The religiously unaffiliated are now a force to be reckoned with—by the Church and by the politicians.
Politicians accustomed to measuring the religious right or the Roman Catholic vote, etc., before they draft their platforms have found that the most influential segment of voters is the growing group that affiliates with no religion. You know the type. “I’m spiritual but not religious” is their creed.
Add to the religious melting pot the Jewish vote, the growing segment of Islamic voters and religious “others” and you have a new political challenge.
It is far less easy to address topics that approach social consciousness like abortion, immigration and laws based on sexuality when you don’t know the creeds your voters adhere to.
It is probably a myth that voters adhere to church doctrine in the privacy of the voting booth. But now we have statistics to add to the confusion.
Should this worry the American religious?
A lot of mainline churches stopped taking stands on popular issues a long time ago, drafting social statements that are exercises in political correctness. Perhaps this has been the cue to the American religious to not weigh their vote against the teachings of any church.
There is now statistical evidence that Americans are thumbing their noses at any religious affiliation.
Doing what the natural competitors consider unattractive or uninteresting
Many business books show in great detail how companies that act in the right way can crush existing competitors. Successful disruptors almost never seek a head-on collision with established competitors.
Interesting advice. Churches almost never take it. Most churches set out to be like every other church within their denomination. Many of them fail.
This is the root of the thinking of the pastor who claimed the East Falls neighborhood had enough churches and therefore Redeemer didn’t matter. There is an assumption that all churches do the same things in the same way.
This is the thinking of church professionals. Church members know that every church is not the same. They know their attendance means more to them than just sitting in the pew and walking through the weekly rituals led by a different ritual leader. That’s why members who move from one neighborhood often hop in the car on Sunday morning to travel 30 miles to the church that feels like home to them. That’s why people shop around when they move to a new neighborhood. That’s why people care. We need more churches that are different.
Small churches cannot survive if they try to minister in the same way large churches do. This doesn’t mean they are unable to do strong and worthwhile ministry.
In our Ambassador visits, we saw several churches doing things differently and well.
Prince of Peace, Lawncrest, has made reaching out to varioius immigrant groups the cornerstone of its ministry.
Prince of Peace, Plymouth Meeting, is centering on issues that relate to family problems—serving families with members with autism and focusing on the effects of bullying within the family structure.
These are ministry niches that larger churches bypass. Remember, from a regional body’s viewpoint, a primary purpose for ministry is support of the regional body.
Unfortunately, there are other examples, some of whom are probably on Synod’s endangered list. (They deny they have one, but they referred to it in court. They claimed Redeemer was the first of six churches they intended to force into closure. Five congregations can thank us for slowing the slaughter.)
Larger churches would see service to these segments as charitable outreach. The efforts would not support their budgets. The bigger the church, the bigger the burden of the budget. Attention given to these ministries is therefore limited to the typical church budget for charitable outreach. If you are guessing that this is a minimal figure, you are probably right.
People served by these niche ministry churches would be lost in larger churches. It would take years to prove their leadership worth. If they are going to be active, they are going to be part of smaller ministries.
Redeemer, East Falls, learned this lesson. Naturally, older members discussed finding newer members who were “like them.” But they were with able to see beyond themselves, as painful as it may have been at times.
There was no need to maintain a mainstream-style church in face of neighborhood apathy for the way churches usually do business. It would have taken tons of money to support a minister for years to rebuild this kind of ministry after a decade of synodical neglect. But Redeemer was able to rely on other strengths. We had a decades-old reputation for having good daycare programs that the neighborhood traditionally supported. As a congregation we were open to the diversity that visited us. We had a part-time pastor for three years who facilitated this openness. We had lay talents that could serve and bring others into service quickly.
We built a valuable ministry around our strengths and did not try to fit our strengths into the mainline vision for church growth. We were succeeding.
Unfortunately, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America did not understand Redeemer. They were blinded by what they thought was easy access to our wealth. A lot of good ministry effort in East Falls has been wasted.
Eighteen months ago some of the remnant of Redeemer, East Falls, began visiting their sister churches that voted in 2009 to confiscate Redeemer property for their own enrichment.
Bishop Claire Burkat decided the way to transform Redeemer is to deny the congregation the services she is pledged to provide member congregations, make sure they have no professional leadership, lock out the loyal members, and sue their lay leaders. It is exactly as it sounds — ridiculous and cruel. Nevertheless it has been tacitly endorsed by the clergy and laity of a synod that is struggling and fearful that any misstep will find themselves undergoing similar “transformation.”
