On Your Mark, Get Set, Stop

Today’s Alban Weekly post begins as if it is speaking about Social Media and how the use of Social Media by the church (which is almost non-existent) changes ministry.

The author of the post, Rev. Susan Lang, comes from a Lutheran background—Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)—just like us, Redeemer Lutheran Church, locked out of our church home in East Falls.

Lang talks about how most churches use the internet only as a bulletin board. Churches tend to fail to engage with readers. It is hard to break old habits. There is the pulpit and there is the pew.

Redeemer (2×2) has been writing about this for three years.

Lang abruptly shifts the topic to leadership structure. Social Media is just an analogy. Leadership structure must change or it will be the pulpit and the empty pew.

Redeemer has been writing about his too!

In fact, Lang’s observations are at the root of Redeemer’s conflict with the ELCA. Redeemer was taking a hard look at our community, our resources, our mission and our future. The ELCA was interested only in making what we were doing fit into their structure—a structure that is rigid, expensive, ineffective and outdated.

The ELCA fought us tooth and nail. They wanted Redeemer gone. Destroyed.

Had they been interested in ministry the Lutheran way, they would have encouraged our innovative ministry among the changing population of our neighborhood.

But the locks were changed, clergy chased away, and court cases filed against individual volunteer lay leaders that dragged on vindictively  for five years.

We were declared closed in absentia.

SEPA/ELCA pounded and pounded those nails in our coffin.

Redeemer kept its ministry going via the internet. We may be the only ELCA congregation with a true internet ministry—actively engaging Christians around the world. We’ve learned a great deal, What we learned reinforces the second half of Lang’s article — which isn’t about social media at all. It’s about church structure.

Here’s an excerpt from Lang’s article:

Leadership 1.0 grew out of Christendom and the movement through the Industrial Age. It has these characteristics:

• Organizational—Think hierarchical organization flow-charts. A strong emphasis was placed on putting the correct structure in place.
• Centralized—Mainline denominations were generally the central holders of resources and information, which they dispersed from a given location.
• Authority-based—Established authorities and expertise provided the answers to questions.
• Agenda-driven—Ministry grew out of a set agenda and often used a “command and control” model.

Leadership 2.0 is growing out of the post-Christendom and the Internet age. Note that the shape of relational, networked leadership is still emerging and will be very contextual. Leadership 2.0 is:

• Relational—The focus is on developing and nurturing relationships and links.
• Decentralized—Resources are distributed throughout a networked congregation and ministry. Each person is recognized as a connector to his or her own resources and networks.
• Collaborative—Collaboration builds on conversations and recognizes that we are all teachers, we are all learners, and we are always stronger together than we are alone.
• Focused on emergence—Recognizes that discernment is important for leaders, because God’s presence and action among us emerge and often change over time.

This describes the Redeemer conflict to a T.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod wanted Redeemer to fit into THEIR structure. They wanted a pastor in place who would follow THEIR agenda. They wanted to define our religious lives and control our expression and outreach. They wanted to supply all the answers to every ministry question. Redeemer leaders were to obey and fund.

This was doomed to fail. SEPA knew this. Failure in this case was an attractive option. Our property came with an endowment. And they were nearly broke. They simply had to make sure that all assets went their way when failure at last occurred. They skipped right over Lutheran polity and structure and went to secular courts, which cooperated with their scheme, wanting no part of intra-church dealings.

But Redeemer had no intention of failing—and has not failed. We reach more Christians around the world every week than any other ELCA church—bar none (about 3000 weekly)! But in the ELCA’s estimation we are closed.

We’ve achieved this by moving our leadership structure into the 21st century. Leadership 2.0.

• We fostered relationships with people very different from us.
• We networked with other congregations, both sharing and benefitting.
• We collaborated.
• We empowered each person, allowing them to define their own individual missions. We saw our members grow in interest and initiative.

We suspect that the invisible but formidable barrier between the pulpit and the pew will be one of the last relics of past leadership structures to fall.

• Lang talks about being part of a LinkedIn “clergy” forum online.
• Alban Weekly had a forum that has disappeared. There is a note on their website that they are trying to reestablish an online community, suggesting that it will further the conversation of people who attend their workshops — pretty limited voice!
• The Lutheran magazine, the house organ of the ELCA, has a “pay to say” policy in its online community.

The Church just doesn’t “get it.” They think the Information Age is about new ways of control. It is really about admitting there is no way to control some things anymore. Faith is one of them.

And so the Church will be tempted by Social Media and the new thinking that is part of it. But they will approach it with “how to control” in mind.

The Church will continue to seek filters for the voice of laity. This is futile.

Each Christian has access to the internet. There are no prerequisites for using it. Laity can speak as effectively as clergy.

Any member of your church can start a faith blog. They don’t have to go through any committee or seek the pastor’s approval.

We lay Christians are at the starting block ready for the starting shot.

The Church as we know it will be on the sidelines. Watching. Dumb-founded.

photo credit: D.H. Parks via photopincc