4/7InkzHVUEQeEdU9vpc1tikzEhChrKmPfvXI-FSDBrBQ

SEPA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod)

Does SEPA Have A Plan to Close Churches?

Bishop Claire Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (ELCA) recently wrote to professional leaders outraged that people (specifically members of Redeemer) have suggested she is following a plan to close SEPA congregations.

She denies this.

We present to you the following evidence which makes it clear SEPA weighs the benefits to SEPA when assessing the strength of member ministries. SEPA has relied on church closings to fund its budget.

1998

In 1998, Bishop Almquist had his eye on Redeemer, a small church with a large endowment. He created conditions that led to imposing “involuntary synodical administration” and raided our bank account. When at last he gave up on the “administration” ruse he took an additional year to return the confiscated money, keeping some for Synod expenses. He then issued a plea to congregations for help in restoring the depleted “Mission Fund.” The amount he was asking for was almost exactly the amount returned to Redeemer. Redeemer in effect had supplied SEPA with an involuntary, two-year, interest-free loan.

2001

The issue with Bishop Almquist resolved in 2001, but he failed to find leadership for our congregation, trying to force us into long-term relationships with pastors who were clearly minimally commited. From 2001 to 2006, little concern was shown for Redeemer. It was even stated that left alone for ten years we were likely to die a natural death. Further evidence that this is a leadership philosophy: In 2001, Bishop Burkat as a member of Almquist’s staff holding the title of Mission Director, co-authored a book for regional church leaders, recommending a triage system for small churches. Do not spend time and resources on churches that will die in ten years, the book advises leaders.

2005

In 2005, just prior to Bishop Burkat’s election, SEPA treasurer reported that the Synod was within $75,000 of depleting every resource available. That’s about one month’s payroll for a staff of 14. Synod was in financial crisis.

2006

Redeemer had been working with Epiphany for nearly two years to unite our congregations and thought we were making progress. In October 2006, Epiphany abruptly announced its intention to break our covenant and close. We learned this vote was taken after Bishop Burkat met with Pastor Muse and Epiphany’s president. Redeemer was not consulted.

Pastor Muse gave 10 days notice, leaving Redeemer with no professional leadership. For six months, Bishop Burkat “helped bring closure” to Epiphany’s ministry . . . while neglecting Redeemer who was still housing Epiphany’s congregation but now with no advantages to their ministry. Epiphany was never locked out of Redeemer during their six-month closure process.

2007

Redeemer was launching a new ministry outreach which was showing great promise. By 2007, the national Church had already made note of our innovative ministry. We were attempting to get the attention of SEPA’s Mission Director. Phone calls were unreturned. We were told at last: “It doesn’t matter what your congregation does, the Bishop intends to close your church.” So much for the process of “mutual discernment”!

2008

SEPA Synod Assembly voted for a hefty deficit budget several years in a row. In 2008, when Bishop Burkat officially announced its intentions for Redeemer, the approved deficit was shy of $300,000—about 10% of the total budget. It was well known at the time that offerings and membership were in steady decline. Even larger SEPA congregations were experiencing hardship. Was there a plan presented for how to come up with $300,000?

Yes. It was reported that budget shortfalls are made up from the “Mission Fund.” Only later was the Assembly told that the Mission Fund was the repository of assets from closed churches.

In February, Bishop Burkat brought a lawyer, a locksmith and a sizable posse with her to what she thought was to be her first meeting with Redeemer. “Mutual discernment” began with intimidation.

2009

Synod Attorney John Gordon, before Judge Lynn in its actions against Redeemer, argued that Redeemer was the first of six congregations SEPA intended to close, suggesting to the court that it was a normal and benevolent procedure. That in itself is admission that SEPA has a plan to close churches.

2010

In the fall of 2010, Redeemer Ambassadors encountered a member of Epiphany in one of our visits. She spoke of her outrage that it was only after Epiphany voted to close that the congregation was informed that all but 5% of its assets had to be turned over to the Synod. There are many published reports of Lutheran congregations closing and dividing assets to causes of their choosing. There is no rule that congregational assets automatically go to Synod.

Statistics show that 80% of members from churches forced into closure never find a new church home. The members of closed SEPA congregations we encounter are hurt and angry. Those impressively orchestrated closing ceremonies do little more than assuage the consciences of leaders. We suspect that the process of closing churches that Bishop Burkat describes as going smoothly is not satisfactory from the congregations’ view.

