Today marks the fourth year that the members of Redeemer have been locked out of our sanctuary by order of Bishop Claire Burkat, bishop of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA).
Four years ago, on this date, the Rev. Patricia Davenport came to our church on Sunday morning and oversaw the changing of locks. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy!
Today I drove past our locked church and noticed that the streets were uncharacteristically parked full. Bishop Claire Burkat had criticized our church for having no parking lot. “A church with no parking lot cannot survive today,” she said. We explained that parking had never been an issue at Redeemer, but the truth did not serve her purpose. Bishop Burkat’s argument was self-serving nonsense. Many of the churches we visit have no parking lots, including Saints United, where we visited this morning.
There is a reason the streets were parked full this morning. Across the street from our sanctuary, a new church was holding its first service in the public school auditorium. Apparently, the lack of a parking lot is not deterring them. The doors were wide open an hour before the advertised worship hour and people seemed to be plentiful.
We are disappointed. While the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has sat on its hands in mission for four years, two other churches have begun meeting in our neighborhood. Epic meets at the local movie theater. and now Authentic Life Ministries is meeting next to our empty sanctuary. In addition, a Presbyterian branch holds house worship in our neighborhood.
As for Lutherans—nothing.
All the excuses Bishop Claire Burkat gave to justify her lust for our property and endowment funds are pretty well blown away. SEPA’s behavior in East Falls was a covetous land grab. They will always have difficulty establishing a church in the neighborhood where they spent four years suing church members. Perhaps they think the rest of East Falls doesn’t know about them. They do! We still live here. People will not be lining up to come to a church that sues its own members.
If the ELCA wants a Lutheran presence in this part of Philadelphia, where two Lutheran churches have closed in the last ten years, our doors have been locked, and the only remaining church is barely alive, they should start talking to the members of Redeemer and working with us for a change. The last six years of costly legal battles might have been avoided had this been attempted earlier. All their nonsense excuses—parking, demographics, no clergy willing to serve— are proving with each passing day to be pitiful.. They wouldn’t listen to their own people. Now other denominations are taking advantage of their failures. Talk about LOSE-LOSE scenarios!
But then, despite their rhetoric about wanting a word and sacrament church here, they tipped their hand in 2008, when they offered our property for sale to a Lutheran agency behind our backs.
It’s never been about mission. It’s always been about money. When money from live churches isn’t rolling in, create some dead churches and take their properties. A strange economic stimulus program, indeed!
Redeemer’s Ambassadors took a Sunday off. We each had personal plans for the day.
Today I was entertaining one of my oldest friends.
She is visiting Philadelphia for only the third time in her life. It was her first visit outside of center city. She came to attend a four-day meeting being held in East Falls.
Having her as a house guest was a little intimidating. Her mother had been my home economics teacher in high school. But my fears that my house-keeping and hospitality would not be up to snuff were groundless.
We met when we were twelve, when my father, a Lutheran pastor, changed parishes. We sang together in church and in school—girl’s trio and choir. We were friends through college. We hadn’t seen each other in more than a couple of passing encounters in nearly 40 years.
We lived in a small town—farming, coal and steel country. We were friends in both church and school. Many of our school teachers were church members, so the lines were always blurry.
We walked a lot of East Falls together during her four-day visit. We walked through the parks, along the Schuylkill River and Wissahickon Creek, the various campuses (college and high school) and I showed her the churches. Her meetings were being held at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, the church Bishop Burkat helped in ministry at the same time she was trying to take our property. I showed her our locked building. The lights were left on, so it was easy.
As we talked with people we met during her visit, she still identified me as their preacher’s daughter. Some things in life I’ll never be able to shake.
We attended a performance at the playhouse where Redeemer began its ministry in 1891 and where we now hold Sunday morning worship. My friend worked in summer stock theater, so she was interested to see the local theater club. We talked with fellow playgoers. Whenever we encounter anyone from East Falls, the topic of Redeemer comes up. Some things SEPA will never be able to shake!
My friend commented at the sense of community she experienced in East Falls.
We are that. Our people and our history mean something to us. That’s something the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America cannot understand.
For them, East Falls is all about how much money they can get from us. Our people—our history—our passion for ministry—are obstacles to them. We are just in the way.
Pity!
