TREND 4 Extremely short attention spans due to clutter.
Oh, my! This is a challenge for the modern church.
Five, two-hour sessions constitute today’s Bible School as opposed to two weeks, including weekend events.
Praise songs that repeat one simple theological concept. Let’s not think too hard when we are singing!
Fast food-style Eucharists (Take and dunk.).
Every event interrupted with snack breaks and coffee breaks.
All of these things are enjoyable but take something away from the experiences we once valued. No wonder today’s Christians don’t know the Bible as well as their ancestors. They also have less understanding of “church.”
Attention span was a challenge at Redeemer as a multicultural church. Our American culture often clashed with the more laid-back ways of our immigrant members. When we planned events we started with two extremes. “White Redeemer” (the Synod’s term, not ours) would advocate for a two-hour event. Our African members didn’t mind planning for the whole day. We managed to compromise. Events were planned for two hours, would last closer to three, and the social afterwards would last just as long for those who chose to stay. Most did.
The challenge to the western Church is to recognize that their members’ attention is demanded by many more sources than in yesteryear—professionally, socially and as family members.
We can keep offering the same sorts of educational events. The people who show up may never really connect.
This is where online ministry can shine. A simple thought presented daily will have far more impact than an hour-long Bible study. You may find that when members get together on Sunday that they are talking about the short messages they read during the week. (That’s been our experience.)
The Church can also be a slowing agent, a social retardant, a respite from the hectic pace of the Information Age. Try going against the norm now and then. Ask people to slow down and take time for God. Weave this into your more fast-paced ministry.
Study a four- or more-verse hymn together—something with some theologic substance like The Church’s One Foundation. Mix the hand-clapping mantras with something that may one day be of more comfort and guidance.
Change up the worship service. Add an object lesson. Divide the sermon into three with a comment on each of the major scripture readings. Illustrate the sermon with slides. (People who watch worship on TV are used to this!) None of this abandons the sacred order of liturgy. That would bring the roof down!
Change venues. Short attention spans might be lengthened if the surroundings change. Meet in different places (maybe even for the same event!). Move from the sanctuary to the fellowship hall to the outside. Take advantage of your church camps. Meet in homes. Small churches can meet in local restaurants. (We do!)
The short attention span is likely here to stay. Let’s work with it.
A pondering:
Many of the churches we visit have “fast food” Eucharist, (people file past quickly with just a nibble of a foretaste of the feast to come). This can be a shock to the senses of those who were raised kneeling together with family at the altar. A few provide an option. The communicants who filed through the line were invited, if they wished, to retire to the altar. Several did.
What would happen if everyone did—and they stayed there in prayer for ten minutes, instead of sixty seconds?
Here’s where a Church hierarchy can still play an important role.
Since the beginning of the Church there were offshoots of Christianity to deal with. Separate groups of followers had a different story to tell. Much of early Church history is about deciding exactly which group is telling the most authentic story.
Early leaders looked for sources with the most direct connections with Christ. They sought to verify connections. That’s how we arrived at today’s approved Bible, which isn’t about to change soon. Nevertheless, scholars with the help of archeologists still find new texts to add to our knowledge of the early Church.
For example, most Protestant churches teach very little from the Apocrypha. Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions include these books.
The challenge for today’s Church is that the Church is accustomed to dictating what the true story is. They will now have to live in a world that challenges their authority.
That’s most easily done in an atmosphere of open dialog. Dialog is easy in today’s world, but the Church needs to be where the people are—and it’s not in church on Sunday morning.
The Church is inexperienced at open dialog. How much dialog really happens at Synod Assemblies or Church-wide Assemblies? They are pretty well orchestrated to limit dialog.
Frequently, dialog is open in the Church only on approved topics and only up to a point. The cast of players is hand-chosen and properly vetted.
The parameters of the dialog are likely to be narrow and the results are likely to be predictable. Their discussions may be published, but few will read them. The people in the pew know their input is not particularly welcome. Why bother? The dialog was taking place so that we could all be told what to think and believe.
Yet it was never more important. The Scriptures can be easily distorted for selfish purposes. Every 10-year-old holds in his or her hands tools more powerful than ever before in history.
