The Church is coming kicking and screaming into the Digital Age.
It carries historical baggage that is making the journey very difficult—and is causing the Church to miss out on tremendous opportunity.
The Church is entering the Social Media Age with a long tradition of one-way dialog.
Most of us know that by definition “dialog” is two-way.
But the Church does not know this. That’s why it seems perfectly natural for a pope to Tweet to his followers but announce before clicking “Enter” on his first message that he has no intention of following.
Church leaders tend to think that when they are standing in the pulpit they are engaging their listeners. That’s their idea of dialog.
Church leaders tend to extend the pulpit to all other interaction with congregations. Meetings and Assemblies are carefully managed.
Ridiculously short time restrictions prevent dialog.
There is a vetting process for who will engage in church dialog. Clergy get first access. Lay people with a proven track record of support for clergy get second place. There is no third place.
In our region and denomination, it was the custom of our present and last bishop to bypass the elected leaders of a congregation and request to speak to the whole congregation. Request is not the right word—demand is more accurate.
The strategy sounds so open and democratic. It is in fact manipulative.
It is disrespectful to the elected leaders who know the congregation’s issues the best and are elected to represent the interests of the congregation—the whole congregation.
It engages congregational members with less knowledge of issues and various levels of commitment to the total mission of a congregation. As they view the disrespect shown for the congregation’s leaders, they are appropriately fearful of speaking out.
Dialog is shut down.
Church leaders are fooled into thinking they have led people. They have intimidated people.
What might happen if the church leaders came to congregational leaders with one simple question—How can we help?
What might happen if they then sat back and listened?
It may be the single most important step in achieving transformation.
This has never been easier or more possible—however unlikely.
The Church needs to buy a pair of listening ears. They are rare but not expensive.
Issues between SEPA and Redeemer Are Not Fully Resolved
2×2 has been sitting on this post for a few weeks.
It is uncertain that the member churches of SEPA will give any regard whatsoever to this report. They are likely to continue to believe everything their leadership tells them — which is how this mess started.
Several weeks ago Bishop Burkat issued a letter to clergy and rostered leaders claiming all matters regarding Redeemer are settled. Although generally true, an important detail was left unmentioned.
As your 2013 Synod Assembly approaches, SEPA congregations should not be assuming that the litigation involving them and Redeemer Lutheran Church in East Falls is over.
The ruling in January was made without prejudice and awaits decisions in several other court matters. The current judge has retained jurisdiction over future litigation, a step that would not be necessary if the issues were in fact settled.
A full and correct report from your leaders would have included these details which affect you. Partial truths and even untruths have often fueled this conflict, which never had to be.
If you don’t know whom to believe, look into it for yourselves.
Comparing SEPA’s Largest Congregation with the Church SEPA Says Doesn’t Exist
What do Trinity, Lansdale, and Redeemer, East Falls, have in common?
We both engage with more than 700 followers each week.
According to Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Trend reports, Trinity, Lansdale, stands alone among Southeastern Pennsylvania churches in numbers. It has nearly 5000 members and an average worship attendance of 725. Most other large churches in SEPA — and there are only a few — average around 400.
Most SEPA churches are much smaller with about 100 or fewer at worship (many much fewer). ELCA Trend measures only membership, attendance, income and expenses (in various configurations).
There are new statistics that will mean more in the emerging church. Churches don’t have to worry about collecting the data. The internet tracks results for you. This is where Redeemer is breaking ground no other SEPA church seems to be seriously exploring.
Redeemer is no longer listed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Trend reports, although the congregation never voted to close. We’ll take that up with the ELCA later.
Redeemer was growing quickly although we were still among the SEPA churches with fewer than 50 in average weekly worship attendance—the only engagement most churches measure. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod seized Redeemer’s property and locked our doors in 2009—something about inability to fulfill mission. (They approved a $275,000 budget deficit at the same time they claimed our property.)
There was plenty to question at the time, but no one did. There is more to question now!
Redeemer has continued its ministry without our property. There is no rule that a congregation must own property.
Locked out of God’s House in East Falls, we took our ministry online with our blog, 2x2virtualchurch.com. We now have an average weekly following approaching 800 in new traffic and about 150 who subscribe to our site daily. We engage between 1000 and 2000 readers each week.