Here’s an idea. We can take SEPA representatives on a similar tour. We’ll walk you around our town. We’ll show SEPA where our members live and where we got our start. We’ll share our history and our personal faith journeys and what has happened to our members since we were locked out of the Lutheran Church. We’ll introduce you to the people SEPA has taken advantage of. We’ll share our mission plan—yes, we still have one!
Maybe then, you’ll know something about us. Maybe you’ll see us as people, fellow children of God. Maybe that will prompt some right actions and justice in the Lutheran Church.
This is a term familiar to marketers. It refers to niche marketing. Major retailers are generally interested in selling lots of just a few products. The emphasis is on creating products that will appeal to everyone.
This traditional business model is why it was hard to get a book published. Publishers wanted to make sure it was worth printing 100,000 copies minimally. If your interest was canoeing in Nepal or the life-cycle of spiders, you were out of luck!
The internet has made it possible for products that appeal to smaller audiences to be profitable, too. In fact, there is great potential in recognizing the people who go against the mainstream. It is a numbers game. There are an awful lot of people in the world!
The result in the publishing world, with which I am most familiar, has been an exciting explosion of new titles.
Jesus’ approach to ministry describes the long tail. Seek and serve the marginal members of society—everyone from the rich man and educated Nicodemus—to the dead, infirm, and dying—to the women and children with no status—to the foreigners.
As the Church grew, every neighborhood was a “niche.” But today, the Church is abandoning its strength, hoping for economic strength in size.
This may be a long-term disaster.
Large churches are not filling the gap of the abandoned small faith communities. A few are growing slowly but most are in decline. People like to worship with people they know. Being part of a crowd may be fiscally desirable, but faith doesn’t work that way. Most churches will continue with memberships hovering between 100 and 300 ( a third of them active) until the Church abandons them. That’s the way it’s always been and it follows the findings of sociology that it’s the way it will always be.
We already know the small church works well—perhaps even best. The challenge to the Church is to keep small churches viable and in keeping with their expectations. This requires entrepreneurial thinking which is not prevalent in the Church.
Churches like to do things the same way (while preaching transformation). They have an expensive infrastructure that resists change and requires size.
The concept can even be seen in their approach to mission.
Redeemer’s membership was always an immigrant population. Early members were western European. The immigrants of recent years represented five continents. Many from East Africa found their way to our door. We welcomed them and they were part of a truly transforming ministry.
The Synod, on the other hand, had a different vision for us. The older immigrants and their descendants had to die. (They waited eight years for this to happen at one point in our history—2000-2008). But new members came along. Their plan was not working.
Their pronouncement: White Redeemer must be allowed to die. Black Redeemer . . . we can put them anywhere.
Actually, SEPA had a vision for a Pan-African church. Something big. Something to boast about. Something that could exist without bothering white Lutherans.
A Pan-African Church! When you realize the size of Africa, the concept is ridiculous. Africa is a BIG place, with varied customs and cultures. Our African members were amused at the idea. “They don’t speak our language in Zimbabwe!”
This is nothing new. Chestnut Hill, Mt. Airy, Germantown, Roxborough, Manayunk and East Falls look so close on the map. The managerial temptation is to try to unite them for efficiency and cost-savings. Four church closings in this area have not bolstered the memberships of the other churches. (Advent in Mt. Airy, Grace and Epiphany in Roxborough and the seizing of land in East Falls). (Shh! The doors may be locked, but we are still open!)
Urban people know their neighborhoods are distinct. So, too, are their ministries.
With size and managerial motives (among others, we suspect), SEPA Synod orchestrated the closing of our growing viable community congregation. Their plan (never discussed with our leaders) was to set our white members free to fend for ourselves (excommunicate us) and assign our black members to another site. Result: 82 Lutherans locked out. A squandering of new blood!)
Unfortunately, when you close churches in the neighborhoods where immigrants live, you take the resources that would serve them. Everyone in the neighborhood loses and the takers of the property get only a short-term advantage as they quickly spend the assets the communities developed over a century.
The future of the Church may be in rediscovering its past. The trick will be finding a way to make Long Tail Evangelism fiscally viable. The more active and inviting the ministry, the more realistic this will be.
If the Church is to be successful in recognizing the benefits of Long Tail Evangelism, they must help congregations explore the use of their assets for ministry, not seize them for their own financial fix.
