Two members of Redeemer vied among 18 East Fallsers for top chili recipes. One of our entries was a dish that became a staple at Redeemer socials after we had a short time with a vicar from Puerto Rico. He asked us to make a favorite chili-like dish of his native Puerto Rico — sancocho, which combines beef and a larder-full of vegetables and even fruit. The spices used, we were to learn as our membership grew among native Africans, were similar to those in African cooking. This was all part of our journey as a growing community of faith and quite a deviation from the blander cuisine of Redeemer past! Yes, sancocho uses more than salt and pepper! For the cook-off we called it Sweet and Sour Chili because it had pineapple in it.
While locked out of our church, Redeemer intends to remain active in our community.
We are not closed; we are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.
This is an election year. We as a nation will elect a president—a decision we must all live with for four years.
It is also an election year in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) Synod of the ELCA. SEPA will elect a bishop for a six-year term and congregations will live with that choice for more than half a decade.
We will take less time preparing for this choice.
The Church has a history of cloistering leaders. Clergy may know one another. Most lay leaders have little knowledge of the names presented to them on the floor of Synod Assembly.
People, today, want to know who their leaders are and what they stand for. We want to know this every day, not just at election time. There was a time when this was difficult. Communication was expensive and unwieldy. This is no longer an excuse. Church leadership can and should interact with church members on a daily basis. This should be a joy not a drudge.
There are long traditions of leadership by intimidation and fear in the Church. It didn’t start out that way, but it goes back centuries. The Reformation tried to address this but even today this leadership style rears its head in defiance of the Christ’s message of love.
In the business world, people have a choice. They can work for a company or they can leave.
It’s a bit different in the Church. People want to stick with their faith and their congregational community. It’s all wrapped up in their relationship with God, their understanding of who they are, and their personal and family faith journeys. When dissatisfied, they aren’t likely to look for a new Church as a first option.
In other words, they care.
That’s a good thing—a treasure!
As SEPA Synod prepares for its 2012 Annual Assembly, the topic is worth consideration.
SEPA Synod delegates need to carefully examine the relationship between synod leadership and the congregations—the only reason synods exist.
The relationship between the synod and its impressive list of rostered leaders is more difficult to analyze but just as important. Each question asked below might also be asked by each rostered professional leader.
Perhaps its best to start by examining the relationships between congregations, their elected leaders and synod leadership.
Do you know one another? Are you working together — interdependently — as the operating constitutions require? What do you know about the names on the ballot? What do they stand for? What do they know about you?
What do your leaders believe?
Do your members have a voice? Under Lutheran polity, you are supposed to! It’s a precious Lutheran concept that clergy and laity have equal leadership standing.
Do your elected leaders listen to the people they are serving? Is there two-way communication?
Is there a plan for reversing strong downward trends—or will that be presented after a six-year decision is made?
Are your lay members comfortable with synod leadership? Must all communication go through your pastor? Are your phone calls returned? Are dates for meetings mutually agreed upon? Are they scheduled within a month of request?
Is there trust?
What is the synod’s vision for moving forward? Is every congregation included in the vision?
Does SEPA treat every congregation and its leaders with respect and dignity — as valued members of God’s kingdom? Are elected congregational leaders treated with respect?
Is your only interaction with synod when there is a leadership change? When was the last time a bishop visited your congregation just to listen and get to know you?
Do you know what your leaders are doing in your name and in the name of God?
The choice of bishop is pivotal to the image of our Church. Let’s do this carefully.
Label a problem “impossible” and you have an excuse for failure.
This temptation faces today’s Church. In many cases, Church leaders have given up on the Church!
“Neighborhood ministry can’t be supported.” Just declare it! That makes it true.
What happens then?
We stop trying. After all, we have given ourselves permission to fail.
The first to be defeated are the clergy. They throw up their hands and devise ways to make it look like they tried. Assign a caretaker pastor here, an interim pastor there, and pray. Christians support one another in failing ministries. Just look at the statistics.
The laity can only wonder what is discussed at ministerium gatherings of “caretaker” pastors whose assignments are to slowly and quietly bring ministry to a close. It must be deflating. Any pastor who walks in with a new idea is likely to have the conversation quickly changed. The idea is to fail as gracefully as possible.
How can you rebuild self-esteem in a Church where these conditions prevail? Hold grand worship services celebrating Church closures (failures).
Lay people who have more invested in their neighborhood ministries keep working, often under the leadership of defeated pastors, who are called with the tacit understanding that they are to keep things going as long as the money can flow.
Lay leadership is puzzled at the attitudes they encounter, but they soldier on, trying to avoid the conflict brewing from exasperation and a conflict in mission that is never defined — so it can’t be handled.
