Just Keep At It
Redeemer Will Ask, Seek and Knock
That’s the part of the lesson Jesus taught to the disciples when they were challenged in prayer.
- Ask. It will be given.
- Seek. You will find.
- Knock. The door will open.
Following biblical advice, Redeemer will just keep at it.
We’ve been at it particularly hard for the last six years of our 122-year history.
- Early on, even before all the lawsuits, we wrote monthly letters, which our presiding bishop, bishop, and trustees steadfastly ignored.
- One of our members writes regularly to pastors. They hold keys to the doors of the democratic nature of our church government. When they’ve responded at all, the attitude has been like the head of the household who wants to go back to bed with his children in Jesus’ story. They want to be left alone in their congregations.
- We started visiting congregations — all of which voted to take our property for themselves. We know they had been fueled with inflammatory falsehoods, exaggerated tales, one-sided accounts, which influenced them to believe that taking other people’s property, and expelling men, women and children from the church was somehow the godly thing to do.
- Early on, we wrote letters or sent cards to the churches. Later we just published our visits on Facebook and our blog. We discovered that other churches are much the same as ours, making their hands-off attitude all the more difficult to fathom. We’ve been to 68 congregations so far. We know more about your ministries than you knew about ours when you voted to take our property.
- We continued our ministry which led us in innovative directions that could now benefit the whole church. Redeemer’s greatest value is not its corner property in an affluent neighborhood. It is our people who have a 132-year legacy which is still growing despite efforts to pack our ministry in cardboard boxes and store them in the seminary archives. Out of sight. Out of mind.
- After six years of tiring and expensive conflict we remain an active Christian community that grew new networks when we were excluded from the ELCA. We are obviously viable. We have something to add to the faith community which is our heritage—more now than when you took our land.
And so in the spirit of the Lord’s teaching, we will continue t0 ask, seek and knock.
Ask.
Please recognize our valuable ministry. Return our property to us and partner with us as we all pledged to do 25 years ago when we agreed to be part of the interdependent ELCA.
Seek.
We seek peace and reconciliation. We want to belong—not as second-class citizens with a set of rules just for Redeemer but with the same rights and privileges all member churches share.
Knock.
You know where we are. We know where you are. Why can’t we talk this through?
If what is going on in East Falls is so right, why is it shrouded in hateful vindictiveness? Why is everything so hush-hush? Why are people so afraid to act?
East Falls is still OUR neighborhood. We don’t have to go to community council meetings to court neighborhood leaders. We ARE respected neighborhood leaders, already friends with other neighborhood leaders. The best people to create Lutheran ministry in East Falls are the Lutherans of East Falls.
We have a plan we would like to present to SEPA Synod Council. Our experience is that anything presented privately never sees the light of day. We’ll publish our plan for ministry here first.
Watch for it. Answer the door when we knock. Please.