There is a temptation to promote a cult of personality with little attention to what will happen when the charismatic leader moves on and the congregation is once again working with the best they can afford, but now with inexperienced lay members on their own.
Jesus didn’t seem to care so much about illusions of peace. He used conflict as a teaching tool. He sometimes created conflict to make his point!
Church replanters see the expulsion of Bad Laity as opening a level highway to success. Good Laity are expected to follow this easy road in abundance.
The problem: If Good Laity stick around for a few years, they are bound to become Bad Laity. The moment the Church Replanter moves on, they are left to provide leadership with little experience. When they find their own way, they will have to be kicked out to repave the road for another set of pliable Good Laity. Replanters have this covered with rhetoric — Every church has a life cycle. It used to be hundreds of years. Now it is the span of one life—if that.
The search for easy success ignores the long-term challenges Church Replanters create.
What problems? Isn’t everything wonderful in Church Replanting Land?
No, the problems are likely to be growing. Replanters have swept them from the church doorstep like dry leaves — until the next breeze blows them back.
Church Replanters want total control of ministry. By expelling the people they have labeled as Bad Laity, they think they are creating control, but they have lost it.
You see, the Bad Laity that have been strategically eliminated from the Church still live in the community. They may be related to the new Good Laity in intricate ways that only the people in the neighborhood understand. They may even be their employers or leaders in community government. Their kids are likely to attend the same schools and play on the same sport teams. The Bad Laity Ladies will meet the Good Laity Ladies at the hair dresser. Just because you aren’t talking to the Bad Laity doesn’t mean there isn’t talk. This was always true, but now there is the internet. Talk about creating bad spin!
Expelling people from church hurts deeply. Failing to recognize that hurts deeply. Pride in this tactic hurts deeply. There may have been a time when hurt people could be easily dismissed—out of sight, out of mind. But that day is over. There will be talk. There will be social media chatter. People will be watching and making their own decisions about who might be right in the disputes. What chance do you think the outsider has?
If you treat the most skilled, loyal and knowledgeable members badly, you are creating obstacles that will come back to bite you.
We at Redeemer have experienced these tactics. We know what to watch for.
Next post!
Who holds the keys to the Church?I read Seth Godin’s blog—I and many, many others. One of his recurring themes is how we are emerging from an industrial society that views the populace as cogs in an industrial wheel. Our schools have approached education as preparation for being a cog in the system. He recognizes that this won’t work much longer. It is time to think differently not only about how we educate but how we view the people who share our times.
It is time to think differently about Church, too. Are we treating our people like cogs in the Church Wheel?
When the idea of Sunday School developed back in the 1800s it was directed at educating the children of industrial neighborhoods. Hmm!
The people we hope to reach today are living in a fast-changing world. As a group, we are better educated than any time in history. College degrees are the norm in many communities. I watched my son graduate from high school having covered most of the material presented to me in college! The best and brightest are not likely to accept being cogs in the Church or anywhere else!
Returning to the comfort of medieval thinking is not going to work. Changing the way people have thought for centuries is a daunting proposition.
Often the early attempts at order became church law and were enveloped by doctrine but were actually born of convenience and self-interest. Early church leaders, seeking authority or some justification for systemizing Christianity, looked at the Bible and read how Jesus identified Peter as the outstanding leader among his first disciples. In earthbound thinking, and as history made such thinking convenient, all kinds of rules were attached to the “Feed my sheep” passage.
Oddly, male church leaders read this passage and focused on gender. Peter was male, therefore all church leaders forevermore must be male. Jesus does not mention gender as his reason for choosing Peter. Peter was also married, but married clergy were problematic in a society all too familiar with abuses of ungoing power and wealth by virtue of birth. Let’s ignore that!
The same logic applies to the Church’s view of Mary. Mary was a woman. Mary gave birth to Jesus. Therefore, the role of women in the Church is to bear children—something men can’t do, as a respected, high-ranking cardinal recently pointed out in a 60 Minutes interview.
Mary probably did a lot more than give birth to Jesus, both before and after the Resurrection. But she did not write the Gospels, and she wasn’t a man at a time when men made most decisions. So church leaders focus on Mary as woman, while they assign themselves every other position because they cannot bear children. It doesn’t make sense today. It never made sense.
The Church is no longer the political power it once was. That has been good. The Church should focus on creating Godly community. But the Church must do a timely and unselfish job if it is to keep the attention of people who don’t have to participate by law or custom.
Lacking societal pressure, people are choosing to opt out of something that just isn’t making sense in the world we know. Younger generations, baby boomers and down, are not necessarily forsaking spirituality or Christ, we just have a sense that we don’t fit the mold that was so comfortable for our parents and grandparents.