The telling of the story is often a tool of charismatic people who crave control, power or are following any number of dangerous urges. This is how cults gain traction. Cults can be big movements. They can exist in little congregations. They can be led by outsiders. They can be led by church leaders.
The Church won’t be able to check this if they aren’t part of the dialog. When they abandon churches—waiting for them to die, they open the door to all kinds of potential bad teaching.
It may seem insignificant. After all, they are waiting for churches to die. What does it matter?
But the damage can be devastating—even life-threatening. The stories of loving parents following the lead of faith healers right until their child (or children) die regularly make the news. So, too, the stories of innocent youth lured into inappropriate situations.
The Church needs to address this on every level. The story must be told nationally and internationally, regionally and in every neighborhood congregation. Every congregation must (and can) be part of the ongoing dialog of faith.
Three Redeemer Ambassadors set out on a new adventure this Sunday morning. We hadn’t been in this area for a year or so. We never plan our trips before the prior Saturday afternoon, so it’s always a surprise to us.
Redeemer is not closed. We are locked out of God’s house by SEPA Synod.
We read their Trend statistics and website thoroughly before our visit. This was very interesting to us. It is one of the many enigmas we encounter on our visits.
Redeemer was falsely represented to the Synod Assembly and in court as having only 13 members (they counted only our white members). Our situation in the courts, without any opportunity for us to witness otherwise, has been repeatedly termed “dire.” We were not operating with a deficit budget. Synod was!
Our true statistics laid beside Immanuel’s make us look rich indeed. We had an endowment three times theirs in 2009 and more than 15 times theirs in 1997. Legal fees dealing with the Synod in 1997 and 2008-2013 ate up a lot of our resources. The Synod has cost our community dearly and they aren’t finished with us yet, we suspect.
Immanuel’s membership and attendance are dropping at the same rate as most other churches. In contrast, Redeemer was growing. We accepted 52 members in the 18 months prior to Bishop Burkat’s interest in our assets. They didn’t count. “White Redeemer must be allowed to die. Black Redeemer . . . we can put them anywhere,” said Bishop Burkat to our stunned East African members—some of whom had been members for a decade. Some were born and baptized into our faith community. As one young lady commented at the time, “This synod is great on supporting Tanzanian ministry as long as we Tanzanians stay in Tanzania.”
A difference is that Immanuel has a pastor. SEPA strategy in dealing with Redeemer was to isolate us from the standard relationship of church/synod. Bishop Burkat chased two of our pastors. Bishop Almquist chased one and refused to help us find a replacement for six years.
In 2008, we had just presented a resolution to the bishop to call the pastor we had been working with successfully for seven months. After months of trying to reach the bishop to ask for an assignment without so much as a returned call, he suddenly was given an interim job in the northern frontier of the Synod. Redeemer continued to find our own leaders. One of them was with us this morning.
This was our Ambassador’s 70th visit.It amazes us that more than a third of the churches we visit are no stronger than we, but they still felt comfortable voting to take our property.
They are in the same boat. We’ll hand them an oar! We’ve been down the rapids that they are about to take!
We are very familiar with the challenges they face.
Astronomical utility bills. Immanuel is already soliciting contributions for an anticipated $10,000 winter heating bill. Ours was $8000 when we used the building daily and about $6000 when we heated the building only a couple of times a week.
Enormous insurance bills. These bills are crippling a lot of small churches— the price we pay for living in a litigious society (including church culture).
Changing demographics. We actually solved this problem!
They have a two-story educational building with a gym. We had one without the gym. It was a good source of ongoing revenue for us until SEPA Synod interfered. Redeemer was very much self-supporting.
I asked why they weren’t hosting a school. It seemed to be an obvious solution to their financial problems. The building, a member shared, isn’t handicapped accessible and they couldn’t open a school without that. They said it was just too costly to make it accessible.
If this is the only thing keeping a church from worthwhile programs that would contribute to their mission and ministry, one might think that all churches, through their hierarchical interdependence, would find a way to help older congregations solve this problem. Instead, our leaders wait for their older neighborhood churches to die so they can benefit from the spoils. They discourage the use of equity to solve problems. They offer no solutions. This relieves every church’s burden of supporting hierarchy and gives them a false sense of strength and prosperity. They sit smugly in their buildings, like spiders in their webs, waiting to assume the resources of older churches. Their buildings are up to code only because they were built more recently.