Redeemer may have the largest engagement of any SEPA congregation! The potential for effective mission is huge.
While the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the ELCA has tenaciously tried to destroy our ministry, we adapted — and grew!
2×2 is written with lay leaders in mind. Our experience as a small church is that lay leaders are the innovators in ministry. Most have part-time pastors. Growing churches is not part-time work. The passion of lay people (an undervalued resource) is keeping many churches going.
Small churches need resources that don’t rely on paid skills.
We had an additional challenge. Redeemer is multicultural and multilingual. No single age group dominates. That means we can’t just turn to a choir or a youth group or a Sunday School class to create interesting activities. We developed materials that could be adapted to any eclectic grouping.
When we still had our building we posted these resources on generic ministry websites.
Two years ago we began posting them on 2×2.
We posted an Easter play Redeemer performed for all East Falls churches in 2009. It was downloaded 300 times last year and 3000 times this year.
This tells us how we can further serve the large audience of small churches. Search engine analysis shows us that people are beginning to find our content by specifically plugging in terms specific to our site (“2×2 Easter play” — not just “Easter play).” Our content is gaining a following.
We post at least two features a week which congregations can adapt. Early in the week we post an object lesson intended for adults based on the week’s lectionary. Mid-week we post an analysis of art that complements the week’s theme. These can be adapted to multimedia presentations that some churches now show before worship (just as Redeemer did). We will continue to build on this foundation.
In addition, we offer our experience in using social media with dozens of how-to posts.
One large church recently wrote to us: “A lot is written about social media and the church, but you are the only church actually doing it.”
In all likelihood, Redeemer has the widest reach of any church in SEPA Synod with followers all over the world. We engage with them one-on-one. We share ministry problems and successes and rely on one another for prayer.
What does this mean for ministry in East Falls? It means our worldwide reach can now benefit our local ministry. We have a new potential source of funding for ministry.
Redeemer always was viable despite SEPA’s self-interested reports. Our day school, locked since SEPA interfered, would be generating upwards of $6000 per month. (That’s nearly $300,000 of squandered potential over the last four years.) The web site could begin to generate several thousand a month within a year of nurturing—plenty of resources to fund a neighborhood ministry without a single coin in an offering plate.
Redeemer has never had more potential.
If mission is the goal in East Falls (and it is definitely our goal) the best potential for ministry is to make peace with the Lutherans who have steadfastly maintained and grown mission during the last six years of conflict. The property should be returned to Redeemer. This would be in keeping with Lutheran polity.
Our journey has been a leap into the future of the church. We could still be a small neighborhood church serving a few, focused on survival and paying a pastor—as is the case of so many small churches.
We’ve learned that it is possible for a small church to grow. We are very aware that 2×2 can grow beyond our own vision.
Meanwhile, the largest church in SEPA and Redeemer, the largest online church, are both fulfilling their mission with impressive results.
God is doing something new at Redeemer, East Falls.
People in today’s world expect transparency. We are emerging from a world where business was conducted in back rooms, managed by a few bosses with self-interest as a core motivation.
That’s not working so well anymore. It’s truly a new business environment. Management must listen to employees and employees must listen to customers. Failure to operate openly and honestly in a considerate manner (transparency) can quickly spell disaster.
Recovery from a gaffe in this new business model is all the harder if shortcomings are not readily admitted and corrected publicly and promptly.
The Church lives in the same world, but it has a tougher time adapting. Church leaders sense that things aren’t going well, but they are reluctant to make any changes that might right our course.
Churches teach trust. Sometimes the trust that we intend for God and His Son, is projected onto church leaders—who are often quite willing to accept the surrogacy.
Recent events in the Church have proven this trust to be ill-placed. There is little evidence that we are learning from the exposed mistakes.
The reason? The Church just doesn’t know how to change. The existing structure is perceived as right, proper and necessary. So what if it is no longer effective!
If the Church is to continue as a viable influence in society, it must provide transparency. People expect this—especially the young who are unfamiliar with old ways of operating. They are looking at their parents across a dinner table discussion about church and thinking, “And we are expected to tithe to support this?”
They are not going to trust that their offerings and other tangible sacrifices for their church are put to good use. They will want proof—real proof. They will no longer trust the Church — just because. There simply have been too many abuses of their trust.
