2×2 grew from a small church—Redeemer in East Falls. How small? Well, too small for the ELCA. But big enough for mission.
While we have been locked out of our sanctuary for more than three years, we took on a project of visiting the very people who locked us out for their own enrichment.
We’ve made more than 50 visits. Most congregations appear to be no stronger in numbers or wealth than Redeemer. Several would probably already have been targeted by SEPA Synod for takeover if Redeemer hadn’t been commanding their attention for the last five years. As church experts categorize churches by size, they are either in the family church (under 75 members) or pastoral church (around 150 active members) categories .
A few of the congregations we have visited fall into the next biggest category — the program church.
Program churches are big enough by definition to afford a full-time pastor or two and some additional paid staff. They can offer programs to various segments of the population led by the extra hands they can afford to pay.
There is a stark contrast between these churches and the smaller churches that struggle to compete for pastoral services and attention from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The difference is initiative. It’s not that larger churches don’t have initiative; it’s just more “programmed.”
We can see it in little things.
In last Sunday’s visit, the pastor used five large objects in his sermon. He introduced them one by one and placed them across the front of the chancel as he talked. When his sermon ended, he walked back and forth across the chancel and removed the objects. He sang a hymn as he did so. But it seemed odd that the vicar sitting nearby didn’t offer to help—nor did the acolyte sitting nest to the vicar. I know that had this been Redeemer, one or two people would have jumped up and helped the pastor prepare for the next part of worship. There is nothing wrong with this, understand. The hymn the pastor was singing as he cleaned up was nice. It just seemed odd.
Where initiative is lacking, so is creativity. It shows in the bulletins of program churches. They invariably have long lists of credits. Who is the greeter, the reader, the usher, the offering counter, the communion assistant, the flower donator, or the nursery assistant for this week and the rest of the month? Just check the bulletin.
Presumably, if it’s not your Sunday to greet people, then there is no reason to greet anyone.
In small churches, every job belongs to every body.
Reading through church newsletters and bulletins of the program-sized churches, there are lists of activities. They are similar to every other program-sized church. Perhaps that’s where church leaders get the notion that closing/consolidating churches is good management.
The things Redeemer does aren’t on any of the lists. No Swahili outreach, no experimentation with the web and social media, very little experimenting in the worship and educational settings, no ambassadors.
Perhaps the promise that they will lose their uniqueness is why small churches resist the management “wisdom” of their leaders.
Perhaps it is why the ELCA and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) tend to undervalue their small congregations.
Redeemer is not closed. We are locked out of God’s house by SEPA Synod.
Every now and then a group of people, calling themselves a church, decides that they don’t want to be a church any more. They take a vote and decide to close. It’s sad, but they followed a prescribed procedure. Everyone can move on.
In the Lutheran church, a congregation gets to decide among themselves how to use their remaining assets to the glory of God. Standing on the sideline is the regional body or synod, desperately trying to find ways around their polity to guarantee that the wealth of the congregations goes their way.
To assure this, they have developed a new process. You won’t find it outlined in quite the way it is being implemented in any ELCA governing documents. (But that’s why we hire lawyers.)
It begins with a target painted figuratively in red on the church. This is followed by years of neglect, and knowing nods and glances among clergy when the name of the congregation comes up in Lutheran forums.
The next step is the lock out. They’ll be talk (with no specifics) of the heroic “efforts” that came between these two steps—as if God was at work and failed. Truth be told, the prescribed neglect is just that — neglect, and no effective help was ever intended or offered. This is the written advice of noted church leaders.
By this time, clergy have ceded their influence in the Church to lawyers. The Gospel is out the stained glass window with the law following. Separation of Church and State replaces the laws other people have to live by.
What is likely to follow is a legal battle pitting clergy with their loyalties to the bishop against laity whose loyalties are to their congregation and faith. It’s not supposed to be this way. We are supposed to be interdependent, working together as equals. This is the traditional Lutheran way.
2×2 grew from just such a debacle at Redeemer in East Falls, Philadelphia. We have 15 years of experience on our side.