Here’s a question:
If the earliest Christians had lived today, what kind of structure would they have chosen?
Would they have noticed Peter’s gender as the determining qualification for leadership? Would they have focused on other qualities that are equally “Peter”—his passion and loyalty, his pragmatism, his humility and repentance, his ability to recognize his short-comings, his ability to change? Would they see Mary as a dedicated and brave witness to the Crucifixion, as a leader among the many women following her son?
The Church might recognize that the laity are not “cogs” in the Church Wheel, requiring nothing more than a weekly oiling. They might find that many laity hold the keys to the future Church. There are countless Peters and Marys with plenty of work to go around.
This was always recognized to some extent with the auxiliaries of the church, nuns and deaconesses often provided the healing, social, and teaching functions that were foundational to church growth. Our small church owes as much to diaconate leadership as we do to clergy!
Modern young people do not want to be “cogs.” Today’s faithful want to use their skills to the fullest without feeling secondary, under the control of people who have power but lack their expertise.
It’s not that this generation is anti-church. We are frustrated with the obstacles that are holding us back but over which we have little control.
Here’s another set of questions:
What if in the full spectrum of time WE are the earliest Christians? What if two, three, four thousand years from now, there are Christian faithful looking to us for saintly example? What examples are we setting to help them?
Opting out is a modern choice.
The Church that doesn’t recognize this and respond to the loss of the faithful will wither.
What 2×2’s Ministry Is and Isn’tIt’s a new year. 2×2 spent the last few months posting less and preparing for the new year more.
We were surprised to find that our online ministry, sponsored by the smallest of small churches, is once again the victim of Christians who fear our influence.
Someone who sends support to selected ministries read our posts about small churches in far away places like Kenya and Pakistan and decided that we use our site to collect money and suggested that we are keeping contributions for ourselves.
THIS IS UNTRUE!
This person did not look very closely or direct any questions about our ministry to us. There is no DONATE button on our website. 2×2 is not set up for Paypal or Credit Card contributions. If we were interested in collecting money, we would have set these up years ago!
This troubled reader decided to cut support to one of these ministries because of our posts! Gossip started! We got a few emails: Where’s the money you are collecting for our orphans?
Pope Francis speaks about the tyranny of gossip in the Church. It spreads like wildfire and does more damage.
And so we start this year by telling you a bit more about 2x2virtualchurch with the hope of nipping the gossip before it buds!
Paul’s ministry lasts because he wrote to churches.
We write to ministries of widows and orphans and struggling people, because we are widows and orphans and struggling people. Our correspondence is always initiated by them—when they find our website. We look for no more than Christian fellowship and mutual support, sharing our struggles and praying for one another. We find strength in recognizing that all small churches face challenges and they are often very alone in their work. We try to help—not by establishing a support system and raising money in any ongoing way and not by demanding doctrinal agreement. We don’t have the skills or manpower to get into that kind of control. We use a worldwide platform (which everyone has access to these days) to tell ministry stories—to help them.
Some of the people who contact us are looking for money. One sent us a detailed proposal! We are clear from the get-go that we have no money to give. Some of them disappear. A few of them continue to share. When we write about their ministries we do so with their permission. Some amazing things have happened as a result of just communicating!
We publicize small church ministries because they are rarely written about from a positive point of view. In our country, they are often the targets for church closures, orchestrated for the benefit of richer church bodies. Many have been neglected for years. Pastors, if they have one, are sent with instructions—just take care of them until they die a natural death.
Small churches play a very important role in the church. We are in a position to directly reach the marginalized and the hurting—the people most in need—the people who can’t pay comfortable salaries and send support money to regional bodies they never see. They are in the best position to serve daily—not in token outreaches at holiday time, not as badges for those who can afford charity. It doesn’t matter if they are in rural America, urban America, the African bush or the dangerous streets of the Muslim world. Small churches serve where mission is most difficult.
2×2 works to create voice for small church ministry.
In 2013, 2×2 responded to an extraordinary situation that was getting very little attention by bigger and richer church entities. In this one case, we offered to help people contribute to an extraordinary situation that affects all Christians but which we found no easy way within the established church to help.
2×2 was appalled at the church bombings in Pakistan in September 2013. A church with 250 worshipers was bombed by Muslim terrorists as the congregation was moving from worship to fellowship. Scores were killed. More injured.
We were close to this ministry partly because a pastor in Pakistan already had been corresponding with us for two years. When we heard about the bombings, we wrote to our contact: Are you all right?
He told us in detail what the national news was missing—that there had been multiple explosions and that the survivors were suffering from serious wounds and many children had been orphaned. The injured feared going to Muslim-operated hospitals. Christians had gone into hiding, fearing more attacks. Horrific!