This article posts a short bulleted list of the qualities of transparency.
Transparency means that you are not afraid of feedback.
Transparency means that you have nothing to hide.
Transparency means your employees’ personal and work persona blur.
Transparency means you like to have conversations with your customers.
The Church fails at each of these.
The Church discourages feedback.
The Church operates in secrecy.
Clergy and hierarchical leaders remain distant in maintaining relationships with congregations and with individual lay members.
The Church likes to give orders. Dialog is controlled, when it exists at all.
Illustrations follow.
The Church is facing the same new demands for transparency. But the old ways of doing church are hard to break. Progress is slow.
In our region, we have a synod council that constitutionally represents the congregations in leadership within the synod. The names of the representatives are listed on the regional body’s web site. There is NO contact information.
The dates of synod council meetings are not publicized to the congregations that have the right to attend them.
Synod council’s published minutes include fairly frequent “executive” sessions that are not reported.
Synod deans, who lead regional clusters of congregations, were once volunteers, representing the group of congregations to the regional body. Today they are paid — an extension of the bishop’s office.
It is almost impossible for a congregation to initiate conversation with the regional body.
The national church, too, has transparency problems.
They respond to correspondence from congregations (who fund their budget) when they feel like it. One of our members, after months of attempting to contact the national church, received a letter from its legal department stating that they felt no obligation to respond. Ten monthly letters to our regional body and the national church went totally ignored. We gave up.
The denominational magazine, The Lutheran, plays at social media. It allows comments on its website only if you pay. A lot of Lutherans read the denominational magazine via subscriptions paid for by their congregations. Others share a subscription within the family. The result: the forum in the Church is controlled.
Most people in the congregation have no clue what might be discussed (in the limited time allowed for discussion) at the tightly controlled Synod Assemblies.
The article we are referencing goes on to list ten suggestions for achieving transparency. We’ll adapt them to church life.
Treat members right. Genuinely interact with them. One devoted Lutheran once shared that he was eager to attend an evening with the bishop. He expected to be part of a dialog. He sat through an hour-long monologue, got discouraged, and walked out.
Don’t come on too strong. Show respect. Bringing legal counsel and a locksmith with you to a meeting with a congregation might be seen as coming on too strong. Dismissing all the elected leaders of a congregation with no discussion is disrespectful.
Always listen to church members.Our synod failed to return phone calls or respond to correspondence for more than a year.
Continue to satisfy. Offer support. Our regional body failed to provide even minimal services for nearly a decade.
Treat congregations and lay leaders as valued partners—even when you disagree.You might be able to learn from one another, but only if communication is two-way.
Build trust. Trust is a process. Start by keeping little promises and staying in dialog. One-way email broadcasts are not dialog.
Admit mistakes. This is impossible if you never make mistakes. But that’s unlikely, isn’t it?
Follow through on your word. Keep promises. We have a long list of promises broken by our regional body.
Recognize responsibility. The congregations may not always be right — but they probably are more often than not. Certainly regional bodies are not necessarily right just because they are regional bodies.
Always say Thank You. Our regional body seized our property and financial assets. No please. No thank you. Just five years of litigation.
The modern Church will find its strength not in bolstering the clergy and hierarchy but by enabling lay members (upon whom they rely for support).
Failing to answer the modern expectations from rank and file church members will result in the failure of the Church. Transparency must be addressed. The sooner the better.
March 4 is the date that commemorates my coming of age at Redeemer. It is the date of the funeral of a senior member of our congregation. It’s easy to remember. March Fourth — the answer to an old riddle—the calendar date that is an order.
I was happy being a peripheral member of Redeemer back in 1985. I was 31 years old and was just becoming active. I taught the adult Sunday School class. The members of the class were all senior women. They were part of the capable old guard in this neighborhood church. Redeemer had accepted women as leaders well ahead of the national church.
I had just been elected to the congregation council. I joined in the congregation’s shock when one of the long-time leaders announced he would no longer continue. Our pastor recommended they nominate me as president. I felt unqualified. It wasn’t that I didn’t know church. I was a seasoned preacher’s kid from a long line of Lutheran preacher’s kids. Families of clergy are accustomed to viewing church from the outside. Ministry is the family job. Add to that the fact that I was a country gal in an urban church. A guppy out of water.