We’ve heard of similar heavy-handed treatments from bishops in New England, Metropolitan New York and Slovak Zion Synods and there may be more. There are examples in other denominations, including an Episcopal Church in East Falls. (East Falls is a favorite target. It’s a nice, working class neighborhood with soaring property values. The value of our property has outgrown the value of our people.)
So what are the reasons behind these actions.
Some possibilities
The congregation cannot pay its bills.
The congregation cannot afford to pay clergy.
The congregation is heretical in its teachings.
(If the first two are a reality, the congregation is likely to know it and work together to solve the problem or close.)
Here are some other possibilities.
The regional body cannot pay its bills.
The regional body cannot afford its current staff.
The regional body is heretical in its teachings.
In this case, there is the need for a cover story to gain acceptance among church people who might find what is about to take place distasteful — if not sinful. In East Falls, the cover story was that SEPA Synod intended to close the congregation for six months and reopen it with new and improved Lutherans that wouldn’t ask questions.
Well, SEPA has owned the property by court order for going on four years and done nothing with it.
This was not the real plan. The people of East Falls knew it all along!
The primary question that needs to be asked and answered is “What is the goal of forcing churches to close?”
The goal is usually stated as “better stewardship of church resources” or as a synod representative told Redeemer members, “ministry in East Falls is not good use of the Lord’s money.”
If this is the goal, the results point to high-stakes failure.
The results of this mismanagement, from which clergy and congregations shield their eyes, are ungodly. They include:
broken relationships — within the church, among friends, within families—and with God (the definition of sin)
children wrenched from the first support system they encounter outside their families
elderly living their later years under legal attack from the church they served all their lives
disabled or non-drivers, who relied on the local church, totally disenfranchised
an economic pit that gets harder to crawl out of every day for both the regional body, haughtily asserting its power, and the remnants of the congregation they set out to destroy
a Gospel message, preached weekly, but acted upon rarely
The stated goal—better use of church resources—is no longer even mentioned. The goal has failed.
The evidence is that if stewardship of resources is the goal, it is a far better to work with congregations interdependently — as our constitutions state.
Several times in the last few years, I have listened to reports from various bishops and high-end church leaders concerning their visits to Africa. Some have visited Ethiopia, some Kenya, and some Tanzania.
They travel at their denomination’s expense. They return with inspiring reports of baptizing hundreds of babies and meeting church leaders.
They give these reports because they want us, here in the United States, to give offerings to these “approved” mission efforts in other parts of the world. They want us to sense that their denomination is actively engaged in the universal Christian mission to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every nation.
This approach to mission work has decades of experience behind it. It also has decades of pre-social media traditions dimly lighting the way.
Is continuing this style of mission work effective for today’s world?
We serve an interconnected world. Sending official denominational representatives for on-site visits may once have been the only way for congregations to interact with mission efforts overseas.
Today, each individual has the power to connect. If the Church does not harness the power of the individual using social media tools for world mission, we are failing in our stewardship of possibilities.
Each congregation and its members have the power to communicate daily with Christians around the world. No intermediary is needed.
We can share ideas and first-hand accounts of our faith journeys. The exchange can be very personal — they with us and we with them.
A forward-thinking denomination would be working to create their own online mission communities. That would be providing a service many direct benefits. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel. They can simply harness the social media platform that suits them best.
The money spent on junkets might be better spent in building these social network circles.
It would bring new life into mission work.
2×2 is experimenting with this concept now. We correspond with several such mission ventures. We identify ourselves as Lutheran, but we’ve found no need to dwell on denominational distinctions.
As a result of our online outreach, we have first-hand reports of their work, almost daily — not just on mission Sunday. We get firsthand news! Our friends in Pakistan shared that a Lutheran Church in their city had burned as a result of recent violence. We prayed for them during the unrest. Two weeks ago they sent word that they were holding a prayer meeting for us as we faced Hurricane Sandy.
We know many in these fellowships by name. We exchange photos. We pray for one another and offer ideas and strategies. The exchange is truly two-way.