We invite congregations to tell of their experiences. 

2011

It was not until the 2011 Synod Assembly that the Assembly insisted on a balanced budget, but still earmarked about 3% as coming from the Mission Fund—progress that came too late for about six SEPA congregations.

November 2011

We encountered a businessman on one of our visits who told us his company had attempted to help an urban church with a property problem. He received a phone call from Bishop Burkat ordering him to stop helping this church. Why? The plan, she explained, was to close the church and sell the property. This congregation is still open. Our Ambassadors have visited it twice. Members are fervent in their passion for their ministry.

There is ample evidence that closing churches is part of Synod’s plan to fund their budget.

SEPA member churches and clergy MUST take responsibility for the leadership they elect.
Many innocent people sitting in pews across five counties rely on you. Lay servants may think twice when they see how Redeemer leaders have been treated. They provide offerings, energy, property, buildings, and passion to SEPA’s ministry. SEPA is taking advantage of them.

The measure of a Synod is in how it treats its smallest congregations.

photo credit: jaxxon via photopin cc

02 Mar 2012

Our Response to Bishop Burkat’s Recent Letter

2×2 has many readers who know little about the long conflict within SEPA Synod, and we do not wish to burden them. We want 2×2 to be a lively forum for ideas.

Therefore we created a special page to discuss the recent letter Bishop Claire Burkat wrote to SEPA clergy to prepare them for a possible article in the Philadelphia papers. If you are interested, here’s the link.

28 Feb 2012

Solo Pastors Must Be Evangelists

Most small congregations function with solo pastors. Solo pastors must be evangelists.

But some solo pastors rely on miraculous intervention for church growth. Denominations even have a term for this ministry style—caretaker ministries. Caretaker ministries are a terrible idea! They are an insult to mission of the church. In addition, they are at the heart of much church conflict.

The problem: congregations are not in on the “caretaker” secret. Lay people think they have called a pastor equipped to help with all aspects of ministry, including evangelism. They are unaware that their caretaker pastor has just one goal—to appease a congregation’s current membership for however long it takes for them to fail. The reason stated with confidence: the culture and demographics can no longer support the neighborhood church.

So here is what happens. The caretaker pastor faithfully serves needy members, visits regularly, prays with them, and becomes loved and respected for the personal attention given. Meanwhile, lay leaders, who are responsible for the overall health of the congregation, become concerned that the congregation is not fulfilling other aspects of vital ministry. They begin pressing for evangelism, educational services and ministry efforts the caretaker minister had no intention of ever providing.

The needy congregational members see escalating conflict as an attack on their beloved caretaker. They are content and unconcerned with church growth and budgets. Suddenly, a congregation is divided. All the players are good people with worthwhile goals, but lines are soon drawn—”good guys” vs “bad guys.”

A predictable scenario: the caretaker pastor will insist evangelism is the role of the laity.

Laity, on the other hand, think that professionally trained pastors are in a better position to conduct outreach.

A corporation does not unleash their sales force without intense training. If the Church is to rely on lay evangelists, it must give them similar support.

2×2 has experience with this situation. Over many years, we had conversations with our clergy pressing for services that might grow the congregation. We became familiar with the professional reasoning that ended up with inaction on anyone’s part.

Then one day in 2006, we found ourselves with no pastor and no hope of cooperation from our denomination in finding professional leadership. We crafted our own initiative, put the reins in the hands of untried but enthusiastic members, and pledged as a congregation to support their efforts. They met with early success and were even able to find qualified professional support (help our denomination insisted could not be found). Remarkable growth resulted.

Our denomination responded by condemning our work. The only reason given: it was not done in cooperation with the Synod Mission Office.

How silly! Congregations are not required to ask permission to invite people to come to church.

Can the Church have it both ways? Can they insist that lay people are responsible for outreach and then complain when clergy don’t lead the outreach?

If church mission must be “in cooperation” with church professionals, then they must take responsibility. They must provide pastors who roll up their sleeves and lead evangelism by example and by training, equipping, and encouraging laity—and they must be held accountable.

Denominations must insist solo pastors engage in evanglism. Do not wait for years of failure before implementing steps for success.

Quit blaming demographics and culture. Christianity has been standing up to these forces from the start.