I accepted the role of president on one condition—that Elmer Hirsh, one of the seasoned leaders, serve as co-president and teach me the ropes. Deal! The annual meeting at which I was elected was the last Sunday in February.
Elmer died on March 1. From that moment, it was trial by fire.
I took the job seriously and tried with success to lead the family church in facing the changing demographics of the neighborhood.
I convinced the congregation to stay open in the summer instead of ceasing all activity in East Falls and merging worship with Grace in Roxborough. Summer is when people re-organize their lives and the church should be open, I argued.
I was president when Redeemer received its fateful endowment in 1987. This large infusion of cash made it possible to call a full-time pastor once again. I saw the shift in attitudes among clergy that occurs when it is known that a small congregation suddenly has means.
I helped the congregation transition from running their own parish school to working with the Lutheran agency, Ken-Crest, to operate a school that could help even more children. This worked well for 25 years — until SEPA interfered behind the backs of the congregation.
I married into an old Redeemer family in 1988. I left for five years when the endowment began to cause tension with clergy. I didn’t want to be part of what was happening. My old guard husband stayed on — ever loyal, but growing disillusioned. We had just reunited at Redeemer in 1997 with a change in pastors when my husband suffered a catastrophic stroke. He was to live the last nine months of his life totally dependent.
His death coincided with Bishop Almquist’s first attempt to seize Redeemer’s assets. Had Bishop Almquist made his move a couple of months earlier, he might have prevailed.
I had been absent from Redeemer for nearly a year, caring for my husband—a 24/7 job, and for five years before that. Only a few weeks after my husband’s funeral, a Redeemer member called — a woman I barely knew—asking for my help with a situation that was brewing with the Synod.
I was recovering from a horrific year. I hadn’t been working. Newly widowed, I was the sole family bread-winner and raising an 8-year-old boy solo. Even so, I agreed to help the church that had become my family church. We reorganized to face Synod’s threats.
Thus began two years of needless fighting (1998-2000).
Redeemer had already taught me a lot about what makes people work well together. I learned from Redeemer that it is OK to fight. One older member explained to me: an occasional verbal bench-clearing is good for the team. I learned that these people knew each other well enough to fight and reconcile at the same meeting. There was no shame in insisting on what you thought was right.
One Sunday, there was a momentous argument. (I DO remember what it was about!) As is typical at Redeemer, the air soon cleared and everyone sat down at the same table to work together as if nothing had happened. I noticed our pastor’s wife standing off to the side, observing and grinning. I asked her why she was smiling. “That kind of reconciliation doesn’t happen in every church,” she commented.
It was the norm at Redeemer. What comes as a surprise to us is that others are incapable of arguing, standing ground, and reconciling. We still don’t understand why this is impossible with SEPA.
Bishop Almquist gave up the always unnecessary “synodical administration” and a year later returned most of the assets the synod had seized. But his actions did lasting damage.
The current feud was made possible by his precedent. It fueled gossip within the insulated environment of church hierarchy. Redeemer became fair game. It was OK to abuse and ignore us. They’d done it before!
Today’s six-year feud could have been resolved before it started with a good, bench-clearing debate, followed by reconciliation. We are all on the same side, really. The control of property and assets — which is clearly defined in our founding documents — stands in the way of reason and ministry.
Redeemer members are trying to uphold historic Lutheran polity. Lutherans are interdependent, not hierarchical. More and more Lutherans (including clergy) don’t know that!
Fueled by clergy gossip, the Synod views Redeemer’s fortitude as a threat to their power. We see our position as doing the job of lay people.
Lutherans believe in equality of and cooperation between laity and clergy. I learned this in Confirmation Class and from the examples set by Elmer Hirsh, my husband, my adult Sunday School class, and both the old and new leadership of Redeemer. They are all saints in my book.
Somewhere in the last 25 years of the new ELCA, this strength of Lutheranism has waned and may be totally lost as we seek to emulate the structures of other denominations. Logically, other denominations should be emulating us—we have the tradition of reformation. But the concept of hierarchy is once again attractive to those who crave power.
Congregations are expected to comply with whatever the regional body sees as best. The regional body’s vision is muddied with self-interest and waning support across the board. Its information, especially from under-served smaller congregations, is often dated. Still, it’s comply or die.
