Palm Sunday was always a big day for Redeemer. In some ways, we looked forward to it more than Easter. Our congregation had many young families who traveled on holidays to visit the grandparents.
Palm Sunday was always a joyous celebration complete with a congregational ham dinner. We collected food to deliver to needy families for Easter at this event.
We celebrated Palm Sunday—purely Palm Sunday. We were joyful as were the people gathered in the streets of Jerusalem. Our new East African members added to our tradition, teaching us Swahili chants.
We could concentrate on Palm Sunday readings and sing several Palm Sunday hymns—not just one. We entered Holy Week the way Christians are supposed to enter Holy Week.
In recent years, the Church revisited Palm Sunday. Theologians despaired that Holy Week services were not attended as they once were. So they decided to combine all of Holy Week into Palm Sunday. “Captive audience” was the thinking. Consequently, there is now 10-minute nod to the celebration of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem before the Old Testament, Psalm and Epistle lessons are glossed over or skipped so we can read 114 verses of Luke. It’s long no matter how you try to break it up—way past the modern attention span.
The faithful, who observe Holy Week, are cheated out of their observance.
The Ambassadors are looking for a church where we can celebrate—truly celebrate—Palm Sunday. We may end up staying home tomorrow.
Redeemer Ambassadors have now visited nearly 60 churches. We are perennial visitors. If there is such a thing, we are experts. Practice makes perfect.
Our status is unique. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America locked us out of God’s House. What they expected to happen as a result is unclear. We started visiting churches.
We are learning the strengths and weaknesses of churches and their hospitality efforts.
Some congregations are more welcoming than others.
Many churches have no hospitality program.
Some congregations have welcome teams who are ready to tell you all about their ministry.
Two gave us a token gift — a mug and a candle.
Most think they are very warm and inviting, even those who don’t say a word to us.
Some have a genuine sense of caring that permeates the entire community. Three of the most welcoming churches we visited had no pastoral presence.
Some say “welcome” but seem a bit suspicious. We understand. There’s a lot of gossip out there. The bishop even sent a letter warning churches that we visit—including a number to call if we cause trouble. How welcoming can you get!?
That was three years ago and we’ve done no harm. None was intended.
The bishop’s unwelcoming tone trickles down. Think what the opposite might do. Clergy could play a big role in setting a welcoming example. They often do not.
We have noticed that pastors are rarely present during fellowship and often stay in the sanctuary or hallway, talking to a select few. That translates in the fellowship room to pockets of people talking to one another with no effort to include visitors.
In three years and 56 visits only one pastor wrote acknowledging our visit afterwards. When we followed up, the conversation stopped. One pastor called and met with us. His church ended up leaving the ELCA. Another pastor returned a call when one of our ambassadors called with a question. Pastors don’t want any part of the situation they helped to create.
In general, the welcoming approach of churches tends to be self-centered. They have a product to sell — membership. And with the purchase of this product you get the following benefits. The list that might follow is a little unclear.
Salvation?
Love?
Acceptance in our community?
The right to contribute?
The right to vote (until the bishop takes your vote away)?
The right to be part of something bigger?
The right to take the blame?
The responsibility but not the power to move the church forward?
The pleasure and satisfaction of doing things our way?
This may sound pessimistic and cynical but it is precisely the uncertainty that lay people face. If visitors are new to church, it is even more unsettling.
The approach of the church with every encounter — with individuals or with groups — should be filled with questions. Gracious, non-judgmental, questions.
How did you find us? What brought you here?
Where are you from? What is your work?
Do you have family? How can we serve your family?
How can we help you?
How can we get to know you?
Do you have a special burden we might be able to lift?
The approach toward visitors should not be list of “talking points”—programs offered, your congregation’s wish list.
It is the job of the church to love others. We can’t do that when we are always looking in a mirror.
In general, although our Ambassadors enjoy our visits, we very much look forward to our own worship once a month. There is no place like home, even if home is borrowed space in a local theater. We can sing the hymns we want to sing, pray the prayers we need to pray, know that the people we are communing with are not attacking us or taking what is ours or looking at us with judging and critical eyes—without ever talking with us outside a court room.