Christ’s answer to the challenge was to empower the lay workers.

17 Feb 2012

More Questions for SEPA Synod and Bishop Burkat

“We will travel by listening and praying and discerning, not by resisting, complaining or reminiscing.”

This sentence from Bishop Claire Burkat’s recent letter to professional leaders in the ELCA’s Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod is troubling.

There seems to be a hidden meaning. Listening, praying and discerning are the good things, right? Does that mean resisting, complaining and reminiscing are bad things?

If no one resists when they are mistreated, if no one complains when they see wrong in the world, and if our life experiences mean so little that we cannot share and remember them and build our identities around them, then how is anyone to listen, pray and discern wisely?

Isn’t a devotion to the Bible a form of reminiscing?

There is power in the things Bishop Burkat proposes we avoid. Listening, praying and discernment are fueled by resisting, complaining and reminiscing. No one should want to be a part of a church that does not honor these along with the others.

Bishop Burkat seems to long for easy leadership—one where church leaders and church members do as they are told. This philosophy can be rephrased: We’ll figure out what is best for you; you will comply.

Now that SEPA Synod has decided that your property and money are theirs for the taking, will congregations dare resist, complain or be caught remembering their heritage?

This poor leadership philosophy has been the driving force behind the five-year conflict between Bishop Burkat/SEPA and Redeemer. Does SEPA need more evidence that this is bad for all Lutherans?

By the way, Bishop Burkat’s opening dialog in her one meeting with Redeemer back in 2007 included her complaint, “I sense there is resistance.” Well, she was right about that!

She then set about destroying all memory of Redeemer — locking our doors for nearly three years, tearing down all signage, refusing to allow us even the name of our church. (Doesn’t this sound a bit like the way the U.S. treated the native Americans? If you can control their identity, you can control their land.)

SEPA congregations know what they have to look forward to if they don’t toe the line.

13 Feb 2012

When a Church Makes Mistakes

“There will be dangers, and we will surely make mistakes.”

Bishop Claire Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church  in America (SEPA, ELCA), wrote these words to rostered leaders a couple of weeks ago.

She is talking about the future. It is also part of SEPA’s past.

Bishop Burkat’s message warned leaders that they don’t quite know what they are doing or where they are going in today’s religious climate. We suspect that has been the case for a while. There have been needless and costly casualties as SEPA leadership reached their newfound epiphany.

We all make mistakes. Church members, clergy, congregations, and yes, even bishops make mistakes.

Our question for the bishop and other SEPA Lutherans is this: When, at last, you’ve identified an action as a “mistake,” what are you going to do about it?

Redeemer and 2×2 are in an excellent position to predict the future.

When leadership mistakes happen within the part of God’s Kingdom called SEPA, the rostered clergy are protected at all cost. The volunteer laity shoulder the blame. We cannot move comfortably into the uncharted future as long as this continues.

By now, it should be dawning on SEPA congregations that the actions they endorsed in East Falls— if not by vote, by neglect — are a huge mistake. And now SEPA is warning that more mistakes are likely.

So far, SEPA congregations have behaved as if they are powerless. The annihilation of one little congregation has been a focal point of Bishop Burkat’s entire term. By setting out to destroy one expendable congregation, she has weakened the whole Church.

The Church must practice four pillars of church community—repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and atonement. Without these, the church will crumble.

What might have happened if SEPA and Bishop Burkat had practiced the techniques of listening and discernment she references in her latest letter to clergy? What might be happening in East Falls if SEPA actions had been motivated by love — which is the primary message of the Gospel? What might be happening in East Falls if SEPA had worked with Redeemer in the interdependent relationship their constitutions call for?

The Redeemer/SEPA conflict was needless. Once started there were numerous roads toward peace. Redeemer suggested many possibilities in letter after ignored letter. Every decision made by SEPA leadership for the last four years regarding Redeemer has escalated conflict with no end in sight. Faithful laity were treated as enemies from the get go.

We do not have to polish our crystal ball to predict that this is what SEPA congregations can expect if they are the victims of anticipated synodical mistakes.