A defeated attitude spreads like a bad rash. It chafes at the message that is preached from our pulpits. We worship a God of the possible. The Bible is filled cover to cover with accounts of insurmountable obstacles overcome. Some problems are fought with patience, some with trust, and a few with power. The deeper you go in the New Testament, the more faith is relied upon, and thank God for the Book of James, who reminds us that it might take some work.
The Church faces problems today that can be overcome but not if we must first meet all the standards of yesterday’s church. It is time to clear the slate and approach our congregations openly and with the knowledge that with God, all things are possible. If we do not believe that, why bother?
Walk in the shoes of the laity. Would you support a church with no momentum? Would you join a Church that doesn’t believe in its ability to succeed? Would you subscribe to a faith that doesn’t believe its own message?
Facebook and the Church are entering relatively uncharted territory.
Congregations with broad age demographics are likely to use Facebook as a way of promoting activities. There are a few youthful congregations who have implemented a Facebook social media strategy that is more comprehensive, encouraging lively interaction among members.
Facebook is something the Church must learn with caution. It may be something we should teach as well, but it will take some experience to become authoritative.
A congregation should consider demographics when using Facebook. Measure them against these statistics.
81% of Americans aged 12 to 17 check Facebook daily.
It is likely that a quarter of a congregation’s members over 65 are on this Social Media platform and this statistic is quickly growing.
Close to three-fourths of your members 25-45 engage in Facebook use.
Business people in your congregations are surely exploring Facebook strategies.
Your members are already on Facebook. Grandparents are following the activities of their grandkids. Youth are likely to be in touch with dozens of friends while you think they are having dinner with you.
How many of your members check your congregation’s web site daily? How many read the newsletter? How many members participate in creating the content on your web site or in your newsletter?
The reins of information are no longer in your church leaders’ hands.
There is no doubt that Facebook is a force to reckon with and a tool to consider.
Facebook is changing the way we think. Privacy is valued much less. There is a driving need to be in touch. Facebook has an entry age of 13, but figuring out what year you have to be born to qualify takes elementary math. Children are using Facebook.
When our way of thinking changes, our ways of acting follow. What this means to the Church is not known. Will members become more engaged? Will they see less use for Christian community?
If the Church hopes to influence the answers to these questions, we must engage in the conversation.
The problem Churches may have in building Facebook community is that the thinking of older members and younger members may clash. The impact could be felt across a congregation. One piece of private information, innocently shared on your congregation’s Facebook network, could create serious fallout. Pictures that seem fine to someone posting on multiple walls might not pass the vanity test of others in the congregation.
Though not excluded, deep thoughts are rarely shared on Facebook. It tends to be a lively conversation with lots of inside innuendo going on. This could be fun for those in the know. Others could feel left out.
Still, Facebook is here to stay and it is changing the way we think. If churches hope to reach the people in their community, we must adapt our mission strategies for today’s way of thinking.
Maybe Facebook will force the Church to dust off the cathedral rafters!
There isn’t much difference between small churches and large churches and their mission potential. Redeemer’s Ambassadors have visited nearly 50 neighboring churches. We’ve seen small churches with impressive worship. We’ve seen large churches with ordinary worship. We’ve seen volunteer choirs in small congregations perform as well as larger church choirs with paid section leaders. We’ve seen small churches with amazing track records for supporting neighborhood mission. We’ve seen large churches doing similar things. We’ve seen innovative, scalable mission projects in several very small congregations.
Yet large churches have preferential ranking in the minds of denominational hierarchy. That’s because there is one thing larger churches can do better than small churches. They can better support hierarchy.
Hierarchies are expensive and self-perpetuating.
There is rarely talk about reducing hierarchy. This may be precisely what is needed.
Hierarchies are responsible for keeping church professionals employed. They are also supposed to provide services to congregations. Most congregations have little contact with their regional office unless they are calling a pastor.
Clergy rely on the denomination for access to and approval of a call. The regional body becomes their employment agency.
In the corporate world, employment agencies work for either the employer or the job-seeker. In the church, a regional body, acting as employment agency, holds some power over both the job-seekers and the limited pool of employer congregations within their region. They serve two earthly masters and tend to favor the clergy.
When pastors are vying for the most lucrative or beneficial assignments, the regional body as employment agency begins to judge congregations by their ability to meet clergy needs. If a congregation insists on finding a candidate that fits ministry needs, they can be judged as uncooperative—a judgement that could follow them for decades.
Mandated initiatives that make no sense to congregations can result. The regional body might recommend merger or acceptance of an interim pastor for an undesignated time—or they may recommend closure.
Denominational leaders are acting as managers. Looking at the map, it may make perfect management sense to merge two or three congregations within a two-mile radius. The thinking is that if you merge two 150-member churches, you will have one church with 300-members and that’s a magic number for supporting clergy.
It doesn’t work that way. In the church . . .