In case you are wondering, we have never sent money.
What will grow from this initiative remains to be seen, but we know this. There’s no holding us back.
God is doing something new in East Falls — and the world.
I had an uncle who was a Methodist preacher. He often said, only partially jokingly, “Jesus is the answer. Now what is your question?”
There seems to be a similar “go to” response in the Church today. When you don’t know what to do—or when you do know what to do but don’t have the courage to do it, there is an easy answer. Promise to pray.
It’s been tough going for our congregation as members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Bishop Claire Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod went on the warpath against Redeemer Lutheran in East Falls, Philadelphia, including personal attacks on lay members. Acquiring the assets of Redeemer seems to have been part of the plan to fund massive budget deficits from the very beginning of her first term in 2006.
Large deficits have been routine since the beginning of SEPA back in the late 1980s. Giving and attendance were (and still are) in serious decline. There was no plan for reviving small church ministry beyond neglect and waiting for failure. Several congregations folded rather than swim upstream without the cooperation of SEPA leadership.
The assumption of SEPA leadership is that if they neglect ministry for a decade, ministry will fail to the benefit of Synod coffers. Under Lutheran polity this isn’t a given. Congregations can determine where to donate their assets. But Synods are finding a work-around that guarantees they will benefit. Simply declare the congregations “terminated” before they can have any say. This means that the congregations have NO rights within the Church they have served for decades or centuries. They need not even be consulted! Constitutional checks and balances are ignored.
Redeemer was getting the “10 years of neglect” treatment. But it wasn’t going as Synod planned. Lay leadership grew. Alliances were made with several dedicated pastors. Redeemer was in a promising position, with a five-year commitment of a qualified Lutheran pastor, working under a detailed plan that the congregation had spent six months drafting. In fact, our ministry continues to grow, despite the abuse.
But the efforts of lay people are not valued.
And there was that $275,000 deficit budget approved by Synod Assembly at the same time they voted (against Lutheran rules) to take our property.
And all of this has gone on while the clergy of SEPA Synod have watched.
Our members have approached people who should be in a position to at least open dialog on the issues.
There are fairly specific guidelines for resolution of disputes in the Bible and there are governing documents that could be followed within the Church. But ELCA leaders do not bother. They rely on “wisdom.”
We’ve heard all kinds of excuses.
From Bishop Hanson: Just talk it out. I have great regard for Bishop Burkat.
From a Synod Council member: We have no intention of negotiating with you. (Synod Council is supposed to represent the congregations.)
From deans: Silence
From pastors in a position to help: We have to trust the wisdom of the bishop.
From pastors who visited Redeemer 30 or 40 years ago: We know your history (as if Redeemer was stuck in a time warp).
From pastors who don’t know anything about Redeemer — but voted with the crowd anyway: Sorry! We didn’t know.
Whatever the excuse, it is always accompanied with a sanctimonious, conscience-assuaging promise to pray.
We wonder what these learned church leaders expect to come of prayer.
That someone else—anyone else—will play peacemaker.
That God will suddenly fix everything without any work.
That whatever happens won’t affect them.
That miracles will replace gumption.
That whatever happens, their jobs will be secure.
That they will never be the victims of the type of leadership abuses that have characterized this sad episode (and perhaps others before us).
That life in SEPA will go on as if Redeemer, and Epiphany, and Grace and others never existed—and the list will probably continue to grow.
Lutherans pride themselves on an interdependent structure. That means we are supposed to work together.
Here’s a suggestion:
By all means, keep praying, but recognize that the answer to prayer is probably in getting off your backsides and doing something.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do
for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Today is All Saints Day. This Sunday the remnant of Redeemer will meet for worship in East Falls and pay tribute to our saints on All Saints Sunday.
Just as in most churches that have their own altar to kneel before, we will recall the saints who have walked ahead of us on the path to Glory.
Some congregations will remember those who died this year. At Redeemer, we know the time measured by mankind compares little to eternity. We remember all the important saints in our lives.