Putting a WELCOME sign by your front door is a promise. Keeping that promise is work that each member needs to be trained to do.
Ambassadors visit Holy Spirit before they give up the ghost
Redeemer’s Ambassadors visited Holy Spirit in Northeast Philadelphia on their last Sunday before their closing service. Pastor Sandra Brown invited us to return for the closing ceremony, but we told her, “Closing churches is not our thing.”
Pastor Brown greeted us when we came in and shared with us that everything was OK, they had gone through “the process.” We don’t know what “the process” is. Epiphany met for six months in our church as they went through “the process.” Holy Spirit, it seems, has continued for a year after the sale of their building. At Redeemer, “the process” was a locksmith hiding on a back street and five years of law suits. Our guess — “the process” is whatever works for the synod.
Pastor Brown is on the synod council that voted us out of existence. But there we were — in existence. She seemed to be unable to say our name. She introduced us as from East Falls. We corrected her that we are from Redeemer. But two more times she introduced us as from East Falls. That word—Redeemer—seems to be difficult for synod people to say. Even the bishop can’t say our name without prefacing it with “the former.” Keep pounding that nail.
We still claim that the Synod Council has no authority to vote churches shut without the involvement of the congregation. Call us by any name—Redeemer still exits.
Today there were 13 gathered for worship. After a year of a hopeless “process” you really can’t expect many more. Pastor Brown spoke to the people at length about what to expect next week and what they might be allowed to take from the attic in preparation for the archival vultures. The people seemed to be resigned.
Today’s service was prayer, hymns and selected verses from a few favorite hymns. We joined hands and prayed together. Earlier in the service, Pastor Brown had taken extensive prayer requests and almost everyone contributed. It appears that they will soon be scattered in fellowship, joining a few different congregations. At least they avoided the Redeemer strategy — transfer all of us OUT of the church at the first sign of resistance.
Pastor Brown explained that two churches were meeting here, they and Living Waters, the UCC congregation who bought the property a year ago. Why is it other denominations see promise in city neighborhoods while the ELCA sees nothing?
The trappings of another denomination were obvious—the overstuffed chairs lining the chancel. The sound of trickling water from one of those indoor fountains was in the background. Was that symbolic of Living Waters?
It was not clear why the church was closing. They had a settled minister for 18 years, so short-term pastors weren’t the problem. They are in the middle of a vast neighborhood of row houses, so there is plenty of opportunity to interact and serve. The building is a gem. Beautiful, low maintenance brick throughout, with a nice wing added to the sanctuary and a decent yard. Parking did not appear to be a challenge. We noted long ago, before we heard of their closing, that there was no web site and today a church is not likely to attract visitors without one.
Pastor Brown said only that the opportunity arose to sell the property and that was an indication that the time had come. Yet the congregation was only 73 years old. Pastor Brown had been their pastor for a fourth of their history. The entire life of the church was one average life span.
Pastor Brown reported that she had taken the training to be an interim pastor. This is becoming a popular option for pastors. We have long thought that interim pastors are a detriment. We recently read a noted authority agreeing with us. We think interim ministries, with short, vague commitments and few performance expectations (answerable more to the regional body than to the congregation), serve the occupational needs of today’s clergy — not the parishes.
We will be thinking of Holy Spirit next week as the synod’s clergy come to celebrate the closing service—a kind of macabre ritual. Strange—everyone coming to rejoice while the congregation is mourning. Again, not something we want to be part of.
While SEPA leaders gather to celebrate failure, we’ll be working to keep our church open. The Church as a whole cannot grow without strong neighborhood churches. You cannot serve neighborhoods without a neighborhood presence. Presence in a neighborhood cannot fulfill the message of God’s love while you attack members of the neighborhood.
We were happy to worship this morning with the remnants of an able group who could be the core of such an effort. But others know best.
We wonder if anyone will track what becomes of Holy Spirit’s members over the next year. They should. They should not just assume because memberships are transferred today that a year later, the members are still active. In our experience, which includes observing Roxborough’s Grace and Epiphany, most members of closed churches are unchurched a year later—and stay unchurched.