1 + 1 = One half
Churches are little communities, something like families. They come with their own traditions and social structure. Merging them to save management costs makes about as much sense as merging three or four unrelated families to make utility and grocery bills more reasonable.
You cannot mandate community. Attempts to merge congregations often end up with one even smaller congregation.
There is another side effect. In the corporate world, mergers and management decisions often result in similar products and services replicated in similar ways. The beauty of small congregations is their individuality. Without small churches we will end up with cookie cutter large churches, worshiping in similar ways and providing similar services and mission opportunities.
The loss of neighborhood ministries will be felt far more deeply than any temporary gains of church closures and mergers.
We must make small congregations a priority. We must find ways to help them get over decades of neglect.
No stone was rolled away at Redeemer this year. Maybe next year!
Nevertheless, Redeemer members gathered in front of the church, read the Easter Story, and prayed before heading to a member’s home for Easter fellowship. We had three new attendees this year, which has been steady growth since the lock out.
Please keep in mind that Redeemer members still live in fear of SEPA leadership. Not all will agree to be in a photograph—very sad commentary on the state of ministry in SEPA Synod of the ELCA.
(Our sign, which Bishop Burkat couldn’t wait to have torn down and destroyed as she pretends to honor the memory of Redeemer, will continue to live on as a witness to our ministry through the magic of Photoshop!)
We had a wonderful Easter — no thanks to the church!
We discovered this poem on line years ago and have often read it in our worship.
We just discovered it again and point you to its source.
Credit to Kate Compton and www.womenpriests.org.
I dream of a Church
I dream of a church
that joins in with God’s laughing
as she rocks in her rapture,
enjoying her art:
she’s glad of her world,
in its risking and growing:
‘tis the child she has borne
and holds close to her heart.
I dream of a church
that joins in with God’s weeping
as she crouches, weighed down
by the sorrow she sees:
she cries for the hostile,
the cold and no-hoping,
for she bears in herself
our despair and dis-ease
I dream of a church that
joins in with God’s dancing
as she moves like the wind
and the wave and the fire:
as church that can pick up
its skirts, pirouetting,
with the steps that can signal
God’s deepest desire.
I dream of a church that
joins in with God’s loving
as she bends to embrace
the unlovely and the lost.
A church that can free,
by its sharing and daring,
the imprisoned and poor,
and then shoulder the cost.
God, make us a church
that joins in with your living
as you cherish and challenge,
rein in and release,
a church that is winsome,
impassioned, inspiring;
lioness of your justice
and lamb of your peace.
It will soon be three years since member churches of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America failed to support one of its member churches and voted— against its own rules—to allow Bishop Claire Burkat to take the property of Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls, Philadelphia.
This, by the way, is the only issue Synod Assembly voted on. It was not the only issue Redeemer had appealed. Bishop Burkat interpreted the vote as blanket endorsement of all her policies.
Redeemer, which she had already improperly stripped of membership rights even before the vote, now had no say in the church. This was not the Lutheran way. It is now!
This exertion of questionable power was intended to strike a final blow to a church that had been a thorn in the Synod’s side for a decade because Redeemer would not accept the imposition of powers it never agreed to upon joining the ELCA.
Instead, the “final blow” sparked legal action. Courts have taken a hands-off stance. In four years of litigation the case was never heard. By citing the First Amendment (forbidding the establishment of law regarding religion), the courts have ironically made law not only for SEPA churches but for every corporation in Pennsylvania. The Articles of Incorporation, once the document to which all bylaws had to conform, are now subservient to any fickle bylaw change.
The SEPA/Redeemer conflict, which raged while member churches watched in silence has changed every congregation’s relationship with SEPA and the ELCA. Lutheran polity, developed over hundreds of years and a source of our denomination’s strength, was changed in the courts, not by consent of the governed.
Lutherans have been asleep. Clergy, who should know better, failed to speak up and defend the congregations they serve. Are they afraid? Are they looking out for themselves?
Lay people, who as individuals may have great knowledge of church rules or almost none, followed the clergy.
Lay people are now vulnerable. Clergy will disappear at the first sign of trouble. Because courts won’t hear cases involving church government, your church leaders will not hesitate to make disputes personal against the lay leaders of your congregation. This has been their strategy.
This is church government at its worse.
The result: no SEPA congregation really owns its property any longer. Your bishop can swoop in and lock doors and sell your land and your constitution no longer protects you. Your bishop does not need any reason under this new interpretation of the law. Your bishop must only convince Synod Council, which has proven to be a pushover, that it is for the best — not necessarily the congregation’s best — the Synod’s best.
This is the result of a Synod Assembly passing huge deficit budgets that could not be met without going after the assets of member churches.
Bishop Burkat is indignant that anyone suggests this was a plan, but she has failed to identify from where the additional annual $300,000 was to come if not from taking property from member churches.