After our third visit, a pastor reported our activities to Bishop Burkat, which didn’t bother us. We saw nothing clandestine about attending church. We have made our reports quite public. As of this writing we have visited 52 SEPA congregations.
Bishop Burkat responded by issuing a warning letter to all pastors including instructions on what to do if we became disruptive—a new slant on the standard All welcome! sign.
Perhaps she thought we would behave the way her representatives behaved when they visited Redeemer.
But we didn’t set out to disrupt. We came to worship, learn and share. Period.
One of things we learned is how many of the congregations exist under the watchful eye of the synod. They are in transition with a synod appointed professional leader or they are in some form of mission development with clergy reporting regularly to synod.
One term cropped up regularly — transformational ministry. It actually is a common term used by church leaders, who have published many books on the subject. It sounds inspiring. It is really quite vague.
It is unclear what the term means.
It is unclear when it is successfully achieved.
It is unclear as to how it happens—if it happens.
Is is unclear if the term addresses a ministry model that is replicable or a fluke.
Generally, transformation seems to happen when a struggling church is by some means able to once again support the hierarchy.
This is a fascinating concept and one which Redeemer had unwittingly stumbled upon entirely ignorant that Harvard thinkers were concurrently developing a new business model that mirrored our experience.
Disruption Can Spur Success
Redeemer didn’t set out to be disruptive. Nevertheless, we had a track record for success in doing ministry in unconventional ways. The Synod and its voting membership never took the time to know or understand our ministry. They were better off without our people. “Hand over your money. Good riddance. We’ll pray for you. See you in court.”
It’s going on four years since East Falls Lutherans were locked out of the ELCA. Our visits reveal that SEPA has not experienced much innovation or transformation in the three years they have worked so tirelessly to exclude us.
We are going to look at the concept of Disruptive Success and see if it might be the catalyst that is missing as the church gropes blindly for “transformation.”
Look for at least four more posts on Disruptive Innovation in the Church.
Maybe it is time to seriously consider the value of the disorganized church.
Change is very, very difficult in the Church.
Why? There is really no desire to change. People rarely go to church to spearhead change and church leaders, as much as they talk about change, are really interested in change for just one reason.
Economics.
The Church wants to maintain the economic advantages it came to enjoy in the affluent Post World War II years. If the money were still flowing, if the Sunday Schools were even half the size they were in 1965, there would be no talk of change. If the building were maintained with salaries paid and if a healthy proportion of offerings were being shared with the regional and national offices (do we remember why?), then everyone would be happy.
There would be celebrations for the status quo.
Somewhere amidst the revelry the mission of the church will be left behind.
The catalyst for change is need—the more personal, the more imperative.
The need is there. The imperative is strong. But there is no strategy. We are all worried about just getting by! There is no money for mission.
Congregations are hurting. When congregations hurt, regional offices lose support. When regional leaders can’t pay tribute to the national office, you have a mess. The battle cry sounds. Change!
Under these conditions, there is a temptation to follow policies designed to mandate change. They don’t work.
Here is a link to a TED talk that addresses the problem of traffic congestion. How does this relate to church life? Watch it and see.
Here is a short vignette. It’s about the temptation to make plans and expecting other people to simply carry them out.
Back in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, an urban planner in London got a phone call from a colleague in Moscow saying, “Hi, this is Vladimir. I’d like to know, who’s in charge of London’s bread supply?”
And the urban planner in London says, “What do you mean, who’s in charge — no one is in charge.”
“Oh, but surely someone must be in charge. It’s a very complicated system. Someone must control all of this.”
“No. No one is in charge. I mean, it basically — I haven’t really thought of it. It basically organizes itself.”
It organizes itself. That’s an example of a complex social system which has the ability of self-organizing, and this is a very deep insight. When you try to solve really complex social problems, the right thing to do is most of the time to create the incentives. You don’t plan the details. People will figure out what to do, how to adapt to this new framework.
This is part of church life today. Regional bodies send “transition” experts to congregations and attempt to steer congregations toward newer, accepted, but not really proven, new ways of ministry. They are not recognizing what the people in the local churches know very well. It’s not working — no matter how hard you try, no matter how you veil the statistics.
The Church wants to control the distribution of bread. (No theological metaphor intended!)
What the urban planners dealing with congestion problems discovered is this: Attempts to mandate a change in driving habits had NO impact.