We left with an invitation. Redeemer meets the first Sunday of the month at 10 am at the Old Academy in East Falls.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA) has become a disciple of Seth Godin, the leading authority on marketing and societal change with a voice on the web. They have quoted him to their congregations.
Some organizations demand total fealty, and often that means never questioning those in authority.
Those organizations are ultimately doomed.
Respectfully challenging the status quo, combined with relentlessly iterating new ideas is the hallmark of the vibrant tribe.
SEPA begs its congregations to innovate and change. When they don’t change the way the synod has predetermined that they SHOULD change, they close them down and claim their property.
Redeemer is a case in point. Redeemer was growing quickly when SEPA saw their longed-for chance at claiming our property slipping away. Bishop Almquist had made an attempt to close us and seize our assets in 1998 and backed off after two years. But he refused to work with us in ministry if we didn’t accept the part-time pastor he had chosen for us. His call or no call.
We continued to grow without his help.
SEPA has a mission plan for small churches. They call it triage — shoving the smallest churches to the side and waiting for them to die, while attention is spent on larger churches with more promising prospects for supporting the hierarchy. Property values and assets DO enter the equation. A small congregation is better off if it has no assets than if it has an endowment! Compare Redeemer’s story with Faith/Immanuel in East Lansdowne.
Bishop Burkat loves to call Redeemer “former Redeemer.” We are not sure if she means Redeemer of the 1960s, Redeemer of the 1980s, or the Redeemer she visited with a locksmith in 2008 and spent the last five years suing. We exist if only so we can be sued!
Or maybe she thinks because Synod Council voted to close Redeemer in 2010, never bothering to inform the congregation, that Redeemer is closed. We notice in the latest ELCA yearbook that we are still contributing to the national church! Sounds like we are open!
Synod Council does not have the power to vote congregations out of existence. They’d know that if they read their founding documents. We reserve our constitutional right to challenge synod council’s actions when SEPA can provide a fair forum for hearing a challenge.
We recall very well our appeal in 2009 — which the Synod Assembly never voted on, substituting a vote about our property (not within their authority) when we were appealing Synodical Administration. Check the Synod Minutes and read the question that was voted on. It had nothing to do with our appeal!
Bait and switch. Then claim immunity from the law to pull it off in court.
Redeemer still exists in every way. Redeemer meets weekly — sometimes more often. Redeemer worships weekly —sometimes more often. Redeemer’s efforts to continue ministry— even as SEPA locked us out of the church we built and excluded us from all rights and fellowship within its fold—have grown our congregation in reach and influence despite persecution.
SEPA congregations are not powerless. They can still turn this around for the good of mission. But they have to respectfully challenge the status quo and demand peaceful reconciliation.
But what we’ve heard for the last five years is silence.
Redeemer is not closed. Redeemer is locked out of the Church by SEPA Synod.
Today’s visit was our first visit to a new congregation since we visited Trinity, Lansdale, in early January. We have made a couple of repeat visits—we don’t count them in our tally.
We attended St. David’s 11 am service, which their website claims is popular. It is a praise style worship service with a two-piece band. Nine church members sat together in the front and helped lead the music—all of which was of modern style. We knew a few of the praise songs but not all.
The service skipped a good bit of the liturgy although most elements were present. The Old Testament lesson, Psalm and Epistle lessons were skipped. So was the creed, although it was listed in the bulletin and was probably skipped by accident.
Replacing these were many praise songs.
The sanctuary is small and Spartan but tasteful in decor. Some Christmas imagery remained, appropriate for the last Sunday in Epiphany. The pastor, The Rev. Kevin Hilgendorf, explained that the angels and lights would disappear by next Sunday and the beginning of Lent.
There were about 60 in worship—just one family with young children and a few older youth. Generally the mix of ages was good. 60 fills the sanctuary pretty well.
The band leader led most of worship and did well. The congregation seemed to be very appreciative and cooperative.
This church seemed to have very close ties to the synod, which we frankly don’t see very often. Pastor Hilgendorf is a dean, a position which was once volunteer but is now paid by the synod. We think this is a major flaw in the reorganization of the 1980s as the deans are no longer independent and serving the congregations but are on the synod payroll and are thus biased.