Redeemer stood up to this.
Only the congregations of SEPA can fix this mess. But that means it must adopt some of the qualities of Redeemer.
Congregations and clergy must
question their government. If they do this with fear, that’s a sign something is wrong.
connect with their representatives and become informed of the issues they vote on.
learn to speak up.
become more interconnected. Who are your neighbors? It’s easy to vote against your neighbors when you know nothing about them!
read their founding documents.
It wouldn’t hurt if some of the messages of the original founding document — the Bible — were applied.
It is hard for us at Redeemer to not ponder this as we approach our third Easter locked out of our church by a denomination that has allowed this to happen.
Kenneth J. McFayden lists ten losses to the church in an article posted on the Alban Institute Roundtable.
On this Good Friday, as the members of Redeemer approach a third Easter locked out of their house of worship by SEPA Synod, we examine McFayden’s list.
Loss of Members: Redeemer was growing. 52 members had joined within the 18 months prior to SEPA’s interference.
Loss of Centrality: Redeemer was an integral part of our members’ lives. Our membership had quickly assimilated to its changing demography—not always possible, but accomplished seamlessly at Redeemer—a tribute to good leadership.
Loss of Pastors: Redeemer had difficulty getting the attention of SEPA in calling a pastor. Redeemer believes this was intentional neglect, a way of purposely creating conditions to allow synodical interference. Nevertheless, Redeemer had many good relationships with pastors who supplied our pulpit regularly and long term. We had asked to call a rostered Lutheran pastor and had reached agreement on terms. Bishop Burkat ignored the congregation’s request.
Loss of Traditions: Redeemer never lost its traditions, even when accepting new members. We embraced many new traditions but never asked any existing members to sacrifice what was important to their faith—again, a tribute to good leadership.
Loss of Structural Support: This was a challenge for Redeemer made all the more difficult by SEPA. Bishop Almquist’s administration encouraged Redeemer leaders to resign and refused to give attention to the congregation’s wishes to call a pastor. Bishop Burkat worked with Epiphany, a congregation in covenant with Redeemer, to break its covenant and close, thereby removing pastoral services from both congregations and forcing Redeemer to restructure its council with ten days notice. Eventually, Bishop Burkat simply declared Redeemer’s council to not exist — by letter, not by any process of mutual discernment.
Loss of Status in the Community: Redeemer always had the respect of the community and was a leading force in interdenominational initiatives. This was made difficult by SEPA locking the building for three years to both members and the many community groups who enjoyed easy access to our facilities. Now SEPA is working in our community supposedly toward opening a new church at Redeemer — one that would exclude Redeemer members from full participation.
Loss of Stability: Redeemer had worked very hard on creating a plan to assure a stable future. We were working with many new members and it takes time to develop giving and stewardship among the newly churched, but we had a solid stewardship outreach in place as well as plans for supporting our ministry with our school and other outreach projects. We’d stand our ministry plan next to any SEPA congregation’s. Our plans were ignored.
Loss of Confidence: Redeemer remains confident even under intimidating circumstances.
Loss of Energy for Ministry: Never a problem at Redeemer! How many other SEPA congregations would still be functioning after five years of multiple and personal lawsuits?
Loss of Identity: We know who we are? Do the churches that voted to take our property know us? Did Bishop Burkat take the time to know us? (The answer is NO!)
Redeemer “lost” nothing. We had much taken from us. There is a difference.
That’s why no service was ever held in East Falls to “celebrate our ministry” and “mourn the loss” of this congregation.
The loss is among SEPA leadership. It’s a loss of integrity and conscience.
The impact of our loss will be felt across the denomination as time moves forward and SEPA leadership now has a mandate to exercise powers not given them in their constitutions.
The losses imposed on us cloud our vision of the wondrous cross. We are left this Good Friday repeating the words of Psalm 22.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? …
Why are you so far from saving me,
But you, LORD, do not be far from me.
You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
Deliver me from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dogs.
Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
save me from the horns of the wild oxen.
I will declare your name to my people;
in the assembly I will praise you.
You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.
Usually, the despair of Good Friday is quickly replaced with the joy of Easter. Redeemer will remain locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.
Two members of Redeemer vied among 18 East Fallsers for top chili recipes. One of our entries was a dish that became a staple at Redeemer socials after we had a short time with a vicar from Puerto Rico. He asked us to make a favorite chili-like dish of his native Puerto Rico — sancocho, which combines beef and a larder-full of vegetables and even fruit. The spices used, we were to learn as our membership grew among native Africans, were similar to those in African cooking. This was all part of our journey as a growing community of faith and quite a deviation from the blander cuisine of Redeemer past! Yes, sancocho uses more than salt and pepper! For the cook-off we called it Sweet and Sour Chili because it had pineapple in it.
