The Ambassadors set out with the best of intentions to visit a church which supported a Lutheran Retirement Home where a friend of our congregation lives. Circumstances conspired against us. The Philadelphia Marathon blocked major roadways crossing the Schuylkill and we ended up being close to on time, but we don’t like being late.
Instead, we took a tour of Luther House in West Grove, Pa. Our friend has lived there for seven years and enjoys it immensely. She led our tour.
We also enjoyed a breakfast and planned our Christmas worship. We do not look forward to being locked out of our church for a THIRD Christmas, but we make the best of things. Redeemer remains a faithful congregation called to action — not just prayer.
Redeemer Ambassadors took our farthest Sunday visit to date to the suburban town of North Wales and the congregation of St. Peter’s. We noticed on their web site that their traditional service times were changed for a united worship on Consecration Sunday. We did not know what a Consecration Sunday entailed but learned that it was Stewardship Sunday with a Dedication of Sunday School teachers ceremony. This is the second Stewardship Sunday we encountered. St. Peter’s made the day very hands-on and participatory.
The sanctuary was packed. All the church choirs were robed and singing, including a young children’s choir, a girl’s vocal group and an adult choir. The groups sang separately and in a combined anthem featuring a song Redeemer sings each week as our offertory — Asante Sane Jesu or I Am Thanking Jesus. We noticed that their women and girl voices outnumbered males by a huge margin — something like 10 to 1 and that made us appreciate the work of our East Falls Community Choir, hosted by Redeemer, and the influence of the Keystone State Boychoir on our boy singers.
A guest speaker, Rev. Karl Krueger of the Philadelphia Seminary, spoke on stewardship. Pastor Wagner led the worship and we couldn’t help but notice that although the sanctuary held at least 100 people, he seemed to have a personal connection with each worshiper. He welcomed us to their fellowship dinner, which was a feast of ethnic foods. We were fortunate to sit with another guest, the Rev. Jonathan Shin and his wife. He is new to the Synod and will be working with the Synod Mission Developer, something Redeemer was once promised by SEPA Synod but was never allowed.
The youth led a quiz on the life of Muhlenberg. Our Ambassadors were well prepared with the answers as we had visited Muhlenberg’s home church two weeks before and had taken a field trip to the Muhlenberg exhibit at Ursinus College.
The most meaningful part of the service to us was the dedication of the Sunday School teachers. Pastor Wagner had a student offer a blessing for each teacher which was very moving. Our Ambassadors often talk about the influence of the Sunday School teachers in our lives. Their names are offered in remembrance at each All Saints Sunday. As the ceremony progressed, youngest child to oldest child, we were able to replace the faces of the strangers before us with the memory of our own teachers.
Redeemer’s Ambassadors planned a special Reformation outing today. We visited Augustus Lutheran Church, Trappe, another church in our region with family ties. The Fry family, descendants of the President of the predecessor body of the ELCA, is from this church and are closely related to several Redeemer members.
The church is also known for its ties to the Muhlenberg family, who played a huge role in the nurturing of the Lutheran Church in colonial and revolutionary times and into the 19th century.
The service was the best attended service we encountered, somewhere around 180, including more than 40 children, who were in worship for the first few minutes, sang “This Is the Day,” listened to a short children’s sermon and disappeared. It was moving to see so many children in church because children have been rare in our visits, with most churches having just a few and often none at all.
The choir sang a familiar anthem and as last week, included at least 15 voices. The service was quite traditional with assistants robed in cassock and cotta, something not often seen.
We were moved by the minister’s sermon. Rev. Warren Weleck spoke of the ongoing challenges faced by the church throughout the centuries and the many attempts of authorities to destroy the Lutheran Church — from the pope to Prussian princes to Nazi Germany. Still, he noted, it survives.
Redeemer knows something of the tactics he mentioned although the destruction we see is from within. That’s what Luther saw, too. We’ve seen our professional leaders intimidated to follow policies against their stated convictions. Our faithful members have been evicted from our property and banned from representation among fellow Lutherans — effectively excommunicated. Lock them out and shut them up is nothing new! We’ve seen denominational leaders hide behind First Amendment Separation of Church and State as they take one destructive action after another. While claiming immunity from the law, they use the full force of the courts to attack lay leaders. Yes, the Reformation Sermon was very meaningful to us!
It is true. The church must be ever vigilant and, like Martin Luther, we must speak up when we see wrong-doing. While Martin Luther’s leadership spurred reform, eventually a lot of the reform happened from within. That’s the Lutheran heritage — which to truly honor we must practice.
After church, we stopped by Ursinus’s Berman Museum of Art and took in the nice exhibit of Muhlenberg artifacts (open till December 10). Muhlenberg spent a good bit of his ministry as a negotiator of peace within the church. Another history lesson for today’s Lutherans.