There was a photo of Bishop Burkat in the narthex. It would never occur to anyone at Redeemer to put a bishop’s portrait in the narthex.
The pastor announced an upcoming event to meet the bishop.
Their website states that it was updated in January, but the most recent photos on the site were several years old.
There was mention of a generous gift that would help them with a certain expenditure and a deficit was mentioned. (Redeemer was not operating with a deficit.)\
Communion—Celebrating Unity — Except . . .
There was a scene at Communion. One of the children—Joshua, about three years old— insisted on being served communion. The pastor explained after the fact that although this is against the rules, there really was nothing wrong with it. It was easily accepted by the congregation. We say, way to go, Joshua!
It reminded us of one of our children, now grown. Redeemer made no issue of age at the communion rail. If a visiting pastor passed over a child, offering only a blessing, someone was likely to divide the host presented to them and hand it to the child. Our little member was not much older than Joshua when he was passed over by a pastor in a church the family was visiting. He returned to his seat with his family, fussing that he had been excluded. He made such a fuss that a stranger sitting in front of him turned and handed him a Tootsie Roll. The boy was doubly offended. “I don’t want that! he cried, refusing to be silenced with a bribe. He pushed his way into the aisle, intent on returning to the communion rail. He noticed that communion was over. “Oh, no!” he cried in despair. “Now they are putting it away, and I didn’t get any.” Redeemer members are spirited from the start!
Why do we teach exclusion? Communion really has little to do with understanding. The whole idea of communion passes all understanding. Joshua understood well enough! Redeemer knows how he feels! We’ve been excluded for four years — and not treated very well for years before that.
Passing the Peace
Before communion, as is usual, there was the passing of the peace. This is always difficult for our members but we are usually gracious in accepting the “Peace of God” from people who are part of the travesty the synod has visited upon our community, our congregation, and our individual members. Being passed the peace when there is no effort to work toward peace is troubling.
We know that the members of these churches often don’t know what’s going on. They accept without question what is told to them by synod officials. But the pastors know! We’ve made sure of that. It amazes us that the deliverers of the Good News have been content to let their actions, taken originally in ignorance perhaps, continue to go unchecked and unexamined while real pain is inflicted on the members of our congregation.
And so this morning one of our Ambassadors was overcome and left the sanctuary at the Passing of the Peace. When asked if she was all right, she said only, “I’m just fed up.”
And well she should be. This ambassador gave generously to her church, placing everything she has on the line to benefit the mission of the church. (Not unlike the story of the widow’s mite.) SEPA Synod walked in and scuttled the well-laid plans for ministry growth — eager to assume our assets in the face of their own $275,000 recurring deficit.
As the conflict grew — with never ANY attempt to try to work with our congregation — SEPA Synod has been content to allow her to suffer — to even lose her home and income as they smugly assert their rights which were not given to them by law but by the courts deferring to separation of church and state. The appellate court stated clearly that if the law were applied, Redeemer’s arguments should prevail.
Every SEPA congregation should be alarmed. But they are not under attack. It’s not happening to them, so they don’t care.
And so this good and caring Redeemer member, who sought NO personal gain, who wanted ONLY to help her church, has for the last four years faced the very real threat of losing her home. Her modest retirement income has been wasted by unnecessary legal fees (because SEPA can’t work with its churches without hiding behind the courts and separation of church and state).
This was our 55th visit. 54 churches have demonstrated that they do not care beyond the ritual words said in worship. 54 churches are among the 160 who followed leaders blindly. Several of them are now closed, too! And today this one Ambassador, when passed a meaningless peace, was fed up.
It’s a shame. The people of St. David’s seemed to be friendly and well-intentioned enough. But it is time for them and other churches (with equally kind-hearted members) to realize that it is up to them to control the actions of their leaders.
More Church Closings
Let’s Celebrate?
