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Commentary

Why Churches Need a Church Social Web Site

19th century bank robbers

Why do people rob banks? That’s where the money is.
Why should churches use social media? That’s where the people are.

The web is the most powerful medium the Church does not use.

The web is no longer new. It’s been part of our lives for 20 years. With each passing year it is more integral to our society and lifestyle. And still a good number of churches have NO web site—not even a billboard presence.

The majority of churches WITH web sites don’t use them for anything but posting the most basic parish information. They are narcissistic. “We’re great! Come to us!”

It is not unusual to hear older people argue, “I don’t do computers. I’m not going to learn. I don’t want to spend the money.” It is often followed with, “Do you mind looking this up for me?”

Apologizing for not using computers is like explaining that you don’t brush your teeth.

There is no excuse.

Any arguments will fall on modern ears like this:

You don’t have a web site. That means you aren’t serious about your mission. Why should anyone take a second look at your ministry?

The web is how you reach people in today’s world. It may be the only hope for smaller congregations. Done correctly, it’s not a “Hail Mary” by any means. Done correctly it can be the catalyst of a whole new ministry. There are some basic questions to ask before you commit to a web presence or revise the site you now have.

  • Who do you hope to reach? If you are hoping to communicate only with members, you are wasting your time. You have the ability to reach thousands of people you never thought might find their way to your pages, but who do you see as your audience?
  • How are you going to announce your presence and spread the word? Turn to your members—especially your younger members. You will need them. (Knowing they are important to mission beyond their pocketbooks will boost morale.)
  • How are you going to respond to your online community?
  • What will appeal to your prospective readers visually and content-wise? Looks matter on the web. If your site is crafted in awkward HTML , it broadcasts that you are not serious or knowledgable. This does not mean you need tons of training or that you need to hire an intermediary. It is VERY possible to look very professional with only a day’s experience.
  • What do you expect visitors to get out of your site? Do you expect them to take any action? You have to ask them!
  • How do you want them to feel when they leave?

If your web site is nothing more than a list of worship opportunities and a list of staff these are not concerns for you. But if this is the type of site you have today, you are squandering a valuable resource.

Here’s our experience. Keep in mind as you read this that our regional body considered our ministry dead. We had no professional support and dealt daily with hierarchical hostility. All our property and monetary assets had been seized. Any church reading this is going to be in a stronger position than we were in!

Redeemer’s Social Media Ongoing Adventure-2×2

2×2 started this experimental site in February 2011—about a year after our regional body took our property and locked our members out. The Holy Spirit knows its way around locks!

Our property had already been empty for 16 months. We had been meeting in members’ homes, which was frustrating because we felt isolated and unable to serve as we had been. (Isolating us was part of the power game.)

We had a pretty comprehensive mission plan before all this happened. We revised it.

We no longer had a physical site we could invite people to visit, so we made the web site as welcoming as possible.

We built on our strengths. Redeemer worship was very inclusive and somewhat innovative. We had minimal pastoral presence for decades and had learned to do many things as lay workers. We expanded on this experience, drafting ideas for small church worship.

  • We began offering the same types of resources we shared weekly in our worship. Art. Music. Poetry. Plays. Worship ideas.
  • Since we were exploring Social Media, we reported regularly on our Social Media experiment and sharing what we learned.
  • As a congregation of immigrants (both historically and recently) we explored multicultural ministry.

Redeemer was always a small neighborhood church. We had no illusions of ever being a large congregation. 2×2 has changed our vision. We now have about 1000 readers a week. We have formed mission partnerships all over the world. We have gained authority in the areas we addressed. We lead search engine traffic in many of them.

Embrace Serendipity

If you implement this type of ministry, it will take you to places you never expected. You cannot control who reads you, likes you, or friends you on the web. You can prompt them to share, but you can’t make them!

You can control how you react. It will reshape your ministry. You may find that you didn’t just add a new feature to your existing ministry. You may be changing the whole way you approach ministry, allocate funds, and how people work together.

Enjoy the ride. 

Why do people rob banks? Because that’s where the money is.
Why should churches use social media? Because that’s where the people are.

Click to tweet.