Redeemer’s school, by the way, was handicapped accessible. We were trying to renovate it to bring other things up to date, but the biggest expense in making it accessible had already been met. This is a resource to our church and community that has been squandered by SEPA.
Immanuel had just finished a week of Bible School and remnants of the busy week were still adorning the walls. About 45 children attended, the pastor said.
Yet, there were no children in church. There’s a challenge for them.
Redeemer, on the other hand, often had more children than adults in church. Many of our new members learned of our church through our six-week summer programs and day school.
The people were quite friendly. Many approached us for conversation. Even the pastor, The Rev. Gerald Faust, talked to us a little. (This is unusual!).
There were about 50 in church. They seemed to like to keep to a schedule. The organist announced that they would truncate the opening hymn, because the announcements were longer than usual.
Their Education Chair gave a talk about their various education opportunities which seemed to be extensive. They are preparing for their Fall Rally Day. We hope they can get some of those VBS families interested.
One of our Ambassadors was happy that they used the hymnal (LBW and WOV) and not the bulletin for worship. It’s his pet peeve. The hymns were all familiar. One was our Vacation Bible School hymn years ago and I still know it by heart. (Each year we memorized a different standard hymn.)
Singing was strong. A seven-member choir sang an offertory.
They sang the Lord’s Prayer at the appropriate time. It’s not the first time in our visits that the Lord’s Prayer was sung, but we have encountered a church where the pastor refused to allow the singing of the Lord’s Prayer during worship! Redeemer did this on special occasions. Maybe that’s what bugged the bishop! 😉
The sermon was about division in the church in keeping with today’s lectionary. Sometimes we think the point of this passage gets lost. Division is to be expected. We are not asked by Jesus to lie down and let adversaries walk over us. Instead, we are encouraged to be prepared. Redeemer was prepared!
The most amazing thing about the sanctuary was not noticeable until we turned around to leave. There is a beautiful mural on the rear wall, painted by a woman and member, now deceased (see above). Their own Violet Oakley! (She painted murals on the walls of the Harrisburg state capitol and on church walls in our neighborhood.) Small churches are filled with talented and passionate people.
One of our Ambassadors is an architecture buff and commented on the older Sunday School area, now a fellowship area, at the rear of the church. This was common church architecture in the 1920s and was part of the Sunday School movement. Classes would meet in partitioned sections around the perimeter and the partitions would open for a closing ceremony. It’s a good concept, but the numbers in Sunday School rarely support it any more.
We wish this good-spirited congregation the very best as they celebrate their 125 years in September. We encourage them to find a way to open a school, so they can concentrate more on mission and less on heating and insurance bills. There has to be a way!
As we left the pastor asked us to sign the guest book. We did. We assured him we are loyal Lutherans.
We are reading the book of James slowly and carefully with online teacher Jon Swanson. This great little book that almost didn’t make it into today’s Bible (church leaders didn’t care for what it said) is filled with down-to-earth wisdom.
Today we read James 3:13-17.
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition,there you find disorder and every evil practice.
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
What kind of wisdom do we see in our Church today? (Pastors we’ve tried to talk to have been uniform in their response: We have to trust the wisdom of the bishop.)
Lutherans believe the autonomy of a congregation is powerful and so congregations own their own property. Their ministries are controlled by lay government—not clergy. Clergy have influence but not control.
Our founding documents call this interdependence. Congregations depend on regional and national bodies to provide competent church leaders. There was a time when they depended on them for other things, too—managing foreign missions, social services, and providing educational and worship materials, advice and inspiration.
In the new information age, these roles are significantly diminished. Local parishes sense that hierarchies are less effective—a financial burden that is crippling to small church ministry. (Most churches are small.)
National church and regional bodies are totally dependent financially on local churches (not the other way around). Under their prescribed interdependence, congregations have no financial obligations to the regional body or national church. Congregations can vote with their pocketbooks.