We saw in the bulletin that SEPA is closing another congregation. This one, Holy Spirit, was served by one of our pastor’s wives. The Rev. Sandra Brown serves on the Synod Council. Our last pastor, The Rev. Timothy Muse, also served on the Synod Council, disappearing shortly after Bishop Burkat was elected and shortly before she made her first moves on Redeemer. Pardon us for being suspicious of such connections. Caretaker ministries are an accepted strategy to wear down unsuspecting congregations who think they have called a minister to help them, while the synod’s understanding is that these caretakers will do nothing to help the church turn things around. They are serving as a prelude to closure — although its never described this way to the members paying the salaries.
We know nothing about Holy Spirit. We haven’t visited that church. They don’t have a web site and we tend to visit churches with web sites—as do most people, by the way.
We wonder if they have been neglected as so many small churches are. We wonder if they are victims of Bishop Burkat’s theory that churches have to be stripped of their heritage and started over under her control.
(A strategy is to give congregations “mission” status. The congregations think this is special help, but it really means that if efforts fail, the synod can claim their property. Clever! The congregations lose the rights to their property and they never saw it coming!)
Closing churches is not to be celebrated. It is usually caused by the failure of church professionals to provide the services necessary to grow a congregation.
The grand closing worship service has become a ritual to excuse poor performance.
Willis points out that large churches are historically a new phenomenon—only 100 years old!
2×2 has made this point for a while. Most churches set out to serve their own communities with little thought of growth.
When churches grow, it is usually because of societal change, not a dedication to mission, fueled by a carefully drafted mission statement.
Willis points to the rise of mega church as a result of mobility in society made possible by mass transit and a reliable highway system.
The article quotes Tony Pappas, an American Baptist minister:
So for the first time in human history, thousands of people could get to a one- or two-hour event and get home for lunch! So large churches, big steeples, big pulpits, Old Firsts came into being. As we think of them today, large churches have only been around for a little over a century–only 5% of the history of our faith.
Before the concept of mega church, most congregations were pretty much the same in their needs and mission. Pastors were expected to do the same things and there was little mobility. There was no need. Pastors served the same church for decades.
Today, a pastor may, in following a call, carefully calculate how accepting the call will position him or her for a “better” or more lucrative call in three years.
Meanwhile, the congregations still think they are calling a pastor for the long haul.
The article makes a case for the mega church as an attractive business venture. Business entrepreneurs supported large congregations as an investment.
The early mega churches included congregations of just 1000 or 2000 members. Today, the mega church aims for five times that number. (Churches with 1000 or more members are called corporate churches. There aren’t many of them either.)
A model church budget today relies on the support of 1000 members. Most churches with 1000 members have only 10% worshiping on a typical Sunday morning.
In our 55 Ambassador visits, we have encountered only a handful of churches with worship attendance of more than 100. Most of those were on holiday Sundays. The average attendance of all the churches we have visited has been under 50. One congregation listed its average attendance as 400 in its Trend Report. Attendance at the 11 am service the day we visited was 27 (including us, the pastor and the organist).
In the last 100 years, we have created a model that the Church and its volunteer memberships never set out to support. And can’t.
So here we are in 2013, looking at the ruins of our church. And we are still thinking — if everyone can just change and be like the one or two percent of churches that manage to reach “mega” status, all would be wonderful.
Pastors are still trained to serve congregations as if they are neighborhood congregations. When expectations don’t match reality, the laity are blamed.
Most lay people just want to join a church to worship. They never set out to reinvent it.
It may be Groundhog’s Day in Punxatawny but February 2, 2013, is 2×2’s second anniversary. Our experimental web site has been quite an adventure. Our ministry has gained influence and reach we never imagined and is poised to be an income asset for our host congregation, Redeemer.
In February of 2011, 2×2 had just one visitor for the whole month (and it may have been one of us). Last month we had more than 2100 first time visitors and that doesn’t include a growing number of subscribers and those who receive our posts via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Our cyber statistics make us one of the largest congregations in the ELCA. And we’re just getting started!
Our primary mission is to help small congregations with ministry challenges. We hope to do this even more in 2013. The Easter Play we posted last year has had 1000 downloads this year. Our weekly Adult Object Lessons has a regular following. And several church organizations have contacted us for help with web sites.
Our secondary mission is to be the voice of Redeemer. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has done everything it can to try to silence us — even suggesting that one of our members, an ordained ELCA pastor, be censored for speaking out on issues everyone else veils in silence.