And so, at least in my mind, this week commemorates the death of old Redeemer and my inauguration as one of many leaders of a new Redeemer. We went in directions none of us foresaw (and SEPA wasn’t looking). We constantly reassessed our neighborhood, our resources and our pool of talent. We were on a solid course, which still shows more promise than anything SEPA has in mind.
We remain ready to work together toward reconciliation however unlikely it seems.
In the story of the good Samaritan, the religious people (the priest and the Levite) find reasons to pass by the poor soul who has been robbed and hurt. In each case, their failure to act with compassion is prompted by fear for their own hides.
It is the Samaritan—the outsider, the person at whom the religious people of the day would collectively thumb their noses—who offered help—ongoing help, not just a quick fix.
We lived the Good Samaritan story this week. We needed help. One of our good members faced the imminent loss of her home and income due to the reign of terror inflicted on Redeemer and its members by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Our little church, which SEPA insists doesn’t exist, rallied.
We asked for help from churches who helped create this situation. They were prayerful but unhelpful. It’s so easy to find excuses to do nothing.
“We’ll pray for you” is the universal excuse of SEPA Lutherans. Their prayer, we suppose, is that someone else will fix the mess they created. How tiring all that prayer must be!
We went to unrelated Lutheran churches. We don’t do that sort of thing, was their answer.
At last we found the help we needed. One local church who has been helping us for the last four years offered major assistance with no expectation of return. A church some 200 miles away (and smaller than Redeemer!) both contributed and guaranteed what we couldn’t raise locally. Four individuals also helped graciously. As far as we know, only one has any church affiliation.
Two of them used the same phrase: “A wrong has been done and it must be righted.”
And so little Redeemer, raised the money we needed to satisfy Redeemer’s debt—twice what SEPA expects to pay. This debt would never have been a problem to anyone if our school were operating for the last four years and contributing to mission and ministry in East Falls. But SEPA, hungry for our assets, interfered with and ruined our 25-year relationship with a Lutheran agency and stopped us from opening our own program. They have kept the doors locked on both the sanctuary and school for nearly four years—no ministry is better than a neighborhood church they can’t control.
SEPA Synod took our property under questionable legality. A court split decision ruled in their favor, saying the courts could not be involved in church issues. The dissenting opinion pointed out that the legal arguments seem to favor Redeemer and the case should be heard by the courts. In five years, court room after court room, the case has never been heard.
We have always claimed that SEPA’s interest in our property was entirely a result of their failing finances and mission—not Redeemer’s.
This week is further proof.
We’ve been saying in our posts on social media that the power in the church is shifting. There was a day when congregations had to band together to provide services and perform effective mission. Individuals now have the power to do much more on their own. Support of hierarchy is more expensive than effective.
Redeemer (and yes, we do exist) proved that this week.
Don’t get us wrong . . . we appreciate prayer. But we appreciate even more those who help find answers to prayer.
Thank you to all who cared enough to do more than pray. You are a living parable.
Ambassadors visit Holy Spirit before they give up the ghost
Redeemer’s Ambassadors visited Holy Spirit in Northeast Philadelphia on their last Sunday before their closing service. Pastor Sandra Brown invited us to return for the closing ceremony, but we told her, “Closing churches is not our thing.”
Pastor Brown greeted us when we came in and shared with us that everything was OK, they had gone through “the process.” We don’t know what “the process” is. Epiphany met for six months in our church as they went through “the process.” Holy Spirit, it seems, has continued for a year after the sale of their building. At Redeemer, “the process” was a locksmith hiding on a back street and five years of law suits. Our guess — “the process” is whatever works for the synod.
Pastor Brown is on the synod council that voted us out of existence. But there we were — in existence. She seemed to be unable to say our name. She introduced us as from East Falls. We corrected her that we are from Redeemer. But two more times she introduced us as from East Falls. That word—Redeemer—seems to be difficult for synod people to say. Even the bishop can’t say our name without prefacing it with “the former.” Keep pounding that nail.
We still claim that the Synod Council has no authority to vote churches shut without the involvement of the congregation. Call us by any name—Redeemer still exits.
Today there were 13 gathered for worship. After a year of a hopeless “process” you really can’t expect many more. Pastor Brown spoke to the people at length about what to expect next week and what they might be allowed to take from the attic in preparation for the archival vultures. The people seemed to be resigned.