The result is long-term loss to faith, community and potential.
Perhaps it is time we return to Jesus’ approach. Love that long tail.
Lutherans believe the autonomy of a congregation is powerful and so congregations own their own property. Their ministries are controlled by lay government—not clergy. Clergy have influence but not control.
Our founding documents call this interdependence. Congregations depend on regional and national bodies to provide competent church leaders. There was a time when they depended on them for other things, too—managing foreign missions, social services, and providing educational and worship materials, advice and inspiration.
In the new information age, these roles are significantly diminished. Local parishes sense that hierarchies are less effective—a financial burden that is crippling to small church ministry. (Most churches are small.)
National church and regional bodies are totally dependent financially on local churches (not the other way around). Under their prescribed interdependence, congregations have no financial obligations to the regional body or national church. Congregations can vote with their pocketbooks.
In fact, in 2010, when there was a great doctrinal rift in the ELCA, some regional bodies promised their member churches that their offerings could be set aside and not sent on to the national church with whom they were unhappy.
It is hard for churches with hierarchical traditions to understand. But it is foundational to Lutheran thinking. Regional bodies exist to facilitate ministry.
In the world of church this is called “congregational polity.” It is protected by the founding documents of the ELCA and individual synods’ Articles of Incorporation. These are rarely read. They state:
Bishops cannot convey property of a congregation without the consent of the congregation.
Synod Assembly’s powers are limited by the Articles of Incorporation.
There is no right to seize or vote on congregational property.
Interestingly, predecessor Lutheran bodies went even further. Synods were not allowed to own property at all. They knew it would change the mission of church leaders. This is a deeply rooted concept of Lutheranism—one of the bugs in Martin Luther’s crawl.
Today Synod Assemblies are unfamiliar with their governing rules and polity. The last few years of cozying up to denominations with different polities have obscured our awareness of our own tradition. The ranks of OWLs, Older and Wiser Lutherans, are thinning. When asked by our trusted leaders to vote on another congregation’s property, we may assume we have that right. We don’t.
This happened in 2009 in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA/ELCA). They voted to take the property of Redeemer in East Falls, a small but viable congregation with an endowment fund.
Redeemer has among our members a pastor who spent a sabbatical researching the early history of the ELCA. He showed us the founding documents. They said this was wrong.
Property is not necessary to ministry, but property has advantages.
Property provides continuity from generation to generation. A physical presence is a a ministry tool. With property you can invite, teach, host, serve. With property you have a financial hedge against a few difficult years.
Redeemer has been ministering without property for four years. We have a very influential ministry worldwide, but we could do so much more locally if our property had not been taken from us.
Well, it was properly appealed, wasn’t it?
Do SEPA Lutherans realize that they never voted on our appeal in 2009? We appealed Synodical Administration. A totally different question—worded by the synod—was presented at the time of the vote. SEPA voted to take our property. Bait and switch. Read the 2009 minutes. You’ll have to dig. SEPA posts minutes from only 2010 on!
Do SEPA Lutherans realize that in 2010, SEPA Synod Council took it upon themselves to vote Redeemer closed without any input from Redeemer? Do they realize that Redeemer was never informed of this decision (which the Synod Council constitutionally has no authority to make)? We only know because we googled our name.
What’s done is done.
Question: What do our interdependent congregations do when mistakes are made?
This still lies in the hands of congregations.
Redeemer has a constitutional right to challenge the 2010 decision of SEPA Synod Council. We intend to formally make that request within the next few months but we will need a fair forum.
SEPA congregations have an opportunity to revisit their actions in East Falls.
It is not too late to make this right. It takes the courage to say, “Wait a minute. What did we do? How do we move forward?”
This seems to be beyond the scope of our Sunday morning confessions.
If SEPA Lutherans do not care about their actions in East Falls, they might think about the effect their actions or non-actions have on other member congregations.
Redeemer is visiting all the churches that voted to take our property. We’ve been to 69. Many face the same treatment within the next 20 years. With SEPA’s self-proclaimed power to seize property, fueled with persistent deficits (a $250,000 shortfall last year and $275,000 the year they took our property), there is no incentive to help small congregations. Hierarchical survival is in jeopardy. They play the “wait for them to die” game.