2×2 has been an effective voice.
A surprise along the way has been the number of international friendships we have made and the youthful readership who make up the majority of our followers. 2013 will also be a year for building/nurturing these relationships.
Through 2×2, Redeemer is poised to take ministry to new places. We’ve earned our place in the ELCA which refuses to recognize our ministry, preferring our physical assets to our membership. Where is St. Lawrence when we need him!? (Turn us over. We are done on this side.)
It is time for those who decided in 2009 that Redeemer couldn’t survive and therefore they should have the benefit of our assets to reconsider their actions.
The resulting law suits have depleted what reserves there were for them to enjoy. The building has been locked to all for three and a half year — serving no mission purpose whatsoever. Yet good can still be salvaged.
The church is not a building. It is the people. The people of Redeemer have continued our ministry despite every obstacle thrown our way.
Under Lutheran governance, any synodical administration is temporary in nature. It’s constitutional purpose is to help congregations. The Articles of Incorporation make it clear that property belongs to the congregation and cannot be taken without a congregation’s consent. Most of the people who voted to do this had never read the Articles of Incorporation.
There is no reason why Redeemer with its physical and cyber assets cannot fund a full ministry. With a little nurturing it could be quite lucrative.
It is time to for SEPA to reconsider its actions in East Falls, return our property as they should under their constitution and restore mission to this neighborhood.
If this was about money, problem solved. We can afford our own ministry. We always could.
…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.—Romans 5:3-5
Today two Ambassadors revisited Trinity, Havertown. One of the Ambassadors had missed the last visit and had a special interest in visiting. In 1949, he had completed his seminary internship training in this parish. He didn’t expect to find anyone who remembered him from 64 years ago, although they have one congregational pillar who is about 101 who might recall him.
We found little had changed since our first visit. They still have a great choir which was about one third of the congregation, which numbered about 45. We were impressed with their dedication to their youth during our last visit. Today they were having a fund-raising spaghetti dinner to fund a mission trip for their youth to South Dakota.
So that’s why there is a picture of buffalo on their website!
Their web site has been upgraded in the last year and they are venturing into social media. Since December they posted about five blog entries. They seem to be posting them on their neighborhood patch.com, which we recommended to congregations some time ago.
We know social media ministry is work because we have done it. Web sites become effective evangelism tools when you post as close to daily as possible. (2×2 now has about 150 readers each day with 2000 new visitors per month. We’ve been posting daily for about 18 months now.)
The Book of Nehemiah Tells Our Story
The Rev. Dr. Dolores Littleton is Trinity’s pastor. For her sermon, she retold the story of Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. She did a faithful retelling, but we noted that she left out the intrigue, which is what makes the book of Nehemiah so interesting to us at Redeemer.
The people of Redeemer were (are) intent on rebuilding the church in our community after decades of neglect. You might think our denomination might support the work of its members but over the years our only meetings with SEPA were intent on wearing down the people of Redeemer, while SEPA carefully calculated how our failure might benefit them.
There is a chapter in Nehemiah where those in opposition to restoring the temple try to trick Nehemiah. Understand that 140 years had passed with no one lifting a finger to restore the temple. They hadn’t cared a fig that the temple lay in ruins.
Nehemiah shows up and sets out to do the impossible. He enlists the support of people who are willing to sacrifice to see ministry restored. Many of them have no Jewish roots! Only now do we find people, including religious leaders, interested in cleaning up after 140 years of neglect. They intend to take advantage once and for all. Failing that, they want to stop Nehemiah at any cost.
Frustrated that their early attempts to discredit the temple rebuilders are unsuccessful, they at last try to arrange meetings to “talk.” Nehemiah sees through the ruse and refuses to meet with them.
This is precisely SEPA’s strategy in trying to destroy the ministry in East Falls.
The ensuing five years has been little more than attempt of Bishop Burkat to save face and punish the people of Redeemer for making her attempts to take our property and cash assets more difficult than she projected.
The people who supported Redeemer’s rebuilding have been taken advantage of — just like Nehemiah’s workforce. Nehemiah put a stop to this, demanding that the people toiling and sacrificing for the temple be treated fairly. Sadly, there has been no such voice in SEPA Synod.