In fact, in 2010, when there was a great doctrinal rift in the ELCA, some regional bodies promised their member churches that their offerings could be set aside and not sent on to the national church with whom they were unhappy.
It is hard for churches with hierarchical traditions to understand. But it is foundational to Lutheran thinking. Regional bodies exist to facilitate ministry.
In the world of church this is called “congregational polity.” It is protected by the founding documents of the ELCA and individual synods’ Articles of Incorporation. These are rarely read. They state:
Bishops cannot convey property of a congregation without the consent of the congregation.
Synod Assembly’s powers are limited by the Articles of Incorporation.
There is no right to seize or vote on congregational property.
Interestingly, predecessor Lutheran bodies went even further. Synods were not allowed to own property at all. They knew it would change the mission of church leaders. This is a deeply rooted concept of Lutheranism—one of the bugs in Martin Luther’s crawl.
Today Synod Assemblies are unfamiliar with their governing rules and polity. The last few years of cozying up to denominations with different polities have obscured our awareness of our own tradition. The ranks of OWLs, Older and Wiser Lutherans, are thinning. When asked by our trusted leaders to vote on another congregation’s property, we may assume we have that right. We don’t.
This happened in 2009 in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA/ELCA). They voted to take the property of Redeemer in East Falls, a small but viable congregation with an endowment fund.
Redeemer has among our members a pastor who spent a sabbatical researching the early history of the ELCA. He showed us the founding documents. They said this was wrong.
Property is not necessary to ministry, but property has advantages.
Property provides continuity from generation to generation. A physical presence is a a ministry tool. With property you can invite, teach, host, serve. With property you have a financial hedge against a few difficult years.
Redeemer has been ministering without property for four years. We have a very influential ministry worldwide, but we could do so much more locally if our property had not been taken from us.
Well, it was properly appealed, wasn’t it?
Do SEPA Lutherans realize that they never voted on our appeal in 2009? We appealed Synodical Administration. A totally different question—worded by the synod—was presented at the time of the vote. SEPA voted to take our property. Bait and switch. Read the 2009 minutes. You’ll have to dig. SEPA posts minutes from only 2010 on!
Do SEPA Lutherans realize that in 2010, SEPA Synod Council took it upon themselves to vote Redeemer closed without any input from Redeemer? Do they realize that Redeemer was never informed of this decision (which the Synod Council constitutionally has no authority to make)? We only know because we googled our name.
What’s done is done.
Question: What do our interdependent congregations do when mistakes are made?
This still lies in the hands of congregations.
Redeemer has a constitutional right to challenge the 2010 decision of SEPA Synod Council. We intend to formally make that request within the next few months but we will need a fair forum.
SEPA congregations have an opportunity to revisit their actions in East Falls.
It is not too late to make this right. It takes the courage to say, “Wait a minute. What did we do? How do we move forward?”
This seems to be beyond the scope of our Sunday morning confessions.
If SEPA Lutherans do not care about their actions in East Falls, they might think about the effect their actions or non-actions have on other member congregations.
Redeemer is visiting all the churches that voted to take our property. We’ve been to 69. Many face the same treatment within the next 20 years. With SEPA’s self-proclaimed power to seize property, fueled with persistent deficits (a $250,000 shortfall last year and $275,000 the year they took our property), there is no incentive to help small congregations. Hierarchical survival is in jeopardy. They play the “wait for them to die” game.
Without responsible clergy and involved congregations, SEPA government has the power to rule by intimidation. They even seem to enjoy it.
The Redeemer situation has proven that they are not afraid to abuse power. They use their protected status and the secular courts to bypass their constitutions. And while SEPA clergy and congregations looked the other way, hoping to not be touched, the courts have changed Lutheran polity. Now, SEPA congregations own their property only as long as SEPA says so. As Bishop Burkat has written in reference to the land in East Falls—it’s the property formerly occupied by Redeemer. In her mind, we never owned it.
The churches of SEPA could have stopped this. They still can.
Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Today’s object lesson is one of the most famous American paintings of Christ. Warner Sallman, a commercial artist in Chicago, painted several religious paintings in the early 1900s that are universally part of our faith imagery.