  • Your clergy will disappear. Laity will be blamed for all consequences and have no one to speak for them.
  • Members will be named in personal lawsuits, their lives affected for years after being banished from their church.
  • Property and assets will be valued while people are thrown away.
  • Your congregation and its members will be called names, mocked, threatened, strong-armed, and dragged through the courts with every expectation that you submit to bullying.
  • No stone will be left unturned in pursuit of evidence to justify actions — after the fact.
  • Your members will be treated as if their faith and dedication are subservient to synod’s wishes made in greedy isolation.
  • Your denomination will use the full power of the courts in their attack against your members, while taking full advantage of their First Amendment protection of “separation of church and state.”

Maundy Thursday is eight weeks away. The imagery of Maundy Thursday is Christ in humility.

Church leaders like to display their humility ceremonially on this sacred occasion.  If this humility is genuine, the doors of Redeemer should be unlocked and our bishop should preside over a service, kneeling to wash the feet of Redeemer members. That would be the start of a new Church that practices what it preaches — repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation and atonement.

IMAGE SOURCE PAGE: http://laughing-listening-learning.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html
10 Feb 2012

The “Not So New” Horizontal Church

Many church leaders are bemoaning that Church isn’t what it used to be. Bishop Claire Burkat wrote to her rank and file lately warning that the road ahead is uncharted and there is no blueprint for moving foreward. The old ways just aren’t working.

Perhaps it is only an illusion that they ever did!

Welcome to the “horizontal” Church.

Church can learn from what’s happening in the rest of the world. Business leaders, too, are noticing that the old ways of doing business are ineffective, inefficient and unprofitable. There is a TV show that brings this “epiphany” to us every Sunday evening — Undercover Boss.

In the old business world, upper management controlled all things. An employee’s future relied on his/her ability to control people, material, budgets, customers. The power in the business world has shifted to the consumer. Smart business people are meeting the challenge by restructuring their businesses to be less vertical (hierarchical) and more horizontal. Create a good product, serve your customers well, and your business will grow by word of mouth or by keystrokes on the internet or cellphone.

The Church lives in the same world. It has relied on hierarchical control for a very long time and so change may come a bit harder and a tad slower, but things are changing. Hierarchies are crumbling under the weight of their own weaknesses. Rank and file spiritual church members are resisting the support of vertical management and for good reason. It’s expensive, unproductive and crippling. Offerings, we can conclude, are better spent on direct service than on supporting hierarchy.

And so, the Church today is mirroring society. The Church is becoming more horizontal. We still have a good “product” and the laborers in the vineyard are committed. The Church will survive by spreading person to person (2×2!).

This is where Bishop Burkat is wrong! There is a blueprint! It’s called The Bible.

photo credit: michaelrighi via photopin cc

 

07 Feb 2012

A New Year, A New Vision and A New Journey

This is the headline of an e-letter recently sent to the professional leaders of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America by Bishop Claire Burkat.

Bishop Burkat announced that she and the church were having an epiphany.

“The age of the mainline Church as many of us have known it has passed, and there is no blueprint for our journey in this next, rapidly accelerating age.”

The epiphany may have struck sooner and taken fewer casualties if Bishop Burkat had taken time to get to know congregations when she took office. Heart to heart dialog at the time might have helped her hear things we congregations were trying to tell her. We could have helped her lead. That’s the Lutheran way. Interdependence.

It has taken almost every day of her six-year term, but Bishop Burkat has discovered some things for herself.

“The most apparent changes in our congregations and denominations so far see us shifting our focus from relying on professional staff, planning programs, keeping-up buildings, and preserving institutions toward engaging people inside and outside our churches in spritual conversation, as well as creating caring communities, collaborative service, and collective discernment.”

Redeemer was trying to tell her that. We had forged our way, with very little reliance on professional leadership. We had fostered good relationships with neighborhood organizations. We had relied on the gifts of the laity. We recognized that God was at work in our community in a new and creative way.

Now SEPA has a new blog to share ministry stories of its member churches. Although the site invites us to Tell Our Story, we doubt that our story would make it past moderation. So we will tell our story here. Feel free to tweet or reblog or post it on God Is Doing Something Good Blog for us.