Today’s service was prayer, hymns and selected verses from a few favorite hymns. We joined hands and prayed together. Earlier in the service, Pastor Brown had taken extensive prayer requests and almost everyone contributed. It appears that they will soon be scattered in fellowship, joining a few different congregations. At least they avoided the Redeemer strategy — transfer all of us OUT of the church at the first sign of resistance.
Pastor Brown explained that two churches were meeting here, they and Living Waters, the UCC congregation who bought the property a year ago. Why is it other denominations see promise in city neighborhoods while the ELCA sees nothing?
The trappings of another denomination were obvious—the overstuffed chairs lining the chancel. The sound of trickling water from one of those indoor fountains was in the background. Was that symbolic of Living Waters?
It was not clear why the church was closing. They had a settled minister for 18 years, so short-term pastors weren’t the problem. They are in the middle of a vast neighborhood of row houses, so there is plenty of opportunity to interact and serve. The building is a gem. Beautiful, low maintenance brick throughout, with a nice wing added to the sanctuary and a decent yard. Parking did not appear to be a challenge. We noted long ago, before we heard of their closing, that there was no web site and today a church is not likely to attract visitors without one.
Pastor Brown said only that the opportunity arose to sell the property and that was an indication that the time had come. Yet the congregation was only 73 years old. Pastor Brown had been their pastor for a fourth of their history. The entire life of the church was one average life span.
Pastor Brown reported that she had taken the training to be an interim pastor. This is becoming a popular option for pastors. We have long thought that interim pastors are a detriment. We recently read a noted authority agreeing with us. We think interim ministries, with short, vague commitments and few performance expectations (answerable more to the regional body than to the congregation), serve the occupational needs of today’s clergy — not the parishes.
We will be thinking of Holy Spirit next week as the synod’s clergy come to celebrate the closing service—a kind of macabre ritual. Strange—everyone coming to rejoice while the congregation is mourning. Again, not something we want to be part of.
While SEPA leaders gather to celebrate failure, we’ll be working to keep our church open. The Church as a whole cannot grow without strong neighborhood churches. You cannot serve neighborhoods without a neighborhood presence. Presence in a neighborhood cannot fulfill the message of God’s love while you attack members of the neighborhood.
We were happy to worship this morning with the remnants of an able group who could be the core of such an effort. But others know best.
We wonder if anyone will track what becomes of Holy Spirit’s members over the next year. They should. They should not just assume because memberships are transferred today that a year later, the members are still active. In our experience, which includes observing Roxborough’s Grace and Epiphany, most members of closed churches are unchurched a year later—and stay unchurched.
We left with an invitation. Redeemer meets the first Sunday of the month at 10 am at the Old Academy in East Falls.
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA) has become a disciple of Seth Godin, the leading authority on marketing and societal change with a voice on the web. They have quoted him to their congregations.
Some organizations demand total fealty, and often that means never questioning those in authority.
Those organizations are ultimately doomed.
Respectfully challenging the status quo, combined with relentlessly iterating new ideas is the hallmark of the vibrant tribe.
SEPA begs its congregations to innovate and change. When they don’t change the way the synod has predetermined that they SHOULD change, they close them down and claim their property.
Redeemer is a case in point. Redeemer was growing quickly when SEPA saw their longed-for chance at claiming our property slipping away. Bishop Almquist had made an attempt to close us and seize our assets in 1998 and backed off after two years. But he refused to work with us in ministry if we didn’t accept the part-time pastor he had chosen for us. His call or no call.
We continued to grow without his help.
SEPA has a mission plan for small churches. They call it triage — shoving the smallest churches to the side and waiting for them to die, while attention is spent on larger churches with more promising prospects for supporting the hierarchy. Property values and assets DO enter the equation. A small congregation is better off if it has no assets than if it has an endowment! Compare Redeemer’s story with Faith/Immanuel in East Lansdowne.
Bishop Burkat loves to call Redeemer “former Redeemer.” We are not sure if she means Redeemer of the 1960s, Redeemer of the 1980s, or the Redeemer she visited with a locksmith in 2008 and spent the last five years suing. We exist if only so we can be sued!