We even remember those still living. It is ALL Saints Day! As Lutherans, we believe in the sainthood of all believers, whether living on earth or in heaven.
Today, and as we approach All Saints Sunday, we remind you that the saints in East Falls are still working to build Christian community while the Christians of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) seek to destroy us.
Last January, Redeemer Lutheran Church, the parent organization of 2×2, held a Whoville Party to celebrate Christmas. We wrote a small post about our experience.
That post has attracted traffic all year and today someone asked for details.
So here goes!
Background
Last year’s invitation
The idea for our Whoville Party came from our unique place in the Church. We have been locked out of our sanctuary in a property dispute with our regional body. As we approached our THIRD year of no church in which to celebrate Christmas, we were struck by the similarities to our situation and the famous Dr. Seuss story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
To add to that experience, just as we were beginning to plan our Whoville Party, the local church authorities made an announcement inviting people to help “clean out” our church just a few days before Christmas. The parallels were difficult to ignore!
So the story of the Grinch is very real to us. And we are planning to party again for our fourth year of being locked out of our church at Christmastime by the church leaders who manage to miss the message of Christmas year after year.
We borrowed space from a local theater and set about making a party that families and other community groups might like to attend.
Here are some of details. Some of these we tried on our first Whoville Party and some are things we will try this year.
First, let us point out that the story of the Grinch is a modern parable and though it is written to appeal to the broad Christmas audience, it is not difficult to relate it to the teachings of the original Christmas Story. We encourage any Christian group to tie the powerful biblical story of Christmas to this secular story.
Decorations
We happen to have a fine artist in our congregation who created murals on large sheets of foam core and sign board triptychs used by businesses for trade show displays. These can be purchased at any office supply store. He painted images of Whoville to decorate the walls. If you have no artists among your group, there are plenty of images online that you can have printed on banners. Just Google images for Whoville. Banners are not as costly as you might think. Look up some large format printers online. You can put a few hundred dollars into this and reuse the same banners every year.
You can look at the illustrations from the book and string garlands and stockings like those depicted.
Characters
We rented a Grinch costume and one of our young men played the Grinch. Be careful how you do this. Little children are afraid of the Grinch. You might also want to costume a Santa to help the little children feel safe. (Renting a costume costs about the same as buying one, we found. Shop now!)
You might feature a costumed Mayor of Whoville to circulate through the town throughout the party.
Story Corner
We had a story corner where children gathered to hear the reading of the Grinch Story. You can also read the Christmas story or even a Santa story, too, if it fits your plans.
Party Games
We had game stations and punch cards (on strings so they could wear them around their necks) for each attendant. If they played all the games, their punch card was entered in a drawing for a prize.
The games included:
Best Whoville Outfit: Announce a prize ahead of time to encourage attendants to come dressed for the spirit of the party.
Dress the Grinch: blindfolded children pull clothes out of a box and dress the Grinch.
Pin the antlers on Max: A drawing of Max without his antlers is posted on the wall and blindfolded contestants pin the antlers. You might add some other characters to the drawing so the antlers could end up on any of them for more fun.
Find the Heart Scavenger Game:Hide a little cut-out heart and the heart that grew three sizes. This can be a progressive game. When the little heart is found the finder gets to hide it again for the next person. The big heart can be the station where they report finding the heart. They can sign the big heart before sneaking off to hide the heart again.
Bean toss: Make a big heart the target for a bean bag toss. You can cut it out of foam core or just lay a large heart on the floor.
Whoville Photo Op: We had some life-size posters of Whoville with the faces cut out for people to pose behind to have their picture taken.
Face-painting: Local face-painters added Whoville images to faces.
Challenge Course:You can also fashion some type of challenge — like limbo —How low can you go? Kind of goes with the Grinch doesn’t it? Or you might just create some other type of obstacle course.
Many of the Games listed here can be adapted for a Whoville Party.
Think of ways to use the Whoville or Seuss characters.
Food
We featured Green Eggs and Ham Soup and Roast Beast Sandwiches. Both were popular.
Here’s the recipe.