  • Redeemer had a growing outreach ministry to East African immigrants. They had found a church home in East Falls and were growing in participation and leadership. Redeemer of the 20th century had welcomed the 21st century, adapting our traditions—not forsaking them—to welcome many new people.
    Bishop Burkat and SEPA discouraged our ministry and locked us all out of God’s House.
  • Redeemer was concentrating on developing lay leadership.
    That need is the topic of Alban Institute’s Roundtable this week. Redeemer had been working at this for a decade. 
  • Redeemer had a plan to help immigrant families locate starter homes, obtain mortgages and make necessary renovations.
    Bishop Burkat and SEPA made this impossible.
  • Redeemer had a plan to pioneer congregational use of the web. The fact that we were locked out of our church home made this a priority.
    If you are reading this (along with our more than 100 daily readers) you have discovered our ground-breaking blog.
  • Redeemer recognized that our property, rented to a Lutheran Social Service agency, was contributing to a valued neighborhood ministry. This was a mission alliance that served a church agency, our congregation and neighborhood. If money were our sole objective, we could have rented our property for more.
    Bishop Burkat and SEPA’s interference put the agency in the middle of a property dispute. They chose to shut down their 25-year presence in our community.
  • With this long-standing mission project ruined by SEPA, Redeemer worked for a year to develop a school that would serve the community in a way which would also foster religious values.
    Bishop Burkat and SEPA evicted the school just as it was about to open.
  • Redeemer recognized that a neighborhood ministry to immigrants, while valuable and God’s apparent plan for us, was not likely to be funded from the offering plate. Neither would an outreach mission to college-aged youth and young professionals, also a large part of East Falls neighborhood. Both were obvious missions for any church in East Falls. We worked to develop alternate income streams using our assets.
    Bishop Burkat and SEPA sued us to obtain our property and endowment funds for their own use.

God continues to work through Redeemer.

In our excommunicated state, we began visiting other Lutheran churches. We started to see firsthand many common challenges. We are responding.

  • We are creating a model for a program that would help small congregations create an eductional outreach and reconnect with their neighborhoods. VBS-aid is getting inquiries from all over the coutnry. It’s an idea that could bring many benefits to the emerging 21st century church and to SEPA. It needs start-up funding.
  • Abandoned by our own denomination, Redeemer is forming new relationships with other Lutheran groups and other denominations. We are pioneering an educational model for congregations that would not be expensive and would create ongoing dialog and community—another good idea with growing support.

If SEPA hadn’t taken our money, we could fund our projects with our own money.

Bishp Burkat ends her missive to SEPA professional leaders:

“Let’s perceive this journey into uncharted territory as a great adventure. There will be dangers, and we will surely make mistakes.”

Bishop Burkat is right. Mistakes will—and have been—made.

It is not too late to admit that SEPA’s actions in East Falls were just that—a mistake. The art of leadership, especially Christian leadership, is to recognize mistakes and take actions to reconcile.

This is a leadership quality all churches must foster. Congregations must be free to make mistakes without hungry big brother/sister Church waiting to take advantage.

The road into the the future would be smoother if SEPA could admit their mistakes. Instead of counting coup on the neighborhood congregations, try respecting that God may be at work in ways you have yet to understand. That’s the value of an epiphany.

Redeemer may be SEPA’s most valuable congregation — and we’re not talking about land and endowments. Assigned an excommunicated status, declared to be dying, Redeemer has been trail-blazing.

It’s not too late to make things right in East Falls. We are ready for reconciliation. Are you?

As Bishop Burkat points out, “God is God and we are not.”

31 Jan 2012

Closing Churches Creates Pariah Parishes

The announcement of church closings is a common scenario in the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholic church structure places property ownership in the hands of the bishop.

Not so for Lutherans. Yet in recent years, Lutheran “bishops” are assuming the powers of the Roman Catholic “bishops” and declaring churches closed without the participation of the congregations. As resistance builds, the process becomes uglier and more heavy-handed.

The true measure of a denomination's strength may be how it treats its smallest congregations. Declaring churches closed is asking for trouble. Churches with any life must resist if they are to act on their faith and beliefs — which is what religion is all about.

Once lines are drawn, parishes that resist become pariahs. Gossip starts. No one wants to be involved.

How does a denomination guarantee that determinations of viability are about the parish and not about the denomination?

More congregations will face the mysterious “viability” test. They may not even realize they are being tested.

The signs that this may be happening are

  • no cooperation from the denomination in finding pastoral help
  • pastors sent as caretakers who do nothing to grow the congregation
  • failure to communicate with the congregations (letters unanswered, phone calls not returned)
  • in general, the absence of the denomination until . . . .