Without responsible clergy and involved congregations, SEPA government has the power to rule by intimidation. They even seem to enjoy it.
The Redeemer situation has proven that they are not afraid to abuse power. They use their protected status and the secular courts to bypass their constitutions. And while SEPA clergy and congregations looked the other way, hoping to not be touched, the courts have changed Lutheran polity. Now, SEPA congregations own their property only as long as SEPA says so. As Bishop Burkat has written in reference to the land in East Falls—it’s the property formerly occupied by Redeemer. In her mind, we never owned it.
The churches of SEPA could have stopped this. They still can.
Why Congregations Must Own Their Ministries (and that includes property).
Part 1
A long time ago there was a church that had lost its way. It had many members. Almost every person in every city and hamlet belonged.
Each town had its own monument to God. These monuments were built by the people. The land was likely part of a tract of land provided by a local baron, who might have received his land as a reward for a winning role in a crusade.
The people built the resulting church or cathedral. Some laid the foundations and built the walls, some designed windows of rainbow beauty. Others made the hardware that hung the doors and secured the roof. Others carved the pews and illustrated the stories of their faith on the wall. Still others waited until the roof was complete to install the musical instruments for their best musicians to play.
And then there were the women who kept the homes going, the workers fed, the linens woven and held the hands of the many children they brought through its doors. It took several generations to make these splendid monuments to God.
These monuments became extensions of their homes. They were nurtured at their altars in their youth, strengthened through the years, and comforted in their old age.
They loved the buildings and what they meant to them, but they did not own them.
Absentee Landlords
Their churches were owned and controlled by leaders, far away on the other side of formidable mountains.
Church officials did not trust the people to own their own buildings. Their work was acceptable to God, but it was owned and controlled by hierarchy which tended to appoint and elect people who would comply and obey.
What was presented to the glory of God was used to glorify Man.
This system worked very well as long as everyone agreed on everything and there were enough people willing to enter lives of total compliance to sustain the structure. For centuries most people’s choices in life were made for them by the station of their birth. Change was seldom seen and challenges came from outside the faith.
Things Started to Change
Suddenly, the challenges of this lifestyle came not from infidels but from the faithful. How would the Church handle its own dissenters?
The knowledgeable religious began to see that sole ownership of the church by a corporate office in Rome was abusing the faithful. The Church had become a vehicle for personal advancement. Expensive lifestyles were sustained with the sacrifices of much poorer people. They were being gouged— charged even for prayer.
People wanted to believe that the Church they loved had their best interests in mind. They relied on trust—most messages from their leaders were delivered in a foreign tongue.
Then came Martin Luther and Gutenberg (among others).
He told them what was going on in their own language.
His printed message spread across Europe, uncensored by the Church for the first time.
Many of the faithful were kicked out.
Lucky! For the first time, they had some place to go!
The Church in a New Land
Many traveled to a New Land where immeasurable property was newly available. For the first time the people could actually own the property they donated and the buildings they raised. They could affiliate with a Church later.
The old system still exists today. It is failing fast. The Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church still own all church property. Both bodies are closing churches at a record pace. The Episcopal Church is fighting many court battles over property. The Roman Catholic is being eaten alive in our area by the clergy sexual abuse scandals.
Some of this is because of the failing support and lawsuits. Some is control of their people. Disagree with the Church. We will take the property you built and paid for.
The Lutheran Church and other Protestant Churches, grounded more firmly in the spirit of the Reformation and growing in a new land, did not attempt to accumulate property for the benefit of a corporate church. There would be no grand collections of art and treasuries to collect the sacrificial offerings of the faithful for the benefit of clergy. We had left that thinking behind.
Protestant Churches of many sects prospered under this new system.
Early Lutherans in the New World forbade church hierarchy from owning property. They wanted to ensure that the officials of the church existed to serve not accumulate wealth.
But today the church is in trouble again. The Lutherans spent a good part of recent decades trying to unite with the Episcopal Church. They are now proudly in Full Communion (minus the long list of exceptions and disclaimers that follow the documents that most people don’t read). Full communion, sort of.
One reason today’s Lutheran bishops are comfortable claiming congregational property is this new association with Episcopal Church. In doing so, they are reverting to pre-Reformation thinking—the thrilling days of yesteryear when hierarchy controlled more than they led.