Our ambassadors visited St. Matthew’s in Springfield, Pa, twice. One ambassador visited October 16 and three of us visited yesterday. It wasn’t intentional; we just got our signals crossed.
We discovered a well-kept suburban church with all things in good order. The property, which they are about to renovate, seemed to be loved and cared for. The worship service was well-structured with good leadership. The congregation was quiet and attentive, which may seem like an odd observation but many of the congregations we visit are “busy” with lots of moving around. The supply pastor, Rev. David Oppold, told us he was a member of the congregation and often supplied pulpits. He spoke movingly of his work with hospice patients and the privilege of conducting funerals.
The choir of about 15 was one of the largest choirs we encountered. Most churches we visit have no choir. It looked like a lay member led the children’s message which was well-attended. They also have a seminarian working with them, Laura Gorton.
The attendance at the worship service numbered about 80 or so.
The service contained a stewardship message as they are about to embark on a major renovation program. The plan is to raise a $200,000-$300,000 and borrow about one million. Their lay leader stood before the congregation and announced a program designed to encourage weekly gifts of $40.
We cannot help but contrast what we saw at St. Matt’s with our own experience.
A typical Redeemer worship service had an attendance of about one fourth that number . . . and we borrowed about one fourth of the amount they plan to borrow for the same purposes. Our leaders stood before our congregation and advocated for weekly gifts on a tiered basis — $15, $30 and $60 — and had seen improvement in giving. Redeemer’s renovations were absolutely necessary to moving our ministry forward as the working rooms like the kitchen had not been updated in 70 or more years. We did this in an atmosphere of steady membership growth (unlike most congregations in SEPA). The difference in our situation is SEPA leadership attempted to seize our assets, evict our congregation and sue our lay members.
We certainly wish the people of St. Matthew’s better luck with their project!
God's light filtered through the city scape as the Redeemer Ambassadors pose in front of St. Michael's, Kensington.
The Ambassadors made a lovely visit to St. Michael’s, Kensington this morning.
We were struck by the friendliness of the neighborhood before we walked through their doors. A member on her way to church offered to help us by taking our picture. All the traffic waited at the stop sign, allowing her time to get her bearings with our camera.
Most members stopped by our pew to say hello on their way into the sanctuary. The pastor (Rev. Marjorie Neal) was away, but the service was led by very capable lay people.
We thought they were passing the peace at the beginning of the service and so we were surprised when they seemed to be passing the peace a second time toward the end of the service. They explained, the first time is the “Welcome.”
LBW liturgy was used with numerous hymns from LBW and WOV.
The congregation uses a beautiful ground-floor chapel. The original sanctuary above is also beautiful but they told us it has not been used in a year. It is difficult to maintain. All we city churches know about that!
They had recently had a flea market and were planning for a big St. Michael’s Day celebration on the 25th to which they are inviting all the many groups who use their building.
They operate a Christian Day Care and were planning to send some of their youth on a mission trip to New Orleans. Their bulletin also mentioned a food pantry.
As one member gave us a tour of their sanctuary and building, the front doors and gate were locked. We had to walk the length of the building to the back door to get out. In doing so, we passed a group preparing for a meeting. They quipped, “That’s a change. You thought you were locked out. Now you are locked in!”
As Redeemer Ambassadors began our second year of church visits in August, we began to feel more comfortable in our visitation. Perhaps that’s because we are beginning to discover connectivity — sometimes spanning decades, sometimes a century or more.
Our first visit rekindled an old working friendship which had been dormant for decades. In November we visited St. Mark, Conshohocken. The grandfather/great grandfather of two of our Ambassadors was one of the founding pastors of that congregation and visiting the church we had heard about so often from our ancestors was very meaningful. We also discovered that some of the Epiphany members who once shared our building were now worshiping there.
Almost every week, we find something in common with the people we visit. At St. John, Folcroft, one of our ambassadors mentioned her college and a St. John member responded, telling us about her college. We soon learned that the woman had been college friends with one of our ambassadors who was not present and had sung in the college choir with his wife.
At Grace, Mantua, we learned that the pastor and his wife shared mutual good friends with one of the Ambassadors. Similarly, we learned that the pastor of liberti presbyterian shared mutual friends. We had heard stories about one another for years but had never met!
This morning, we visited Trinity, Fort Washington, where one of our former members attends. We were pleased to talk with her many friends. Our former member and her family had been among the earliest and strongest Redeemer supporters. We also discovered that their new pastor was from a church near the childhood church of one of our ambassadors and they knew some of the same people. His home church was that of one of our ambassador’s earliest relatives to come to America hundreds of years ago.
As we share stories of our other visits, we learn of their connections with the people we are currently visiting. “That’s where I was married.” “That’s the church my husband and I visited when we were trying to decide on a church.”
Redeemer is part of the precious interconnectivity of Lutherans and Christians everywhere. Locking our doors won’t take that away!
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Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