One of these is Christ Knocking at Heart’s Door.
This week turns the table on the Adult Object Lesson of a few weeks ago. In that lesson the Scripture had us knocking on Christ’s door. Now we are asked to listen for Christ’s knock on our door.
Many churches have a print of this painting hanging somewhere in their church.
It never hurts to point out a few things about the painting.
Christ is standing among the briars and thistles of the world.
A major light source of the painting is Christ’s heart.
The door between us is solid but there is a grill for us to see through. We can check things out before we open the door.
The door has no handle. We must open the door from the inside.
A discussion of this painting goes nicely with this week’s gospel which ends by placing a good bit of the responsibility for our relationship with Christ squarely on our shoulders.
“You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”
You can use the song Someone’s Knocking at Your Door to accompany this lesson.
Or you can use “Into My Heart”
Into my heart, Into my heart
Come into my heart, Lord Jesus
Come in today, Come in to stay
Come in to my heart, Lord Jesus
Why Congregations Must Own Their Ministries (and that includes property).
Part 1
A long time ago there was a church that had lost its way. It had many members. Almost every person in every city and hamlet belonged.
Each town had its own monument to God. These monuments were built by the people. The land was likely part of a tract of land provided by a local baron, who might have received his land as a reward for a winning role in a crusade.
The people built the resulting church or cathedral. Some laid the foundations and built the walls, some designed windows of rainbow beauty. Others made the hardware that hung the doors and secured the roof. Others carved the pews and illustrated the stories of their faith on the wall. Still others waited until the roof was complete to install the musical instruments for their best musicians to play.
And then there were the women who kept the homes going, the workers fed, the linens woven and held the hands of the many children they brought through its doors. It took several generations to make these splendid monuments to God.
These monuments became extensions of their homes. They were nurtured at their altars in their youth, strengthened through the years, and comforted in their old age.
They loved the buildings and what they meant to them, but they did not own them.
Absentee Landlords
Their churches were owned and controlled by leaders, far away on the other side of formidable mountains.
Church officials did not trust the people to own their own buildings. Their work was acceptable to God, but it was owned and controlled by hierarchy which tended to appoint and elect people who would comply and obey.
What was presented to the glory of God was used to glorify Man.
This system worked very well as long as everyone agreed on everything and there were enough people willing to enter lives of total compliance to sustain the structure. For centuries most people’s choices in life were made for them by the station of their birth. Change was seldom seen and challenges came from outside the faith.
Things Started to Change
Suddenly, the challenges of this lifestyle came not from infidels but from the faithful. How would the Church handle its own dissenters?
The knowledgeable religious began to see that sole ownership of the church by a corporate office in Rome was abusing the faithful. The Church had become a vehicle for personal advancement. Expensive lifestyles were sustained with the sacrifices of much poorer people. They were being gouged— charged even for prayer.
People wanted to believe that the Church they loved had their best interests in mind. They relied on trust—most messages from their leaders were delivered in a foreign tongue.
Then came Martin Luther and Gutenberg (among others).
He told them what was going on in their own language.
His printed message spread across Europe, uncensored by the Church for the first time.
Many of the faithful were kicked out.
Lucky! For the first time, they had some place to go!
The Church in a New Land
Many traveled to a New Land where immeasurable property was newly available. For the first time the people could actually own the property they donated and the buildings they raised. They could affiliate with a Church later.
The old system still exists today. It is failing fast. The Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church still own all church property. Both bodies are closing churches at a record pace. The Episcopal Church is fighting many court battles over property. The Roman Catholic is being eaten alive in our area by the clergy sexual abuse scandals.
Some of this is because of the failing support and lawsuits. Some is control of their people. Disagree with the Church. We will take the property you built and paid for.
The Lutheran Church and other Protestant Churches, grounded more firmly in the spirit of the Reformation and growing in a new land, did not attempt to accumulate property for the benefit of a corporate church. There would be no grand collections of art and treasuries to collect the sacrificial offerings of the faithful for the benefit of clergy. We had left that thinking behind.
Protestant Churches of many sects prospered under this new system.