Once a congregation is labeled “not viable” word spreads. There is little a congregation can do to change minds. Pastors will disappear and the congregation will find themselves limited to working with lay talents and retired pastors whose careers can no longer be influenced by the denomination.

Any measure of a congregation’s strength made by a denomination, itself in fiscal crisis, must be questioned.

Redeemer is notorious at this point.

One clergy member commented that closing Redeemer doesn’t matter. “There are plenty of churches in that neighborhood.” There were plenty of churches. The Congregational Church on Midvale closed and the building is now the office of a Lutheran Social Service agency. The Methodist Church closed. The Baptist Church closed. The members of St. James the Less were evicted by the diocese. St. Bridget’s is endangered.

The Presbyterian Church faced challenges but has managed to revive their ministry with the support of their denomination. The Episcopal Church, located on a remote street, was assisted by SEPA Synod in creating a ministry plan. Yes, the same synod that determined their own ministry in the heart of East Falls was not viable was assisting the Episcopalian congregation on the fringe of the neighborhood.

At the time Synod declared “synodical administration” on Redeemer, it was the fastest growing church in East Falls.

Decisions are being made about neighborhood ministries by people who know nothing about the neighborhoods.

Money is the issue in East Falls. Redeemer was a small congregation with cash. When Bishop Almquist targeted Redeemer in 1998, we had received a $300,000 endowment a few years prior. We resisted his action successfully, but we became a pariah parish.

In 2007, after nearly a decade of Synod neglect. we still had operating funds and a rented property. The congregation was active and growing. Synod was operating on a recurring six-figure deficit budget. With giving down, the only way out was to look for congregations to close.

Five years after being declared not viable, and more than two years after being physically locked out of their house of worship, Redeemer still meets weekly for worship. Redeemer still develops mission projects which are gaining national interest, if not interest from the denomination. Redeemer remains viable. Imagine what might have been done with the support and respect of church leaders.

One might think that mission and scripture play a role. Love, helping the needy, reconciliation, forgiveness, sacrifice . . . just words when denominations attack their congregations.

Synods must solve their own fiscal problems . . and not on the backs of its small neighborhood churches. The true measure of a denomination’s strength may be how it treats its smallest congregations.  

SEPA member churches, find a voice . . . or you may be next.

13 Jan 2012

What Makes Ministry Viable?

This is a question that is answered differently by clergy than lay people.

Denominations want to measure assets to determine if they can comfortably place a minister there.

Congregations are more interested in ministry results. They look for ideas, passion and action.

Both have a place in the viability equation and both sides should be involved in any viability determination. Money without ideas, and vice versa, is useless.

What is rarely measured is potential and that has a lot to do with the work of the Spirit.  

Redeemer has great experience with the folly of measuring viability without allowance for the Spirit.

Redeemer was declared not viable in 1998. Our elderly but spunky members were viable enough to change Bishop Almquist’s mind — even if they failed to prompt him to work with the congregation.

For eight years we were ignored by synod leadership.

Synod, under new management in 2006, decided to play the viability card again. They assumed those old ladies from 1998 were dead, gone or rasping for breath. Redeemer, under synod’s philosophy of allowing congregations to die, should have been ripe for picking.

The old ladies of 1998 were gone. But they hadn’t gone to their eternal reward without laying the foundation for new mission. In the eight years Redeemer was left to die, Redeemer grew, slowly and steadily at first, and quickly in 2006 and 2007. Most members were now under 40. Children were abundant. Redeemer was five times the size it had been in 1998.

Ample evidence of this was presented to SEPA to no avail.

  • We were debt-free.
  • We had a 25-year day care program renting our educational building.
  • We had an endowment fund — that suffered from Synod’s attempts to take our assets in 1998 but was still more than Synod had!
  • We had ministry initiatives which were reaping good rewards.
  • We had talented lay leadership and good relationships with several pastors.
  • We had worked for several months with clergy, real estate experts, an accountant and lawyer to create a detailed plan for new ministry initiatives.

But Bishop Burkat had made a hasty declaration about Redeemer and wasn’t about to let facts get in the way. SEPA’s recurring six-figure deficit budget was motivation enough. Money had to be found. Redeemer, we learned, was to be the first of six congregations targeted to solve the problem.

If the viability measure were scientific, it should have been easy. Swoop in, act like you care, say a prayer, hold a “celebratory” service, grab everything in sight, and post the “for sale” sign. If members resist, sue; that’ll get ’em.