01 Aug 2013

Redeemer Revisited: Part 1

A New Look at a Tired Situation May Be Prudent

Redeemer-LocklowresThis is the first post in a series that will advocate for revisiting SEPA Synod’s involvement with member church, Redeemer Lutheran Church, East Falls in Philadelphia, Pa.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA)of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) made claims on this congregation’s property in 2008. Their actions sparked five years of litigation.

There is ample room for revisiting the actions of SEPA today.

  1. If ministry in East Falls is the goal, we are on the same side.
  2. If attaining or protecting assets is the goal, the better economic decision might be to foster ministry as opposed to shutting ministry down.

Either way, the important point is that we should be on the same side. The stewardship of ministry and/or resources should be an objective. So should loving the people who make up our synod and upon whom all hope for ministry or the funding of ministry depends.

Why revisit Redeemer now?

Eight years passed between the time when Bishop Almquist looked at Redeemer in 1997-1998 and Bishop Burkat’s revisiting his decision. Things changed during those years but SEPA never adequately examined how they had changed. That was a mistake. Let’s learn from it.

Another five and one half years have passed since the 2008 land grab was attempted. Four years have passed since the court awarded SEPA our property — not on the basis of secular law or even on Lutheran law but on the basis of separation of church and state. Courts do not want to be involved in church issues. The dissenting opinion suggested strongly that the law and the church constitutions were on Redeemer’s side.

This means that justice in the Lutheran Church is the responsibility of each Lutheran. There is no room for even benign neglect of that responsibility.

Things have changed during this time too.

To not review the actions in this long and trying relationship would be another mistake. Great potential might be missed. The mistakes made in the Redeeme debacle will be repeated—over and over.

We’ll start the discussion in the five following topics (possibly more). We will look at how decisions made today will affect various aspects of many local congregations and neighborhoods, the Church as a whole, and the mission of all Lutherans.

These are some of the areas we plan to discuss:

  • Legality
  • Viability
  • Innovation
  • Community Impact
  • Short- and Long-Term Potential

We believe that the Redeemer situation poses questions that will impact dozens of congregations in the next two decades. Redeemer’s interests are also the interests of at least 30 other congregations we have visited who may be OK for today but face a very uncertain future as aging memberships lose their ability to hold things together.

Redeemer has learned a lot in the last six years. We will share what we see in a forthright manner. We will strive to leave the buzzwords and popular leadership jargon out of the discussion. The ELCA needs a frank discussion that focuses on the interests of the congregations — not the preservation of a system and protection of the interests of church professionals but the true reasons we bond together for mission in the first place.

As one of the beleaguered American Roman Catholic nuns, Sister Pat Farrell, commented tonight on 60 Minutes— “There doesn’t seem to be a safe place to talk about issues of differences. Where do people go?”

This is true in the ELCA, too. Redeemer has found no honest and open forum within the church. In fact, great effort was made to deny or control all discussion early on—when open and sincere discussion might have prevented five years of law suits and acrimony.

This forum will be open. We pledge to print any legitimate comment without any editorial response. Also, we invite guest posts on the topics we present.

Below is a form you can use to notify us of your desire to write a post on any topic we raise. Just let us know what topic you would like to address and how we can contact you. We will send you our editorial guideline (pretty simple).

Use the regular “Add your 2¢” comment box if you simply want to comment. There is no length limitation.

2×2 web site reaches about 1000 unique readers every week in addition to readers who subscribe by Facebook, Twitter or Email.

28 Jul 2013

Ambassadors Celebrate

Homecoming and Coming of Age

Today was the end of our third year of Ambassador visits. We stayed home and had worship, followed by a party. (68 church visits, BTW)

It was an especially joyous day as one of members was home from nine months overseas. It was good to be reunited.

We actually saw each other several times this week, bumping into each other just like the old days. It was especially good to see our young people trying to reconnect.

SEPA Synod’s view of Redeemer was that we were a bunch of old ladies who would be dead soon enough. We wouldn’t have the energy to resist. Need money? Easy pickings in East Falls.

But Redeemer’s demographics were actually the youngest of any Lutheran church our Ambassadors have visited. It was not unusual for children to outnumber adults on Sunday morning. We had very few people who could be considered old.

A lot had changed in the eight years since Bishop Almquist nurtured that indelible impression and during which SEPA Synod ignored us.