Recipe for Green Eggs and Ham Soup
Quantities depend on how big your pot is! We made a huge pot, so we are guessing at the quantities for a more normal batch. This was the one and only time we made this, so the only proof of the pudding was in the eating!
In a mixture of olive oil and butter (or just one or the other), saute a large onion, 2 spears of celery, 2 carrots, and 4 diced potatoes. As these ingredients soften, add a quart or so of water and a cup of dried split peas. Simmer on low for an hour as the peas soften. For spices use red pepper, garlicpowder, savory and parsley flakes, chicken bouillon, salt and pepper — all to taste. We also added some Goya Ham flavoring. If your Whovillians don’t like chunky soup, blend it with a hand blender. Add milk until it is creamy to your taste. Add 3 to 6 sliced or diced hard-boiled eggs. Add ham. We used a pound of Tavern Ham lunch meat and ground it up in the food processor first. For more texture, rinse and add a can of Goya Green Peas. These are not as mushy as other canned peas. This would be delicious served with buttery croutons.
Service
Advertise admission to the party as a gift to fill the Grinch’s sleigh for the needy. Decorate a large box to resemble a sleigh — cutting the shape of the sleigh out of foam core to attach to the side.
Climax
Have a Christmas Tree in the center of a large area and gather all your Whovillians for a Carol Sing. (Decorating the tree might be one of the activities.) This may be a time to tie the Whoville Fun to the Gospel.
How do you share the grace of God in Christ with someone whose days are filled with messages that they do not measure up and who feel excluded rather than welcomed? How shall we talk about faith in a culture of mistrust and deception? In a world steeped in violence, how do we talk about the cross of Christ as the place that reveals both the depth of God’s love incarnate and where Jesus’ life for others is offered fully?
Bishop Hanson wrote this as part of a message in the recent issue of The Lutheran Magazine. He was looking ahead to the 500th Anniversary of Luther’s brave, death-defying actions, which spurred the Reformation of the Church and laid the groundwork for changes in society that we enjoy today.
Don’t expect such actions from Luther’s heirs.
A recent visit to China sparked Bishop Hanson’s comments. He doesn’t need to travel far to find a culture of mistrust and deception.
We, at Redeemer, who have experienced little but abuse within the ELCA, wonder if Bishop Hanson recognizes that his own people feel unwelcome, unvalued, violated, and deceived. We have learned to distrust the church he leads.
We know we are not alone. There has been a mass departure from the ELCA under Bishop Hanson’s watch.
Similar land grabs continue. Synodical bishops act with the certainty that Bishop Hanson will not require them to honor the intent of the ELCA’s founding documents or constitutions. Dodge’s sheriff has gone fishing (and not for people)!
The Redeemer travesty has featured personal attacks on lay people with no way within the ELCA to object or defend.
Bishop Hanson, Lutherans are weary of empty words.
We point out once again the decision of the Pa appeal court. It may add up to a win in the short run, but this could come back to bite hard.
The appeal court’s minority opinion determined that if the law were applied, Redeemer’s arguments have merit and deserve to be heard. The majority opinion cited Separation of Church and State, relying on the Church to police its own rules. There is NO mechanism within the ELCA for this. The result: a weak church where everyone can legitimately fear injustice within their own body. Safer perhaps to criticize other cultures!
Redeemer wrote to you for help in 2008, Bishop Hanson. After about ten letters over the course of a year, we gave up. You blew us off, expressing regard for a colleague over concern for a congregation.
You advised both us and Bishop Burkat to talk it out. Today, nearly five years later, there has been no talk, just law suits.
Bishop Hanson, we want peace. We want to work things out within the Church. This is a mandate of scripture (1 Corinthian 6). It’s not going to happen if Church leaders don’t believe the scriptures they preach.
Your sheep need their shepherd. Your bishops need their shepherd.
Help us find answers to the questions you pose. Lead us in our ongoing birthright — the Reformation!
One Redeemer member often reminisced about life in Tanzania. One of the things she missed most was walking out to the back yard and grabbing a few bananas from a banana tree.