We’ll look at what this means for today’s Lutherans in an upcoming post.
In yesterday’s post we talked about Bishop Claire Burkat’s tactic of bypassing clergy and church council leadership and taking issues dear to her heart directly to the congregation, who under the circumstances would be voting having witnessed the horrific treatment of their leaders.
Although this is always presented as democratic, it is a violation of church structure and a form of bullying. Sue the leaders; then ask others, whose collective knowledge of church procedure is likely to be low, to do the voting. (And if that doesn’t work, just issue an edict.)
It’s an irritating problem for church leaders. When pride and power reign and the possibility that you won’t make payroll looms on the horizon, it’s worth a try—constitutional or not. Bishop Almquist had tried it before at Redeemer (and failed).
This first Sunday of the month, as Redeemer heads out to worship in our own community, passing our locked church building (now equipped for the first time in its history with a security system), on our way to meet in the upper room of a local theater, we can’t help but wonder:
What would happen if SEPA bypassed the bishop, Synod Council and Synod Assembly and took the issue of Redeemer directly to the people of SEPA Synod?
Same strategy. Who knows what the results would be?
No worries.
It will never happen. Bishop Burkat would never stand for such a violation of church procedure. 😉
This is the second post in a series that revisits the last five years of court actions involving the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA) and member church, Redeemer in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pa.
Understanding the Legalities
Five years of costly and hateful litigation have shed little light on the legalities of the land grab in East Falls.
The courts are far from united in the various rulings in all the cases of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America against member church Redeemer in the East Falls neighborhood and carefully selected members of the congregation.
The early rulings were that courts have no jurisdiction in church affairs.
This first ruling was upheld by a split decision of the Pennsylvania Appellate Court. Two dissenting judges strongly supported Redeemer. If the law were applied, they concluded, Redeemer should be heard.
Keep in mind that all this litigation was just about HEARING the case. It has never been heard.
A similar case WAS heard at the very same time involving a Presbyterian denomination and a member congregation in western Pennsylvania. That judge took five days to hear the case and ruled in favor of the congregation. The ruling came five days after the Redeemer “no jurisdiction” ruling. This decision has held through the appellate process and was last heard at the state supreme level this April with a decision due any day.
SEPA wasn’t satisfied with their default win. They wanted Redeemer to pay more. They went after individual members.
They held the cards now and they fixed the deck. The ace up their sleeve is “Contempt of Court.”
Synod locked the members of Redeemer out of the church within 36 hours of the ruling. Redeemer members had no access to anything in the church. Synod (again with no consultation with Redeemer members) sued members for contempt of court for not supplying things we still think ARE IN the church.
If they couldn’t find something they were looking for, they could have asked. But no! Straight to litigation where they are immune from the law and church members are not.
Redeemer members are in the position of not being able to prove that the items are in the church building.
Note to other SEPA congregations: They are likely to use this tactic again. Protect your church leaders now.
In the Redeemer case, subsequent judges have shown growing sympathy for Redeemer.
First, let’s ask, Where were the clergy?
Clergy fled at the first sign of trouble.
The pastor who had been serving us for nearly two years when Bishop Burkat was elected and who was well-liked, disappeared after a private meeting with Bishop Burkat and a congregation (Epiphany) who had been in covenant with Redeemer and was sharing our building. That church never discussed breaking the covenant with us, but after a private meeting with the bishop, they announced they were closing. The pastor gave 10 days notice by email (not the constitutional 30 days notice.) He never planned to talk with us about his decision. He left the Synod.
Epiphany continued to share Redeemer’s property outside of the covenant for six months, rent free. They were never locked out!
Redeemer found a pastor to replace him. Redeemer hand-delivered to Bishop Burkat the congregation’s resolution to call him in November 2007. In February 2008, he had just encouraged Redeemer members to “stand firm” in our ministry. He visited the bishop’s office hoping to talk things through.
This pastor had shared with us that he had been trying to talk to the synod for a year and couldn’t get a return call or a response to correspondence. (We had the same experience!).
So now he goes to talk to the Synod about serving Redeemer.
He never sets foot inside Redeemer again.
He suddenly has an interim call in Bucks County.
Clergy are out of the way.
Next. Lay leaders.