And then another six years passed while Bishop Burkat tried to destroy Redeemer one way or another.

A funny thing happens in eight years, followed by six years (two thirds of the history of SEPA Synod). Our children grew up.

Since 2007. Redeemer’s cradle role members are now in first and second grade. Redeemer’s grade school kids are now entering high school. Redeemer’s high school youth are now entering graduate school or the work force.

Synod has been so focused on destroying the adults that they never stopped to think about how their actions in East Falls affect the children. Land and money remains their only consideration.

I’ll never forget the Sunday after Bishop Burkat followed four months of silence with a letter announcing she was closing Redeemer. Our last meeting with her had been all about working with Synod. She broke every promise made to us without a word.

Of course, when all this ugliness was going on, we did our best to protect our children. On this Sunday, following the edict (don’t believe the “mutual discernment” nonsense), two synod representatives appeared at worship. Rev. Patricia Davenport and the Rev. Lee Miller were sitting right beside the children as they gathered for the children’s sermon.

The children came forward wanting to talk. We usually let them talk during the children’s sermon. We typically asked them what was going on in their lives before we settled in for a message. This week they were upset. You see they had seen their parents crying.  “Daddy got a letter and was crying,” one six-year-old said.

They were probably surprised and confused that on this morning, when they needed to talk more than usual, their concerns were deflected.

The sight of a parent crying, especially a father, is troubling to a child. We should have talked it through with the children right then and there. But then the people responsible for the family’s pain were sitting within arms’ reach. The word “smugly” comes to mind. They seemed clueless to what they were witnessing.

Awkward moments in worship.

But today the children are older. As we talk now, we make no attempt to hide anything from the young adults. At one point, I invited them to go off and enjoy kid talk.

“Nothing doing,” one boy said. “I’ve heard bits and pieces of this over the years, but this is the first time I’ve heard all this. This is really interesting.” And so we shared our story with a new generation — now old enough to vote in the church.

As the father told the son, I always thought that if our story were told, any reasonable person would side with Redeemer.

Lack of dialog has characterized this entire conflict. Reason has held little sway.

Redeemer is not closed. We are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.

Our children still care about Redeemer. They will always know what it feels like to be shunned by their church leaders, excluded from the church that had once welcomed them in baptism, and how their parents were attacked in court for five long years.

We learned what they are doing. The young man who often helped lead Redeemer’s children’s sermons now holds a home Bible study. (Redeemer had no shortage of leaders and was grooming a new generation.) Another boy attends church with a school friend. Most remain unchurched as is typical of the membership of closed churches. Another falls back on his Quaker school upbringing. (A good number of Redeemer kids attended Quaker schools.)

Several families that were united at Redeemer are divided in exile.

Bishop Burkat was quite up front with her insistence that the memory of Redeemer be allowed to die. The church’s version of scorched earth policy. If the church was to reopen it had to have a new trendy name. The members of Redeemer could not play a leadership role in any “resurrection.” They would remain dead while SEPA searched for more compliant East Fallsers (good luck!) or shipped in outsiders.

She thought the death process would take six months. That was five years ago.

And now we know.

Redeemer’s spirit will live for another generation.

Let’s hope a resolution is reached that will restore our children’s faith in Christian community—for everyone’s sake. It’s high time.

Praise God for this special day.

28 Jul 2013

Addressing Fear in the Pew

fearful eyesHow to keep fear from crippling your congregation

Sometimes when analyzing mission and ministry it’s helpful to put ourselves in the pew—to sit figuratively next to each parishioner or visitor and ask, Why are you here?

This is a different question than the more often asked question, Why don’t people come to church?

Why do loyal church members come week after week to participate in the same rituals? What are they thinking as they wait quietly in the pew for the organ music to begin? Listen patiently for the answer. It might not be the first thing that we imagine.

Many people come to church with some form of fear.

There is nothing more humbling than fear.

  • Fear of inadequacy.
  • Fear of failure.
  • Fear of authority.
  • Fear of consequences.
  • Fear of loneliness.
  • Fear of not fitting in.
  • Fear of pain or discomfort.
  • Fear of death.
  • Fear of loss.
  • Fear of the unknown.
  • Fear that dreams will never be achieved.
  • Fear that nightmares will never end.

And so we seek relationship with God. But how do we build relationships when we are so afraid?