Or maybe she thinks because Synod Council voted to close Redeemer in 2010, never bothering to inform the congregation, that Redeemer is closed. We notice in the latest ELCA yearbook that we are still contributing to the national church! Sounds like we are open!
Synod Council does not have the power to vote congregations out of existence. They’d know that if they read their founding documents. We reserve our constitutional right to challenge synod council’s actions when SEPA can provide a fair forum for hearing a challenge.
We recall very well our appeal in 2009 — which the Synod Assembly never voted on, substituting a vote about our property (not within their authority) when we were appealing Synodical Administration. Check the Synod Minutes and read the question that was voted on. It had nothing to do with our appeal!
Bait and switch. Then claim immunity from the law to pull it off in court.
Redeemer still exists in every way. Redeemer meets weekly — sometimes more often. Redeemer worships weekly —sometimes more often. Redeemer’s efforts to continue ministry— even as SEPA locked us out of the church we built and excluded us from all rights and fellowship within its fold—have grown our congregation in reach and influence despite persecution.
SEPA congregations are not powerless. They can still turn this around for the good of mission. But they have to respectfully challenge the status quo and demand peaceful reconciliation.
But what we’ve heard for the last five years is silence.
Redeemer is not closed. Redeemer is locked out of the Church by SEPA Synod.
It may be Groundhog’s Day in Punxatawny but February 2, 2013, is 2×2’s second anniversary. Our experimental web site has been quite an adventure. Our ministry has gained influence and reach we never imagined and is poised to be an income asset for our host congregation, Redeemer.
In February of 2011, 2×2 had just one visitor for the whole month (and it may have been one of us). Last month we had more than 2100 first time visitors and that doesn’t include a growing number of subscribers and those who receive our posts via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Our cyber statistics make us one of the largest congregations in the ELCA. And we’re just getting started!
Our primary mission is to help small congregations with ministry challenges. We hope to do this even more in 2013. The Easter Play we posted last year has had 1000 downloads this year. Our weekly Adult Object Lessons has a regular following. And several church organizations have contacted us for help with web sites.
Our secondary mission is to be the voice of Redeemer. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has done everything it can to try to silence us — even suggesting that one of our members, an ordained ELCA pastor, be censored for speaking out on issues everyone else veils in silence.
2×2 has been an effective voice.
A surprise along the way has been the number of international friendships we have made and the youthful readership who make up the majority of our followers. 2013 will also be a year for building/nurturing these relationships.
Through 2×2, Redeemer is poised to take ministry to new places. We’ve earned our place in the ELCA which refuses to recognize our ministry, preferring our physical assets to our membership. Where is St. Lawrence when we need him!? (Turn us over. We are done on this side.)
It is time for those who decided in 2009 that Redeemer couldn’t survive and therefore they should have the benefit of our assets to reconsider their actions.
The resulting law suits have depleted what reserves there were for them to enjoy. The building has been locked to all for three and a half year — serving no mission purpose whatsoever. Yet good can still be salvaged.
The church is not a building. It is the people. The people of Redeemer have continued our ministry despite every obstacle thrown our way.
Under Lutheran governance, any synodical administration is temporary in nature. It’s constitutional purpose is to help congregations. The Articles of Incorporation make it clear that property belongs to the congregation and cannot be taken without a congregation’s consent. Most of the people who voted to do this had never read the Articles of Incorporation.
There is no reason why Redeemer with its physical and cyber assets cannot fund a full ministry. With a little nurturing it could be quite lucrative.
It is time to for SEPA to reconsider its actions in East Falls, return our property as they should under their constitution and restore mission to this neighborhood.
If this was about money, problem solved. We can afford our own ministry. We always could.
…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.—Romans 5:3-5
An Antiquated Worldview Stifles the Voice of the Denomination
The turmoil in mainline churches is symptomatic. The concept of hierarchy is becoming outdated. In a decade or so we look back at how we did things before the computer revolution with the same incredulity we experience today when we review the history of the Crusades or slavery.
Until then there will be struggle as hierarchies try to hang on. It doesn’t have to be ugly.
A hierarchy that remembers that in the church we exist to serve is actually well positioned to meet the new age.
A hierarchy that is focused on its own power, importance and preservation will topple.
People who have embraced the new world can view what’s happening with amusement—if they are not part of tumultuous transition, that is.