How can we help? we asked. They needed clothing, food and medicine. They didn’t ask for money!
In the congregations we visited following the bombing, the Pakistan situation went unmentioned. When we talked with people about it, we got blank stares. We agreed with a Jewish columnist in the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper: Where is the Christian outrage!
But how could we help from so far away. That’s what national church entities are supposed to be good at!
2×2 has Lutheran roots despite being excluded from the ELCA. We looked for a way to help within the Church. We found no “companion synod” for Pakistan. Lutheran World Relief’s website did not list Pakistan as a service area and an email to the ELCA person listed as in charge of this sort of thing went unanswered.
So we offered to be a conduit for anyone who might want to help. There was no fund-raising “drive.” Just a mention and promise to help if anyone was interested. A few local readers, people we know, contributed. Their contributions were handed to us—not sent through the website.
About $265 was received. Every penny was sent to Pakistan. This was a lot of work. It took numerous trips to the bank. Pakistan is one of three countries where wire transfers are difficult, the bank officer explained. Since we all work as volunteers, this is not something we want to do every day! 2×2 paid the wire costs.
A 2×2 reader in Michigan, an eight-hour drive from Philadelphia, shared our post with her daughter’s book club. The children (middle school age and representing several churches) made a project of collecting clothing to send to Pakistan. The young people sent three huge boxes of winter clothing. 2×2 paid for the shipping. 2×2 pocketed nothing.
The children found the project so meaningful that they are currently repeating their clothing drive. We will support it by publicizing it. We will not benefit from it. Any donations that might be received will be forwarded. Every penny.
We made this effort to help Pakistan because we saw no one else doing this.
We still wonder why there was not more outrage. We wonder why it does not occur to Christians that strengthening their witness might be the most cost-effective strategy in stopping the hate. We are not big enough to do much more than we did.
We are proud that we were able to help, even in these small ways. It is disturbing that any reader would interpret our mission as self-serving.
2×2 operates with no property and with no paid leadership. The ELCA confiscated our property and endowment funds in 2009. There is significant prejudice and ongoing gossip about our congregation because we resisted their efforts.
We are determined to continue our ministry. If we fail it will be incentive for church leaders to replicate these actions in other small churches. This is a very real threat to small churches as it is remains a tempting strategy in clergy circles.
We have members with skills in communications and education. We launched 2x2virtualchurch website four years ago.
We are entirely volunteer. We don’t even take offerings at our worship services. We talked a local bank into holding what little cash we have without a monthly fee, or even that would be gone.
So, please, if you care about any ministry you read about on 2×2, feel free to give directly to them. We can put you in touch with the leaders of these ministries (with their permission). We consider them friends in ministry but we make no attempt to oversee their work.
We are just a little church that reached 50,000 new readers last year. We have no hidden agenda. We are pretty upfront about our ministry!
We are dedicated to helping small church ministries. For the last four years, we have visited dozens of small churches and talked to countless lay leaders. We’ve come to know their special challenges. We know the frustration of finding resources for lay leaders. We know that small churches often can’t afford salaried help with specialized expertise in music, education and youth leadership—but we have the same needs!
Most church resources are produced by people familiar with larger churches. Most church publishers aim their sales at larger churches and their leaders. Their advertising efforts are aimed at professional leaders. Most church leaders who rise to influential positions spend very little time serving small churches. Therefore, many church resources assume ministry conditions that are increasingly rare!
We believe that the laity are very important to the future of the Church.
We started developing resources that can be implemented by lay leaders—not to the exclusion of clergy but recognizing the realities. For example, we know small churches have difficulty maintaining traditional Sunday Schools, but still have a need to foster faith. That’s why we outline object lessons that draw in an entire congregation–not just children and that can be used in worship.
In 2015, 2×2 will launch resources that are useful and affordable to small congregations and that can be implemented by any dedicated leader, lay or clergy. We will continue to offer free resources. We don’t want money to stop people from using them. We intend to republish them in more convenient ways. Yes, we hope that this will help us continue our ministry long into the future. For now, it is all volunteer. We’ll find our way as we go!
One of the incentives that we hope will be of interest to our readers is the creation of community around the resources and the availability of “coaching” for things like website development—something we’ve pioneered! We hope to create online forums to unite the leaders of small congregations, especially lay leaders, in sharing. Our experience should be able to save other congregations time in creating and maintaining their own web ministries.
This is in keeping with our mission to help small church ministry. It may be a direction that doesn’t occur to church leaders who have distanced themselves from small congregations. This is the void—the niche— 2×2 tries to fill!