They didn’t achieve success until they found a gentle way to nudge drivers. The nudge was so gentle, no one even noticed that their behaviors had changed. Most people thought the changes were their idea.
The Church needs to learn to nudge. Lead, don’t dictate. We’ve been trying to force congregations to do the things hierarchy wants them to do for a while now. It isn’t working.
A little less organization. A little more incentive for grassroots initiative.
We tweeted a link to this compelling advice from one of social media’s leading voices.
Since we are just starting with Twitter and have a small following, we are providing a link on this post. His arguments are on target. Church leaders need only substitute the ecclesiastic equivalent to the business world to understand the analogy. His advice applies to any church serious about mission.
Here’s the link. Please, TWEET it as part of our experiment.
That’s when we find out how well you make decisions.
When you don’t have the resources to do it the usual way, that’s when you show us how resourceful you are.
And when you don’t know if it’s going to work, that’s how we find out whether or not we need you on our team.
Every small church is in this position. Many are finding out that they don’t need to structure their “team” quite the way they have in the past.
The “dead wood” (a term one pastor used in a comment on this site in reference to small churches that the synod wanted to close) may not be the congregations. If you are going to assess interdependent ministries, look for dead wood in all the interdependent branches.
We suspect you’ll find some withering main branches.
Small churches are finding that not only do they not need them on their team but they have been playing without their support for years.
I attended a convocation of churches this weekend. About 20 churches met to celebrate the Reformation, conduct some business and listen to some teachings offered by their bishop.
Today, as I waited for Hurricane Sandy, I went through the delegate list and visited every church website — at least those that had websites.
The websites were without exception static “brochure” web sites. A couple were very nicely designed, with full presentations of their ministry. Several others were minimal sites provided by directory services. A few had Facebook websites but they had done nothing with them except list service times. I was the ninth visitor to one of them, which indicates how effective they are.
Only one provided content that might attract traffic from outside their existing community and that was minimal.
As the Web matures we are starting to identify its evolutionary stages.
Web 1 describes the early days of the web from the early 90s, when organizations struggled with clumsy html code to produce static pages with no interactivity. Using the web well meant hiring some help. Help with technology is not on the approved list of church expenses. Organists and sextons are expenses church people understand. Web masters? Not in the budget. Pity! Web masters have real potential to influence the growth of a church! This has become easier.
News flash: You no longer have to know code to create attractive sites. Anyone can do it.
The move to interactivity began about 2004 and has been mushrooming. This is Web 2. Unfortunately many churches are locked in the frustrations they encountered in the infant days of Web 1. If fear of code and technical ability is stopping your church from using the web, relax. The web has become almost as easy to use for originators of content as it is for consumers of content. It is becoming more powerful every day — and that’s no exaggeration.
We can now become involved with the people who visit our sites. Isn’t Involvement why churches exist?
Web 1 influenced the world. Web 2 changed the world.
Most churches are barely embracing Web 1. This failure is creating a widening gap between them and their communities. Catch up is going to be a tougher and tougher hurdle. Still, there is a hesitance to believe that the web can be of value to church mission.
This is foolish.
The web can connect your congregation’s members.
The web can connect your congregation to your community.
The web can connect you to other churches with similar or complementary missions.
The web can connect you to the world.
It has never been easier to go out into all the world, yet the Church is late to the airport!
Congregations were never meant to live in isolation, yet we often do — barely aware of what the congregation a few blocks away might be doing. We view other churches as competition, not potential partners.
We are defying our mission.
Rabbi Herring discusses this in the essay we referenced in two previous posts (1 and 2). He suggests that organizations, including religious organizations are poised to enter a third era of Web capabilities— Web 3.
Having lived in the interactive era of Web 2.0 for not quite a decade, we have an understanding about the nature of online community, the need for a vital organizational web presence and the requirement of interactive and dynamic communication with constituents. While still in its early evolutionary stages,
I’d like to suggest that we are already in transition to a Web 3.0 environment. Web 2.0 meant that Jewish organizations needed to replicate their bricks and mortar presence online. Bricks and mortar and bytes and click ran parallel to one another.
Web 3.0 means that defining principles of online social media, like collaboration, co-creation, improvisation and empowerment must now be practiced in the physical world. In other words, the characteristics of the web that enable individuals to self-direct their lives must now flow back into all organizational spaces: in someone’s home, on the web or inside institutional walls. This is definitely another paradigm shift for organizations.
Rabbi Herring’s observations are astute. Those few congregations that have embraced the power of the media are about to take their interactive and collaborative experiences and transform what goes on within their brick and mortar churches. It will be the elusive formula for transformation.