Early Lutherans in the New World forbade church hierarchy from owning property. They wanted to ensure that the officials of the church existed to serve not accumulate wealth.
But today the church is in trouble again. The Lutherans spent a good part of recent decades trying to unite with the Episcopal Church. They are now proudly in Full Communion (minus the long list of exceptions and disclaimers that follow the documents that most people don’t read). Full communion, sort of.
One reason today’s Lutheran bishops are comfortable claiming congregational property is this new association with Episcopal Church. In doing so, they are reverting to pre-Reformation thinking—the thrilling days of yesteryear when hierarchy controlled more than they led.
We’ll look at what this means for today’s Lutherans in an upcoming post.
First eliminate clergy from the congregation. Wait for a change or force a change.
Second, cut the lay leadership down to size or eliminate them entirely.
Today’s post is about the third part of the Strategy—dealing with the congregation.
When both Bishop Almquist and Bishop Burkat decided to go directly to the people of the congregation they did so with an air of democracy. They were taking an issue directly to the people. Noble-sounding, indeed.
They were really manipulating the situation, using the congregation, and side-stepping the constitution.
The people they were approaching had followed their constitutions and elected leaders to—well—provide leadership. These leaders were authorized by the congregation to speak for them.
The pastor, too, had been called and could represent the congregation if he or she had the backbone.
The congregation doesn’t expect to be called together to deal with the regional body. They aren’t prepared and their interests have wide range—much of it personal, not corporate in nature. Leaders do a better job of sifting through the layers of congregational life to represent the “whole” people.
The bishop knows this. That’s why she needed these levels of leadership gone!
Redeemer knows it too. We have experienced it with both Bishop Almquist and Bishop Burkat.
In truth the congregation was being called together because the bishop and regional body knew that what they were proposing was not likely to be approved by the elected and called leaders of the church.
In Redeemer’s case, the congregation had just witnessed the inexplicable disappearance of pastors they had invested in both monetarily and emotionally.
This was followed by disregard and disrespect of the leaders they elected to act in their interest. One church council member who had approached a Synod Council member on the congregation’s behalf had already been threatened. “Get out while the getting is good. We have no intention of negotiating with you.”
Now synod leadership was coming to them!
The message was clear: Vote our way or else.
Of course, the congregation was intimidated.
This was actually voiced by Redeemer members during Bishop Almquist’s tenure. When he called for a THIRD vote on a call question, the people said, “If we don’t vote the way he wants, he’ll shut us down for sure.” Fear would have controlled the situation, not reason.
Redeemer recovered from that time with able lay leadership taking the time to heal the congregation.
But in 2007, under Bishop Burkat, the Synod was resurrecting the same familiar tactics.
Bishops do not have the right to call congregational meetings. If they want to meet with congregations they are supposed to work with local leadership in doing so. That’s the way the constitutions are written.
Bishop Burkat never asked the local leaders for suggested meeting times. She just wrote letters saying she was coming. In her world, lay people are waiting for her to find a convenient time to pay attention to them once every decade or so.
The first time she tried this, in September 2007, she chose the local back-to-school night. Redeemer members decided they wanted to attend their children’s back to school events.
This was interpreted as resistance.
When we finally met in November, the meeting went very well. Bishop Burkat agreed to review our ministry plan and resolution to call a pastor. She promised we could work with the newly appointed Patricia Davenport. “You will love working with her,” she told us.
We were never given the opportunity. Bishop Burkat broke the promises made to us in her only meeting with our leaders.
Once again, Bishop Burkat scheduled a visit to Redeemer with no consultation with the congregation. This time she chose the Sunday of our Annual Meeting and luncheon and an afternoon birthday party for our pastor.
First, she announced the outcome of the meeting before the meeting was held. She was closing Redeemer with no congregational vote or consultation. NONE!
We informed her immediately upon notice that the date wouldn’t work. We reinforced this by email, fax and letter. We had hoped that she would meet with our leaders and work through any issues. But then NO issues had been raised.
The fabricated report that was read at Synod Assembly was written just a few days before Synod Assembly, three months after this. It was NEVER shared with Redeemer. It was inaccurate and untrue and would not have withstood scrutiny.