Let’s make this quick! All lay leaders, having had no hearing with Bishop Burkat on the subject of closing the church, were dismissed by letter from the bishop in February 2008. She had promised to work with us just four months earlier at a meeting which closing the church had not been discussed. No grounds were ever cited.
OK, lay leaders are out of the way.
There is still the congregation to deal with.
We’ll tell you how that went in our next post.
Hint: Any claim that there was a process of mutual discernment is a lie.
This 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.
If ministry in East Falls is the goal, we are on the same side.
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.
The Church is looking for innovation.
Or so they say.
Innovation is usually the result of a very few innovators.
The Church tends to be unkind to innovators. Judgmental.
Result: little innovation.
Every few centuries, an innovator makes a difference. It really doesn’t happen very often. Some of them become “official” saints. Some of them just go down in history—like Martin Luther. Often their bold thinking was sparked by the times, like Martin Luther King, Jr.
Or did Dr. King spark the times?
More often, innovators go unrecognized.
In the day-to-day life of the Church, innovation has a different definition. It doesn’t mean change in a significant way. It means finding a way to stay the same, to keep the same statistics up and the bills paid as the odds grow against that kind of success.
Look at the congregations that are viewed as most successful. Their success is often in doing ministry the same way a bit longer than other churches. Worship Sunday morning. Sunday School. Same staff positions and the same list of committees. Same set of service projects. They are successful. No need to innovate!
Innovation will come from smaller churches.
True innovation is rarely pretty at first. It takes experimentation and a willingness to take significant risks. It can be life-threatening. Ask either Martin!
Church leaders encourage innovation, but they are also waiting in the wings to assess your failures. This might be OK, if their judgment resulted in collaboration and help. However, it often results in property and asset grabs and a demoralizing treatment of church leaders and members.
Have you visited a church that was scheduled to close before the grand closing rally? Have you seen the pain of the people? Have you sensed their feeling of despair, isolation and worthlessness. This will be camouflaged when you bring in the big guns for that all-important closing service, designed to make everything seem all right — when it’s not.
Innovation doesn’t happen very often. It’s just too scary. Innovation requires resources. Those resources are needed to keep doing things the same way.
Innovation is not moving the worship time forward or backward by one hour.
Innovation is not offering Holy Communion every week.
That’s just rearranging the same things that have been part of Church in one form or other since Stephen was stoned.
Innovation is doing things differently. Listening to different people. Looking for different sources of funding. Serving a different need in a different way. Structuring your government differently. Emphasizing a different passage from scripture.
What was Martin Luther’s biggest innovation? Telling the gospel story in the native language of the people. Unheard of at the time. An abomination.
Really, not such a big deal.
What was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s innovation? Believing that all races could live together in peace and equality. This was not only unheard of at the time—it was against the law in many places.
Really, not terrible. Kind of nice. Why didn’t we try this sooner?
What sacred cows are we keeping in our pastures that need a bit of freedom? (I’m not going to use the faddy “resurrection” simile. It’s, frankly, offensive and has led to abusive behavior by church leaders. Churches don’t have to die to be reborn.)
Maybe you have an innovator in your community. Are you giving him or her half a chance?
Be aware: innovation often comes from unlikely places. If you think that by calling a certain pastor, you’ll achieve innovation, you are likely to be disappointed. Your innovators might be sitting in the back row. They might be coming only once every few weeks. They might be 80 years old. They might be 10. They may be “lifers.” They may not have joined—yet.
We need leaders who can imagine, who can think outside the sanctuary, who can ask the “what if” question and rally energy and resources to test new strategies and create new alliances.
What If?
Asking “What if?” is the rabbit’s foot of every creative person. Writers use it. Musicians, Visual artists. All creatives in every field.
What if we create a band without brass—just guitars and a drummer? The Beatles.
What if break up what we see into dots and strokes of various colors? Impressionism.
What if we hold a progressive talent contest that lasts 15 weeks instead of just a one-shot deal? What if we let the people vote? American Idol, a host of copycats and the rise of dozens of young artists.
What if we try a different kind of filament? The light bulb.
Host a quarterly What If? Party, where members can dream and brainstorm. Process the ideas presented. Make no decisions for two weeks, at least. Use that fallow time to let people talk, gripe, advocate, hone an idea. . . whatever they need to do.
Create opportunities for those in opposition to work together. When people work together, they talk. When people talk, amazing things can result.