Church leaders are slow to understand the gift that has been handed to them with social media.
We see it with the pope. He will tweet but he will not follow. The power of Twitter is in following. But popes and bishops are tempted to see that as beneath them. Communication has been one way for thousands of years. This is to be expected.
We will soon see it in religious social services. it will not be long before religious social service agencies admit that their association with a denomination may deter mission efforts. They can now reach volunteers and supporters more easily themselves than through national or regional church efforts.
Similarly, mission efforts that rely on denominational funding will soon realize that they are not as in touch with the people who support them as they could be without the filter of hierarchy.
How Church Hierarchies Are Unprepared for Modern Publishing
There are also big changes in church publishing—or there should be.
Church hierarchies were once needed to support church publishing. Their pooled resources were the only way a denomination could afford the cost. Because they were needed to fund publishing, they got used to thinking that they were needed to control what was written.
That day is over. Anyone can publish.
But our denomination is stuck trying to adapt old publishing models to the new media. They are missing the fact that the whole game has changed.
Unlike some of the other things mentioned, national church publishing can still play a major —but very different—role.
First, the regional and national church should make it a mission priority for every congregation to become familiar with social media. There is no excuse for any congregation to not have a web site or blog. They cannot be effective today without one. Everyone checks online for everything these days. No web site. Few visitors.
More important, churches and pastors must learn to use social media. Having a web site is one thing. Using it as a mission tool is another. This can no longer be overlooked and the regional and national church can lead the way.
If the denomination cares about member churches, they should help them make this transition. Both large and small churches find this to be daunting. The denominational and national church could and should help. Make it a mission priority and make sure pastors are trained to use social media.
Before they do this, they need to understand the power of the web themselves. In this they are missing the boat.
Standing on the dock and watching the ship of church sail
The ELCA publishes a “house” magazine. It is called The Lutheran. It contains a little bit of denominational news and feature stories of how the denomination and its congregations work in mission.
The Lutheran mails to 200,000 subscribers (only a small percentage of its 4 million membership).
It is also online. Sort of.
If the magazine prints 200,000 magazines, those magazines — assuming some are shared — might result in 300,000 readers—still a small fraction of total members.
An open and free online readership could easily magnify this reach. A good article might get 100,000 reads and then be passed onto 500,000 who might then pass it on to 2 million others. Wow! Imagine reaching the world with your message every month. Exciting!
But what does The Lutheran do? They feed you about ten lines of a story online and ask you to pay to read the rest. They limit dialog on the articles to subscribers. No pay. No say.
Engagement is the goal of almost every organization these days. Corporations understand that engagement is pivotal to relationships, sales, their mission and survival. Meanwhile, the church barricades themselves from engagement!
They are missing out on the social nature and evangelical power of the web. When they place that “pay to play” obstacle between them and their readers, they keep them from further sharing the good news. (Explain that to advertisers!)
Of course, they are interested in subscriptions. That’s the old publishing model. But The Lutheran is a “house” magazine. It should be looking for ways to get the message out to everyone—especially to people who just happen along who might be learning about the denomination from a friend who sent them a link.
They are hampering their own mission.
In the new world, religious magazines should explore a new funding model. Perhaps their work should be totally subsidized. Forget subscriptions.
There are other ways of adding to the income while enhancing the dialog within the church. Partner with denominational authors. Be a Kindle storefront for them. Empower the news potential of every congregation and every potential writer in the denomination. It’s new territory with great potential.
The denominational magazine will then be so much more powerful and able to attract a new level of advertising.
If preserving the publishing model of the past is the goal, keep it subscription-based with limited reach. A private club. All the members breathing the same stale air.
If influence and reach are the goals of church publishing, content must be free.
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
MISSION INSPIRATION OFFER
A visual and biblical guide to help congregations define their missions.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
or 215 605 8774
Redeemer’s Prayer
We were all once strangers, the weakest, the outcasts, until someone came to our defense, included us, empowered us, reconciled us (1 Cor. 2; Eph. 2).
Be calm. Wait. Wait. Commit your cause to God. He will make it succeed. Look for Him a little at a time. Wait. Wait. But since this waiting seems long to the flesh and appears like death, the flesh always wavers. But keep faith. Patience will overcome wickedness.
—Martin Luther