She’s been in East Falls for some 16 years now. Firmly planted, but still missing home. Nostalgic, she planted a banana tree by the front door of her row house.
It grew to be a sizable tree, but it did not bear fruit.
It was an oddity that people went out of their way to see. Her children explained, we cut it back every year but it keeps growing—but no bananas. The climate won’t support bananas. There is no hope for bananas.
This year, it grew bananas—a small bunch of green bananas, but BANANAS!
A miracle! No one expected success at something so hopeless in East Falls!
But then, East Falls is like that! The demographics don’t support having a church here. But here we are! And we grow green bananas in our ministry every day.
Next year, who knows!
2×2 is a real church! Don’t tell the ELCA!
Our own denomination doesn’t recognize us, but that doesn’t matter. 2×2 is a real church. Other people recognize us!
Our web site, which is starting to grow exponentially, has had record traffic recently. Some of it came from a chatboard for a Christian movement called The Truth. The Truth has a global network of house churches that meet in groups they call 2x2s. They have a “Christ is Lord” creed and are avoiding the costs of hierarchy — the model 2×2 believes will become the church of the future.
In their online chatroom, a member asked, “Is there an actual church that goes by the name 2×2? Someone answered, “Yes.” New question, “Where?” Answer: “I’ll send you the link.” The link was added soon after — to www.2x2virtualchurch.com!
God is doing something new in East Falls! Join us!
We are open 24/7 on the web. We meet monthly at Old Academy Playhouse in East Falls, Philadelphia, Pa.—first Sunday of the month, 10 am. Subscribe to 2×2 for more information on other activities.
If we expect nothing of our children, they are likely to fail. Expecting failure takes less effort.
If we expect great things, we go to work for our kids. We cheer for them and help to create the conditions for success. We are not surprised when they change the world.
The same science works on adults and in communities. Jesus did his best to build up the people he encountered. He loved them. He showed them he understood them. He challenged them. He gave them the opportunity to fail. He showed them how to pick up the pieces and try again. That’s the training by example that he gave his disciples.
Many church leaders today have given up on the Church. They look through the statistics and see declining attendance, membership, and giving. So sad. Too bad.
A prevailing attitude among today’s church leaders is to accept failure as the norm. Bishop Burkat even recommends doing nothing to help small churches in her book, Transforming Regional Bodies.
The malaise is contagious—and deadly.
Redeemer will never forget Bishop Burkat’s first visit to Redeemer in December 2006. Bishop Burkat likes to claim publicly that she worked hard with our congregation for an extended period of time to no avail. This is what really happened.
It was a study in the power of low expectations, fueled by prejudice.
She walked into our Fellowship Hall. Gloom filled the room.
No bishop had visited Redeemer to talk with our leaders in nearly a decade. In 1997, Bishop Almquist came to break the 18-month term call (contract) he had made with us and one of his staff members just three months earlier. We were bitterly disappointed. (Bishop Burkat likes to claim that Bishop Almquist worked long and hard with us, too, but he was largely absent and he confiscated a sizeable amount of our money for two years.)
We went without a pastor for a year after that and for most of the following decade. Our lay leaders had worked hard to find ministry solutions on our own with mixed success. Still, we were enthusiastic about our prospects, especially since things seemed to be poised for significant change.
The memory of synod’s abandonment was still fresh for our leaders if not for the many new people who had come to Redeemer. We weren’t sure what to expect from the newly elected bishop, whom none of us had met, but we came ready for a fresh start.
It didn’t take long to dash our hopes. Bishop Burkat greeted us with what sounded like a rehearsed string of criticism.
She walked into the equivalent of the living room of our home and complained that the place looked junky. “No visitor will want to return to a place that looks like this.”
We explained. Epiphany, a neighboring church whose building was condemned, had just moved their things out of storage and into our fellowship hall. We were trying to help our neighbors.
We moved on.