But Synod’s measure of viability seems to be faulty. Money created a conflict of interest.

Six years later, the oppressed victims of Redeemer have an active and viable ministry even without the property and assets that were found inadequate back in 2006. Legal action, personal attacks, even excommunication failed to dampen its potential.  The Spirit found a crack. Potential.

Synod– the entire body, not just the leadership — turned their responsibility over to the courts, who, as it ends up, don’t want it. The courts never heard the case Synod brought against the congregation. They decided to let the church work out its own problems, citing separation of church and state.

The ball is back in the court of SEPA member churches.

Synod could be proud of Redeemer. They could boast of Redeemer’s pioneering efforts in multi-cultural ministry, social media ministry, and children’s ministries. They might learn from our ministry initiatives.

If you approve of the actions of your synod, beware that your approval means many of you will face the Redeemer treatment. From our visits it looks like about 10% of SEPA congregations are no stronger than Redeemer. A few more years of unchecked decline will add to that number.

If you do not approve, you are obligated under the constitution to speak up and say so. The secular courts are not going to do your work for you.

That’s about the only decision to come out of four years of legal maneuvering. Doing the right thing is up to you! Spend the next four months thinking about it.

10 Jan 2012

How Do You Measure “Church” in A Digital Age?

The things we measure are not always the things that count.

Churches have vital statistics. Most people in the pew pay little attention to them. Pastors often pay little attention, too. Denominations have a hard time collecting parish data and sometimes they make up their own statistics.

Maybe it’s too depressing. Maybe we measure the wrong things.

Typical parish statistics include:

  • Worship attendance
  • Number of baptized/confirmed members
  • Percentage of members attending worship
  • Number of members involved in Sunday Schools and VBS programs
  • Regular giving by members
  • Endowments and property assets
  • Operating expenses and debt
  • Contributions to benevolence (what the local parish sends to the denomination)
  • Contributions to mission
  • Ethnic and racial makeup of a congregation
Little of this says anything about what a congregation does or is capable of doing in the modern world!

In most congregations, at least in the ELCA, most traditional statistics are dropping dramatically.

Some of these statistics are rather old fashioned.

Once upon a time, a parish had to give money to centralized authority to be dispersed for mission. Today, congregations can and do choose mission efforts in the community and bypass their denominations, which skews that statistic.

Operating expenses assume a pastor’s salary and property as foundational expenses. Neither may be necessary anymore.

There are many other things in a congregation that can be measured (but aren’t) and there are even more things that are difficult to measure.

If we start looking at other sources of data, our view of parish ministry might change.

Internet ministries are very measurable and can be very helpful in directing church ministry. Very few congregations bother or work only half-heartedly in a self-focused way.

2×2 concentrates on internet outreach — and we’ve only begun!

Here are some statistics on our first 10 months of internet ministry.

2×2 published its first post in February 2011. We had practically no traffic for six months. In mid-summer, we began publishing daily and the site has grown since. There was a slight dip at Christmas time but we have already recorded our most traffic ever only four days into 2012, so we expect the statistics to continue to grow — as long as we continue to work at it.

We have recorded 2100 site visits. For the last two months, 2×2 has consistently registered 100-150 views each week. We have about 70 subscribers/followers who receive our posts by email and so are not counted in site visits data. Our average daily on site readership is about 25. So it is fair to say that 2×2 has 100 daily readers.

2×2 has been visited by someone in all but three states with regular viewership in several states. We have viewers around the world with regular readership in several European countries, Canada and Australia.

We can follow our reader’s interests and provide content accordingly. 2×2 readers are most interested in Social Media and the Church and Children’s Sermons. Our articles on Multicultural Ministry were republished by a reader in Texas. The Editorial Calendar we created to correspond to the Lectionary has been downloaded dozens of times.

2×2 has a presence beyond its online ministry that is more difficult to measure (like most ministries), but in 2×2’s case, it is made all the more difficult to measure because the members of 2×2, who are also members of Redeemer, East Falls, have been excommunicated from the ELCA — without discussion or congregational vote — with the denomination claiming our property and financial assets against their own denominational rules.

Imagine what might have been accomplished if our abilities had been measured!

The church needs to take a fresh look at how they measure ministry.

04 Jan 2012