A What If? Party should have some kind of ice-breaker activities or exercises. Mix people up. Make it fun.
At Redeemer, we once divided people by birthdays. Four groups. One for each season. We had a small bowl on the table for each group. The bowl held slips of paper with a few ideas for a group activity—like tell some jokes, or write a skit about _____, or sing a song. Hey, it’s work to get a group of people to agree on the same song! In this case, the people had to agree on an activity and then take a few minutes to pull it off.
Then we’d have an impromptu talent show. Fun!
This was our ice breaker. There is power in this silliness. People break out of their comfort zones and work side by side with people they see every Sunday but don’t really know.
We’d follow the icebreaker with discussion on various topics.
This created an environment that influenced our ministry every week when we’d sit down together after worship for coffee and soup—at one big table—the “roundtable” (even though it had corners) where we were all equal.
What if we ran our own school in our own building?
What if we started a web site that reached out?
What if we encouraged our African members to invite their friends?
What if we found a pastor that spoke Swahili to facilitate this effort?
What if we used Swahili in our services?
What if we put the outreach in the hands of the African members?
What if a youth led the children’s sermon?
What if we used some of the equity in our property to expand our ministry?
Of course, getting the results takes time and hard work and you can’t always foresee the obstacles but it’s better than gathering dust or locking doors.
Try a What If? Party and see what happens.
Be prepared for failure. Failure is necessary for well-rooted success.
That’s the part of the lesson Jesus taught to the disciples when they were challenged in prayer.
Ask. It will be given.
Seek. You will find.
Knock. The door will open.
Following biblical advice, Redeemer will just keep at it.
We’ve been at it particularly hard for the last six years of our 122-year history.
Early on, even before all the lawsuits, we wrote monthly letters, which our presiding bishop, bishop, and trustees steadfastly ignored.
One of our members writes regularly to pastors. They hold keys to the doors of the democratic nature of our church government. When they’ve responded at all, the attitude has been like the head of the household who wants to go back to bed with his children in Jesus’ story. They want to be left alone in their congregations.
We started visiting congregations — all of which voted to take our property for themselves. We know they had been fueled with inflammatory falsehoods, exaggerated tales, one-sided accounts, which influenced them to believe that taking other people’s property, and expelling men, women and children from the church was somehow the godly thing to do.
Early on, we wrote letters or sent cards to the churches. Later we just published our visits on Facebook and our blog. We discovered that other churches are much the same as ours, making their hands-off attitude all the more difficult to fathom. We’ve been to 68 congregations so far. We know more about your ministries than you knew about ours when you voted to take our property.
We continued our ministry which led us in innovative directions that could now benefit the whole church. Redeemer’s greatest value is not its corner property in an affluent neighborhood. It is our people who have a 132-year legacy which is still growing despite efforts to pack our ministry in cardboard boxes and store them in the seminary archives. Out of sight. Out of mind.
After six years of tiring and expensive conflict we remain an active Christian community that grew new networks when we were excluded from the ELCA. We are obviously viable. We have something to add to the faith community which is our heritage—more now than when you took our land.
And so in the spirit of the Lord’s teaching, we will continue t0 ask, seek and knock.
Ask.
Please recognize our valuable ministry. Return our property to us and partner with us as we all pledged to do 25 years ago when we agreed to be part of the interdependent ELCA.
Seek.
We seek peace and reconciliation. We want to belong—not as second-class citizens with a set of rules just for Redeemer but with the same rights and privileges all member churches share.
Knock.
You know where we are. We know where you are. Why can’t we talk this through?
If what is going on in East Falls is so right, why is it shrouded in hateful vindictiveness? Why is everything so hush-hush? Why are people so afraid to act?
East Falls is still OUR neighborhood. We don’t have to go to community council meetings to court neighborhood leaders. We ARE respected neighborhood leaders, already friends with other neighborhood leaders. The best people to create Lutheran ministry in East Falls are the Lutherans of East Falls.
We have a plan we would like to present to SEPA Synod Council. Our experience is that anything presented privately never sees the light of day. We’ll publish our plan for ministry here first.
Watch for it. Answer the door when we knock. Please.
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.
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).
2×2 Sections
Where in the World is 2×2?
On Isaiah 30:15b
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