Next. “You have no parking lot,” Bishop Burkat noticed. “A church with no parking lot has little chance of survival.” Our Ambassador visits have proved that the size of the parking lot has nothing to do with attendance at worship, but we answered defensively.
We pointed out that parking at Redeemer had never been an issue. The school and library, which share our intersection are closed on weekends and in the evenings when most church activity takes place.
The conversation continued.
Churches have personalities, Bishop Burkat said, with the clear implication that Redeemer’s personality left something to be desired.
What could we say? We turned the attention to our ministry efforts. We talked enthusiastically about the number of East Africans who were showing an interest in our congregation and the multi-cultural environment that had been fostered by one of our part-time pastors. We wanted to continue in this promising direction.
Bishop Burkat said a puzzling thing, “You are not allowed to do outreach.”
Huh? Say that again.
We told the bishop that we were disappointed in SEPA’s treatment of our ministry and very hurt that Bishop Almquist terminated our call agreement for his own convenience. That was a pivotal loss (by design, we think) for lay people to overcome, but we rose to the challenge.
The meeting ended abruptly. The bishop had a serious family emergency and we urged her to go to be with her family. Bishop Burkat promised to schedule a meeting in three to five months to talk about our concerns and try to heal some wounds. (Never happened,)
We sighed with relief when she was gone. She exuded negativity. We were glad that only our key leaders were at that meeting. Her attitude would have dragged down the entire congregation. It would have undermined all the work we had done.
Our next encounter with Bishop Burkat, eleven months later, was similar. There were more people present. Redeemer had grown significantly during that 11 months of neglect, accepting 49 members! We came to that meeting with our recently completed 20-page ministry plan and with a resolution to call the pastor who had been serving us for about seven months.
Bishop Burkat began this meeting by ranting that Redeemer was “adversarial.” She used that word repeatedly in her opening statement. We still don’t understand her wrath!
The rant was undeserved. Only three of the thirteen people present had met the bishop before — two of us briefly, a year before. The third was the pastor we hoped to call who had been a member of her seminary class. All but two had joined the church within the last 10 years and knew nothing about ancient problems, which synod seemed ever-ready to resurrect.
The meeting lasted more than two hours and we were able to turn the tone around, ending, we thought, on a very positive note. The bishop promised we could work with her newly appointed mission director, Rev. Pat Davenport. Our people began to sing a hymn together as we rode down the elevator and crossed the parking lot. We were excited and united.
And then NOTHING happened.
After four months of silence, including numerous unreturned phone calls, we all received letters from the Bishop announcing she was closing our church.
We wonder how many other churches have experienced such low expectations from leaders.
If this is how every church is treated, it is no wonder there is so little progress.
Our leaders have no faith in their message.
They don’t seem to care about or even like the people they serve. They don’t model their teachings about peace, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, love, justice, humility, or transformation (though they talk about this a great deal).
Pastors and congregations soon begin to avoid the regional body. They may even fear it.
The only transforming that takes place is destructive.
What would happen if we expected success—if church leaders went into congregations and asked one question: “How can we help you serve?”?
What if pastors—and bishops—were held accountable?
The Philadelphia Inquirer has discontinued its religion beat and reassigned its religion reporter to the Philadelphia’s suburbs east of the Delaware River. The Inquirer joins the media trend which leaves many city people wondering if we live in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or Delaware.
There is no area of American life which needs an occasional outside eye more than religion. It’s hard —but more likely—to get the attention of media when things are going smoothly. Otherwise, the media often fail to pay any attention until things are dire. They can be dire for a very long time when no one knows what goes on behind closed church doors. It’s religion—nobody else’s business.
Religion is at the heart of a great deal of world conflict. The lack of empathy within and between religious groups is the root cause of much unrest. It’s not insignificant. It actually changes—and sometimes costs—lives.
Religious leaders exercise authority over people who think they join church to honor and serve God. They consider God to be the ultimate authority in their lives and they are encouraged to believe that. They can then be taken advantage of by their leaders—who revel in separation of church and state.
Religion can be a haven for the unscrupulous. Just fake it ’til you make it and coast unquestioned after ordination.