This is the crisis that brought the disciples to Jesus with this week’s Gospel plea.

Lord, teach us to pray. 

Prayer, we hope, will relieve our fears. Prayer will show us a path through the maze of uncertainties. Prayer will be there when all else fails.

But what happens when prayer fails us.

The temptation is to drop away from Church—distance ourselves from God—fill every minute with activity to avoid facing our deepest concerns—hide like Jonah in the belly of a ship headed far away from our problems.

This happens to us as individuals and collectively as church leaders.

How do we nurture the relationship we already have with God? How do we use that relationship to build relationship among God’s people?

A congregation, its members or leaders, cannot serve when cowed.

We all know the first answer Jesus gave to the disciples. The opening words to the Lord’s Prayer used every week in every church.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Jesus adds important advice.

Keep at it. Just keep at it.

The people who are in church are heeding Jesus advice. Do we take them for granted? Do we overlook their problems and fears as we seek to solve bigger, more selfish, church problems?

The church that actively addresses the fears of the people who enter a sanctuary week after week (no matter how few or how old) will be ready to recognize the fears brought through their doors by their next visitors.

We all come with baggage.

T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.

photo credit: alles-schlumpf via photopin cc
24 Jul 2013

On Looking People in the Eye

boy looks owl in the eyePreferring to Work with Strangers

Today’s church is in trouble. Everybody in the church knows it. Some (fairly few) congregations are still large enough to get by without facing the new age but most churches are feeling just how tough the next two decades are likely to be.

The answer in our area of the church (the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) has been to check out on the people who have brought the church this far. They prefer to look for new faces to deal with—if they can find any. New faces will be easier to manage. They have no heritage at stake.

That was said to us at Redeemer in so many words by Bishop Claire Burkat.

White Redeemer must be allowed to die.
Black Redeemer . . .  we can put them anywhere.

Beyond this, when it looked like the judge was going to rule in our favor, Synod scurried and wrote a proposal to the judge. The proposal was that they would reopen Redeemer under their control and our current members were welcome to attend but would not be allowed any leadership role.

The judge sidestepped all the issues and ruled that he has no jurisdiction in church affairs. The appellate court ruled in its dissenting opinion that if the law were applied, Redeemer’s arguments should have been heard.

SEPA has hidden behind this dubious win and interpreted it as having free reign. In fact, they have free reign as long as members do not exercise their constitutional roles in running their church. The courts don’t want to do this job for you.

The problem with this conflict is that from the start, SEPA refused to deal with members. If they were to have any presence in our community, they wanted it on their terms with different people, who we can presume would thrive as long as they voted the right way.

Seth Godin addresses this modern phenomenon in our society in today’s post.

When we want to deceive or lash out, it’s easy to do. Hey, there’s always someone else we can start over with, relationships and even reputations are disposable. We don’t have to look you in the eye, it’s dark in here, and we’re wearing a mask.’

He calls this approach “an experiment in fake.”

It turns strangers into actors on a screen, and sometimes we help them, but often, we become inured to their reality, and treat them with a callousness and indifference we’d never use in our village.

Recently, I was cleaning out the home of a deceased pastor. I found a folder on a prominent table. In that folder was The Lutheran article about the life and death of one of the founding leaders of the Lutheran Church in America, Dr. Franklin Clark Fry. With it was an article from Time magazine that called him “Mr. Lutheran.” There was also a bulletin from his funeral.

Then on June 6 of this year, someone from this pastor’s family called me to honor Dr. Fry’s “glory day.”

I was surprised that anyone would recall a death of a church leader in 1968 and that they would think to call me. I am only remotely connected to Dr. Fry. His grandchildren are my cousins. But I was struck by the power of his leadership and influence. I’d heard plenty of stories about him as I grew up—mostly about how he insisted that congregations and clergy follow the rules. He would meet personally with people when he could have mailed a letter or picked up the phone.

His leadership had lasting influence.

That influence is waning as Lutheran leaders exert less and less power with more and more force.

The people they lead are treated as expendable. If you don’t think so, try disagreeing.

When this happens in the church — an institution that is supposed to matter — things get phony fast.