We at 2×2 are starting to dip our toes into this water, cooperating with some of the churches that correspond with us. It’s exciting, It’s a little scary. But it is invigorating and promising.
Those that haven’t bothered to understand Web 1 and are oblivious to Web 2 will not reap the benefits of Web 3.
Someone said recently . . .
Bragging today about avoiding the internet is like bragging you can’t read!
Rabbi Herring suggests that there is a “club” aspect to religious life.
The rabbi and blogger discusses the way religious, civic and non-profits rotate leadership, sharing expertise. He recognizes that organizations benefit from working with a field of trusted leaders. But he points to a serious downside.
“In this model of involvement, there was a right way and a wrong way to get things done and one year’s program often served as the next year’s template. This pattern of involvement created predictability for organizations but, over time, unresponsiveness in addressing new community problems.…
“Yet, this informal rotation of leaders from one organization to the next created the appearance of a privileged club and also fostered a narrower sense of communal vision.”
This is often true within Christian leadership circles.
Just this week, I opened a newsletter from a local Lutheran Service Agency. I glanced at the Board of Directors. The names were familiar. Some of them had served on the same board off and on for decades. Other names I recognized from other Lutheran Agency and Synod boards, councils, and committees. Many of them, too, have been serving for decades.
A great pool of expertise . . . sure! But the same pool of leadership is likely to ensure that proposed initiatives will be cookie-cutter in nature. They aren’t settled in these leadership roles because they rocked the boat! They are appointed, elected, and re-elected because they are predictably safe in their leadership style.
Same people, similar thinking. At worst, the boards become rubber stamps for leadership. And all in all, there is an element of the “club.”
I recently read reports of the last Biennial Meeting of the ELCA. Wow! It was exciting. It was inspiring. It was moving. People had stories to tell. But I didn’t get a sense that anything happened, that problems were hashed out, that new directions were forged. It appears to have been a showcase for the leadership “club.”
Synod Assemblies, too, have a “feel good” (strike that) “feel great” ambiance. The voices of the Assembly are drowned out by the “show.” Participants must return to their churches pumped with stellar reports.
This was reflected in one of our Ambassador visits. One pastor introduced the lay representative to a Synod Assembly that had taken place just the week before. The young woman told of her thrill at being there, her awe in meeting the bishop, and the exciting worship expression. She added that she couldn’t remember much about the meeting part and didn’t understand a lot of it. But it was a great experience. She couldn’t wait to attend again.
If the Church is an organization charged with service in the world where service is most needed, you’d think there would be some sobering discussions leading to unsettling feelings, cries for solutions and service, and the introduction of new issues that might open a door for the interests of new leaders.
But church problems are pretty much glossed over in quickly read reports. Questions? You have 10 minutes. On to the next stirring worship service.
The Church can so easily become a club. If you are “in,” you work hard to stay “in.” If you venture to raise issues, you risk informal (or even formal) censure and you may never feel like a part of your church again.
Is it any wonder that people are not breaking down the door to get “in”?
Religion — at least the way it has been understood up until now — is facing a modern challenge. It has little to do with numbers. Numbers are just evidence of a major societal change.
It has to do with the way we are wired. Young minds — Generation Y and the Millenials — have known only an interconnected world. These connections were not organized for them by their parents or tradition. They were formed by each individual opting in and out of friendships, groups, and causes at will. More than that, these generations have been taught to use modern tools to initiate actions to address their sense of justice and righteousness.
The thought of joining a church, building trust, identifying a need, communicating the need, and then rallying volunteers and support to address the need is foreign to modern thinking. This is good! The old way is archaic and inefficient by modern capabilities.
Those of us still hanging on to the past may still value a well-run organization. We look for leaders who can work together to define goals and connect with people and resources to achieve goals. Our measure of successful participation is how well members obey and contribute.
Our children don’t care about “organizations.” They are not just avoiding organized religion. They are not joining Leagues and Service Clubs either. This is not a lack of empathy. They realize they don’t need to sign on as foot soldiers in a cause defined by someone else. They can create their own networks and contribute their passion their own way.
Independence from structure is just beginning to hit the Church, where structure is worshiped at the right hand of God. If the Church thinks we are going to come up with innovative programs to attract younger generations back into the pew to contribute to church community the way their parents or grandparents did, we are chasing a dream. An expensive, doomed to fail, dream.
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.
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Contact Info
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at
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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