Religious leaders enjoy autonomy unlike any other arena of American life. Some denominations own all the untaxed land and wealth contributed by their members. Others have internal rules regulating the control of land and wealth. The Bill of Rights guarantees that no laws will hinder their operation —or enforce their rules.
When the courts declare no jurisdiction, the Church itself looks the other way, and the fourth estate finds things too complicated to explain—church members are sitting ducks for all kinds of abuse. Meanwhile, church leaders have proven that they do not mind using the courts (from which they themselves claim immunity) to ensure their autonomy, imperiling any members who dare to challenge their actions.
The resulting lawlessness creates the conditions for a modern Inquisition. The last few years have brought to light the incredible disregard by some religious leaders for both law and doctrine. Predictably, the weakest members of the Church are the easiest victims.
The child sex scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church took years to come to light. Countless lives are shattered. Settlement expenses are surely contributing to the church/school closings affecting dozens of neighborhoods who trusted the wisdom of their leaders. It may even be a root cause of empty pews on Sunday morning. Who knows!
The situation in the Wild West that is today’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is similar. Our denominational leaders provided a church structure they call interdependence. The belief in the priesthood of all believers, they thought, called for cooperation between levels of the church. Lay Lutherans were proud that this empowered them, but it has become a vague concept that is defined and redefined at whim. Interdependence is interpreted by those with a lust for power as anything they want it to be.
Funny thing! Of the three tiers of church life — congregation, regional body, hierarchy — the higher the authority, the more dependent they are on the people. You’d think they’d make friends!
But no, synodical leaders ignore their own governance prohibiting the conveyance of congregational property without the consent of the property owners. They arrogantly assume that they cannot be stopped by the law or by those elected to oversee their work—a good number of whom rely on synodical leadership for their jobs and many more who simply don’t want to imagine misbehavior by their trusted leaders.
Christians are like that. They are blind and fail to see.
This defines Redeemer’s conflict with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Redeemer was not the first victim of SEPA greed. We may be the first to say “no,” which is within a congregation’s rights. In the face of a massive recurring six-figure annual deficit, at a time when support was in steady decline, synodical leaders sought to close small churches so that they could keep operating as usual, guaranteeing their own jobs and salaries above their mission.
Instead of working for mission, church leaders engage in a waiting game. Small churches with valuable assets are neglected by design in hopes that they will fold and leave their assets to the hierarchy. But in Lutheran governance a church voting to close can dispose of their assets as they choose. “There’s got to be a way around this,” runs through leaders’ minds. “We need that money—-uhh—for mission. Let’s create a Mission Fund and feed it with the assets of churches we close. We can use it any way we like. No one will notice.”
Church leaders scramble to make new rules concerning “termination” and “involuntary synodical administration” and lock out the local leaders (literally) while they get their ducks in a row. Anything to protect those assets—for themselves.
Lay people are at risk, especially those who are knowledgeable enough to know the polity of their denomination. They have the least power and voice, especially when the denomination fails to provide clergy to serve them.
Courts have determined that they have no jurisdiction to require church leaders to honor their own governing rules. But two judges dissented, citing the law. There is hope!
Last February, The Inquirer looked into the East Falls land grab attempt in 2008 which has been in the courts ever since. They determined that the story might be too complicated to be told in 16 column inches. Most major newspapers have an online presence with no space restrictions, so that’s an outdated excuse.
Meanwhile, another synodical land grab is being attempted in the metropolitan New York area. Here there is an invocation of a brand new unwritten constitutional status — “permanent synodical administration.” More brazen all the time! This follows a midnight raid to seize church property in New Jersey by the Slovak Zion Synod. There will surely be more. Each unchallenged hierarchical action makes the next one that much easier!
They count on people being to timid or uncommitted to care. They also rely on the resources of every congregation fund the law suits against a congregation and the resources it can muster alone.
The courts have given an answer to the question raised in our headline.
Who is watching the priests and clerics?
In America, it’s up to us lowly Christians—the more lowly, the more likely.
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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