Our leaders no longer know the people they are leading. They never deal with them. They use clergy as intermediaries. They don’t respond to mail or email. They speak to us through letters and email blasts and call it “mutual discernment.” They deny us voice and vote in Assembly and rely on no one enforcing the rules—or even knowing what the rules are.

They are afraid to look their own people in the eye.

As Seth says. When you look people in the eye, you own the results.

You want to resolve things in East Falls? Look us in the eye.

photo credit: pcgn7 via photopin cc
22 Jul 2013

Teaching Hospitality in the Modern Church

It’s Got to Be Carefully Taught

Hospitality is a theme of today’s lectionary texts, most notably the story of how Jesus was welcomed by Mary and Martha and how Sarah and Abraham welcomed the three mystical guests in the desert.

There were rules for hospitality in Bible days. Life was more precarious. Failure to welcome a traveler in the desert was to risk the stranger’s life.

There was a time when our society had a code of etiquette that included hospitality. Although etiquette and hospitality are different, the two become intertwined and so sometimes we think that because we are not impolite that we are hospitable.

Hospitality is an evangelism skill set that needs to be taught and nurtured, especially among our young.

We’ve spent the last generation teaching our children to be wary of strangers and that translates into how they have learned to welcome strangers who enter our churches.

In many cases our young people, now adults, have learned the lesson. Don’t talk to strangers.

Hospitality must be modeled.

Church leaders—clergy, staff, elected representatives—must be trained in hospitality and actively model a welcoming attitude every time the church doors are open and whenever they talk about their church with others. Always end a conversation with an invitation.

I learned this from watching my father who was a career pastor. He’d encounter someone on the street or in a store who might have been absent from church life for a long time.

He’d greet them warmly.

“Hi, George. How are things with you? We missed you at the midweek service last Wednesday (whatever the most recent event had been).”

The response was always the same.

“You missed me on Wednesday? I haven’t been in church for five years.”

“We missed you all the same. I hope we’ll see you next Sunday.”

Hospitality must be taught.

This can easily be done through the vehicle of the children’s sermon. The adults will be listening. Teach the children to introduce themselves and to shake hands with one another, with the congregation, and with visitors.

Many people don’t greet visitors because they don’t know what to say.  Teach the children some scripts. They will come in handy for everyone.

Welcome. Is this your first visit to [name your church]?

Are you visiting or do you live near by?

These two questions are enough to get a basic conversation started. Assure people that the answers to these questions will spark the next questions.

 What’s your work?

Do you have family in the area?

Is there anything I/we can do for you?

Tell us about your family, church or concerns.

The problem with hospitality is that most churches think they are very welcoming. The sign out front says welcome. The bulletin says welcome. They gave you a seat in a pew. They passed you the peace during the liturgy. That’s enough.

Our Ambassadors have visited 66 local churches. We frequently come and go without a single word.

It’s easy to remember the churches that welcomed us with conversation, with offers of help during the service, or with an invitation. There aren’t that many!

18 Jul 2013

The Book of Sirach

Ageless Teaching for Modern Preaching

Where can you find the Book of Sirach?

Not in the Protestant Bible.

The Book of Sirach is just beginning to creep into Protestant scriptural teaching.  It is written in the style of Wisdom literature — like Proverbs.

This interesting book has been around a long time, flirting with broad acceptance. It holds a strong position in Jewish literature. Scholars believe Jesus was familiar with its teachings and referred to it in some of his most memorable quotes.

At pivotal times in religious history, the years the great minds of Christianity were deciding what would become part of accepted Christian scripture, Sirach was hiding behind the cathedral doors. Scholars just weren’t sure of its authenticity. This was reviewed at least twice—in the early years of the Christianity and again in the years of the Reformation. At this point, Protestant church leaders rejected it while Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Christian traditions included it.

Then came the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946-1956. These carefully hidden manuscripts, unearthed after 1900 years shed new light on old thinking. There, among the crumbling scrolls, was the Book of Sirach— the writings of Joshua ben Sirach, great teacher of religion in Jerusalem and Egypt, predating Jesus’ walk on earth by about 175 years.

And so, today, with this new evidence of authenticity, the words of Sirach are finding their way into Protestant churches, proving that good teaching is ageless (and better than riches).

Here’s a sample. Every school child of any religion, might memorize this. (Each couplet is a plot foundation for an upcoming television drama!)