What happened at Redeemer was a property grab facilitated by pure bullying. It set the stage for all litigation.
Not exactly the atmosphere for an honest congregational vote.
Bishop Burkat was embarrassed that her plan to lock us out that day was thwarted in front of her company of witnesses. Any reasonable person could not have imagined it going any other way—but then they thought no one from Redeemer would be present. They could change the locks and surprise us the next Sunday when we all arrived for worship.
Had Bishop Burkat respected our leaders, this embarrassment would never have happened. Every subsequent action was face-saving and vindictive.
Bishop Burkat boasts of empowering laity. We have seen the opposite in her dealings with our congregation. Empowered laity are laity who comply.
Next: We will examine why Lutheran congregations own their own property.
This is the second post in a series that revisits the last five years of court actions involving the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA) and member church, Redeemer in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pa.
Understanding the Legalities
Five years of costly and hateful litigation have shed little light on the legalities of the land grab in East Falls.
The courts are far from united in the various rulings in all the cases of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America against member church Redeemer in the East Falls neighborhood and carefully selected members of the congregation.
The early rulings were that courts have no jurisdiction in church affairs.
This first ruling was upheld by a split decision of the Pennsylvania Appellate Court. Two dissenting judges strongly supported Redeemer. If the law were applied, they concluded, Redeemer should be heard.
Keep in mind that all this litigation was just about HEARING the case. It has never been heard.
A similar case WAS heard at the very same time involving a Presbyterian denomination and a member congregation in western Pennsylvania. That judge took five days to hear the case and ruled in favor of the congregation. The ruling came five days after the Redeemer “no jurisdiction” ruling. This decision has held through the appellate process and was last heard at the state supreme level this April with a decision due any day.
SEPA wasn’t satisfied with their default win. They wanted Redeemer to pay more. They went after individual members.
They held the cards now and they fixed the deck. The ace up their sleeve is “Contempt of Court.”
Synod locked the members of Redeemer out of the church within 36 hours of the ruling. Redeemer members had no access to anything in the church. Synod (again with no consultation with Redeemer members) sued members for contempt of court for not supplying things we still think ARE IN the church.
If they couldn’t find something they were looking for, they could have asked. But no! Straight to litigation where they are immune from the law and church members are not.
Redeemer members are in the position of not being able to prove that the items are in the church building.
Note to other SEPA congregations: They are likely to use this tactic again. Protect your church leaders now.
In the Redeemer case, subsequent judges have shown growing sympathy for Redeemer.
First, let’s ask, Where were the clergy?
Clergy fled at the first sign of trouble.
The pastor who had been serving us for nearly two years when Bishop Burkat was elected and who was well-liked, disappeared after a private meeting with Bishop Burkat and a congregation (Epiphany) who had been in covenant with Redeemer and was sharing our building. That church never discussed breaking the covenant with us, but after a private meeting with the bishop, they announced they were closing. The pastor gave 10 days notice by email (not the constitutional 30 days notice.) He never planned to talk with us about his decision. He left the Synod.
Epiphany continued to share Redeemer’s property outside of the covenant for six months, rent free. They were never locked out!
Redeemer found a pastor to replace him. Redeemer hand-delivered to Bishop Burkat the congregation’s resolution to call him in November 2007. In February 2008, he had just encouraged Redeemer members to “stand firm” in our ministry. He visited the bishop’s office hoping to talk things through.
This pastor had shared with us that he had been trying to talk to the synod for a year and couldn’t get a return call or a response to correspondence. (We had the same experience!).
So now he goes to talk to the Synod about serving Redeemer.
He never sets foot inside Redeemer again.
He suddenly has an interim call in Bucks County.
Clergy are out of the way.
Next. Lay leaders.
Let’s make this quick! All lay leaders, having had no hearing with Bishop Burkat on the subject of closing the church, were dismissed by letter from the bishop in February 2008. She had promised to work with us just four months earlier at a meeting which closing the church had not been discussed. No grounds were ever cited.
OK, lay leaders are out of the way.
There is still the congregation to deal with.
We’ll tell you how that went in our next post.
Hint: Any claim that there was a process of mutual discernment is a lie.
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Contact Info
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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
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