It is OK with the Lutherans of SEPA Synod if the people of Redeemer are left homeless (a real possibility, folks!) as SEPA claims all the congregation’s assets and pursues them in punitive court cases, which they undertake as they plead immunity from the law for themselves.
Like the Book of Nehemiah, the opposition has no real plan for Redeemer’s property now unused for worship or any other good purpose for nearly four years. They simply don’t want someone else to succeed where they never bothered to try.
We only hope that the story of Redeemer ends with ministry restored and the people revalidated— just as the book of Nehemiah ends.
The hard-hearted SEPA Synod shows no sign of returning to the word of God. There is no passion and voice to defend the workers.
Here’s the difference between Nehemiah and SEPA leadership. Much of the Book of Nehemiah is a list of names that would otherwise be forgotten today. This difference is probably the reason most people don’t read this book very thoroughly.
Nehemiah valued the people. He carefully recorded the names of the workers who risked their lives to complete the restoration of the temple. Their ancestry and affiliations are recorded for all time. Nehemiah cared about the people and their relationship with God. They were worth his attention, his work, and if necessary, the sacrifice of his life. He did all he could to protect them as they served the Lord.
The value of Nehemiah is in its detail. A lowly servant in the court of a foreign king had the wherewithal to restore Jerusalem.
The Book of Nehemiah — all of it — it should be required reading for Lutherans!
A friend wrote a note of encouragement this week to Redeemer, a congregation that continues to be abused by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA).
He wrote that our situation reminds him of a song by Alice Cooper of the 70s. He quoted a song:
“I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose. The Reverend Smith, he … he recognized me, and punched me in the nose. I said, ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy.'”
That doesn’t begin to describe how the Lutherans of East Falls feel about the way their denomination has treated them. But it’s as close as anyone in the church has tried to get.
The church has always relied on offerings from followers for survival. That reliance has meant different things in different ages. In Jesus’ time we know that there were followers, many of them women, bank-rolling the disciples and later the apostles.
As the Early Christian Church grew, the contributions became expected. Failure to contribute whole-heartedly was even a death sentence in one Bible passage.
As the church grew across different cultures, contributions took on different forms. Some contributed by going off to war to fight the infidels. (If successful, they might be rewarded with land and title!) Farmers and tradesmen contributed to feeding the large number of clergy and maintaining property. (If successful, their standing in the community would grow.) Artisans donated their talents. (If successful, they might find a patron and their art would preserve their names forever.)
Monetary tithes were never enough to keep church leaders comfortable and hence by the fifteenth and sixteenth century, church leaders had instituted a turnkey financial model. Pay to play or pay to pray. Indulgences. That incensed one young monk and the Reformation was on!
This was happening at about the same time as a bountiful mass of new land was discovered across the ocean. For the first time, there was someplace to go to escape the oppression of the church. Protestants began leaving in droves. Fresh start.
For years, many American churches copied the same model and congregations contributed their skills and work product to the maintenance of a parsonage and clergy. Monetary offerings were only part of the typical church budget.
Today’s clergy often laugh at these days, although there are few alive who actually remember them! They seem to forget that the contributions were made with love and sacrifice. A chicken given to the pastor was a chicken not available to feed the family.
In the most recent decades, clergy have been less likely to accept parsonage-based or non-monetary pay. Small congregations which thrived on non-monetary model through economically lean times were fairly suddenly priced out of existence. We are still experiencing the fallout from this shift in economic model of the modern church.
This doesn’t mean that things cannot change again.
2×2 believes that any church that relies solely on monetary offerings is scheduling failure. It may not happen for ten or twenty years but the path is fairly certain.
We have studied the statistics of congregations in our own denomination and regional body. Failure is the norm. It is almost universal. Large churches are in decline. Medium-sized churches are in decline. Small churches are the first to feel the pain. The others will follow. Survival is so tenuous that it outranks mission in budget priorities.
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
MISSION INSPIRATION OFFER
A visual and biblical guide to help congregations define their missions.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
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
Ambassadors Weigh Palm Sunday Options