Sirach 6:5-17

A Faithful Friend

A kind mouth multiplies friends,
and gracious lips prompt friendly greetings.

Let your acquaintances be many,
but one in a thousand your confidant.

When you gain a friend, first test him,
and be not too ready to trust him—

for one sort of friend is a friend when it suits him,
but he will not be with you in time of distress.

Another is a friend who becomes an enemy,
and tells of the quarrel to your shame.

Another is a friend, a boon companion,
who will not be with you when sorrow comes.

When things go well, he is your other self,
and lords it over your servants;

But if you are brought low,
he turns against you and avoids meeting you.

Keep away from your enemies;
be on your guard with your friends.

A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter;
he who finds one finds a treasure.

A faithful friend is beyond price,
no sum can balance his worth.

A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy,
such as he who fears God finds;

For he who fears God behaves accordingly,
and his friend will be like himself.

 

 

 

17 Jul 2013

A “What If” Good Samaritan Story

You all know the story of the Good Samaritan—how the authorities of society, the priest and the Levite—passed by the man in need.

Here is a new —only slightly different—scenario to ponder.

What if the priest (the first to run away) was actually the person who robbed and beat the victim?

What if the Levite (the keeper of religious law) were the interdependent church entities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)?

What if the victim was a little church in East Falls?

We have one question for SEPA Lutherans (and the whole ELCA) on this upcoming Good Samaritan Sunday.

Who is your neighbor?

We know who our Good Samaritans are and thank them.
12 Jul 2013

A Consistent Church vs A Remarkable Church

The Revival Is Coming to Town

There is a rhythm to congregational life. Those who are well-rooted in the Church understand and appreciate it. Church people like to start the week with an expected liturgy, a comforting quality of music, a familiar voice in the pulpit, the arm of a loved one around their shoulder.

All of this is good.

The problem is it is not remarkable. In other words, people won’t talk much about it, the Word will not spread beyond those already part of the fold.

Congregations need to create this discipline, but they also need to create experiences that will be remarkable.

Remember the days when the revival came to town. That was remarkable. People went out of their way to attend. They may still be talking about it years later.

Such events are rare today. The great revivalists are all on TV.

But congregations need the kind of energy that an unusual event creates now and then. It energizes the membership and creates buzz (evangelism) in the community.

A successful event builds the congregation’s confidence. It helps members become invitational.

It will soon be time to plan the 2014 calendar. Be intentional about planning some special events—at least one a quarter.

Special events give members something to work on together thereby strengthening community. It creates a sense of accomplishment and builds congregational self-esteem.

Holding special events forces everyone out of a rut. You’ll have something to publicize. You’ll have an excuse to ask for help from unusual sources, broadening your network.

Here are some ideas. (Add your own.)

  • Sponsor a local hands-on service project
  • Perform a play or cantata
  • Create a pulpit exchange
  • Get involved in church camping
  • Host a Vacation Bible School
  • Invite local school groups to sing
  • Have a sing off with other church choirs
  • Have dinner parties with a theme
  • Hold prayer meetings
  • Piggyback a neighborhood event (flea market or picnic)

Schedule events at times that will attract visitors and community engagement.

Give people something to talk about! Evangelize!

11 Jul 2013

Branding in the Church

Do We Know Who We Are?
and if we don’t,
How Can We Expect Anyone Else to Relate to Religion?

Today, I’d like to link to a discussion published on the Grow Blog.

Two marketing experts and a rabbi discuss the meaning of brand in today’s society.

The foundational argument is that brand matters to people who want to belong. We proudly walk the streets wearing grungy t-shirts that advertise the causes—including commercial causes—we want people to know matter to us. In our minds we aren’t advertising the company (although we are). We are broadcasting that we somehow relate to this service or product, and we want people to know it.

The companies want people to know it, too!

Branding, the discussion suggests, addresses a fundamental need to belong to something bigger than ourselves.

That used to happen in church. Religion used to define a big part of our lives.

Not so much anymore. We worship at the altar of technology, beauty, comfort and fun and choose an occasional charity at our convenience. The Church gets this nod of convenience at Christmas and Easter.

Read the discussion.

How does this thinking relate to the community of believers? What are we going to do about it?

10 Jul 2013