2x2 The Church Without a Building

Put Some Verbs in Your Parish Reports

A pastor, was lamenting that the forms he fills out every year to report his congregation’s ministry don’t ask the questions which really measure their ministry. “All they count is members and money — not what happens with the members and money.”

Church statistics can mislead. As one eminent church consultant commented—There are congregations with 20 members that will die and there are congregations with 20 members who have what it takes to grow.

Similarly, there are congregations with $1,000,000 in endowment funds that do little but watch it grow. After all, that can be measured on next year’s report. On the other hand, there are congregations that struggle to pay the insurance but have tons of projects and mission ideas.

How should denominations measure congregational ministry?

Start counting verbs as well as nouns. What is happening with the money and people you are counting? For example:

It is of no value to count the number of Spanish-speaking Christians if you cannot name a single ministry outreach effort that addresses the Hispanic community.
Did your church baptize 5 children this year but have no Vacation Bible School?
How did you spend the your offerings this year? Did it all go for salaries and utilities? Was anything spent on mission?

Look over your parish report and attach a verb to every number. If you have a hard time coming up with verbs, you have a good idea of what needs attention.

If there is no place on your forms for your full ministry report — one with some verbs — attach it anyway. Who knows? It may do some good! And it may be more honest than a list of numbers.

02 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

Lay Leaders May Save the Mainline Church

Today’s post in the Alban Institute’s Roundtable is a fascinating study on a topic important to today’s Church—the role of lay leadership.

The article is an excerpt from a book, Scattering Seeds: Cultivating Church Vitality, by Stephen Chapin Garner (a pastor) with Jerry Thornell (a lay member).

The post begins with their New England congregation’s realization that professional leadership is an endangered commodity. Fewer young people are entering seminary. The number of second career pastors cannot keep up with the demand that is looming with coming retirements.

They answered the challenge by intentionally developing stronger lay leadership. The church grew. An unexpected result—their congregation sent seven members to seminary.

The authors talk about how the familiar visioning process never could have led them in the direction that ended up increasing their membership and helping to solve a denominational problem as well.

It all sounds familiar to 2×2. We found ourselves forced by a number of factors to rely on lay leadership. Had we relied solely on the recommended process of visioning and drafting a mission statement, we would probably still be holding special meetings to change a comma here or there.

Instead, we went to work. We addressed immediate needs and challenges. We prayed — a lot! We returned to the basics — making sure there was a quality worship experience, good preaching and hospitality. We took a few chances.

We relied on the talents of our members. When we were doing the work, we were more inclined to be invitational.

We gave ourselves room to grow. We cultivated a nonjudgmental atmosphere, allowing mistakes so that we could all learn together. We stretched. We maintained good relationships with supply pastors but were soon able to get by with minimal clergy.

The answer to congregational growth in challenging economic times may be in nurturing the laity — not in expensive hierarchical fixes.

30 Jan 2012

Adding the Power of Visuals to Your Blog or Web Site

We live in a visual world. Social Media advocates can take that for granted. They are pleased to get a few hundred thoughtful words together to publish a few times a week. Add a picture? That will take too much time!

A search for "mustard seed" in photopin.com helped find this photo. At the end of the post look for the photo credit, cut and pasted into the html. It took less than two minutes to find the photo and add it to this post.

Fortunately for us, there are media elves who specialize in analyzing our work. Elves like pictures and videos. When they start counting on their little green fingers they report that blogs using images and videos chalk up higher statistics. More people read them. Search engines find them more easily. Listen to the elves!

There are many inexpensive sources of art. istock images can cost as little as $2. But here is a source that is mostly free. All you have to do is add a credit for the image at the end of your post. You don’t even have to type. Just copy and paste the code.

www.photopin.com

Their catalog is vast. The trick for church bloggers is to come up with the right words to find a suitable image. You may have to play around a bit.

For example, a search for “The Good Shepherd” brought up a few religious images but a lot of images that were nowhere near topic. They may have been images of people with the name “Good” or “Shepherd.”

Better results came with different search words. “Stained glass windows” worked well.

Search engines can also help you. Use Google, Yahoo, etc. and click on the IMAGE tab. You’ll have to look at each image that comes up for copyright. It’s a good idea to always credit the source.

You can scan your own images or use your cell phone creatively for images. Objects around the house can add interest. In one of our earlier posts, we used an image of grapes to go with a phrase we had used in the post “sour grapes.” We bought that image from istock for a couple of bucks but we could have taken a cell phone photo of images of grapes from our own refrigerator.

Captions are not always necessary but they do give search engines one more thing to find. If the visual connection to your post is not obvious, write a caption.

Start to think visually. It will help prepare you for the next step . . . video.

photo credit: moominmolly via photopin cc

27 Jan 2012

The Value of Asking “Who Cares?”

One of today’s blogs entitled “Who Cares?” written by Seth Godin, features an analysis of the value of caring in the hotel/restaurant business.

It concludes, “Caring, it turns out, is a competitive advantage, and one that takes effort, not money.”

This is a topic that sorely needs to be discussed within the church. So many of us go to church and look upon stained glass depictions of Christ carrying a lamb and leading the sheep who look up at Him with expectant trust.

Are we seeing this modeled by today’s church leaders?

We suspect the most accurate answer lies in how carefully denominations carry the smallest lambs among them.

Some denominations value their small membership churches and assign special leadership to guide them. They explore solutions and ministry ideas. They provide pastoral care. With care comes hope. With hope comes energy. With energy comes ideas and ministry.

When a denomination cares, they take time to know people and draw from their passion — even if their work is not bringing thousands of dollars to the denomination’s coffers.

Other denominations (including our own) intentionally ignore small congregations for years. In some cases, they provide no help. Worse, they provide a caretaker pastor who drains the congregation’s resources with no intention of growing the church. Every decision they make is predicated on their faith in failure. Soon the small church is seen only as a piece of property with (if they are lucky) an endowment fund to go with it. The people of the church become obstacles that must be removed by any means.

2×2 grew out of the latter leadership style. We have experienced the answer to the question “Who cares?” In our case, the answer has been: very few.

Asking this question can measure a denomination’s strength. Let’s start at the grass roots.

Do the people in the congregation care enough to resist being treated badly? Do they insist on being treated like children of God? Will they allow themselves to be ignored? Do they allow the Christian presence in their neighborhoods to evaporate by decree? What will they risk for their church?
Do the pastors care enough to find a way to speak up? If pressured, will they abandon the congregations they once felt “called to serve”? Will they vote with the pack and keep their personal feelings to themselves?
Do elected representatives of denominations care enough to take a fair look at ministry potential and to explore solutions? Will they demand that leadership demonstrate love and compassion? Will they allow denominational leaders to degrade individual members of a congregation? Will they lamely support the caching of congregational assets and exertion of power?
Do members of the denomination ask questions and insist on good behavior from their leaders, or do they accept explanations that don’t make sense, happy to not have the spotlight on their problems?
Do the national church leaders care enough to insist upon fair treatment of all congregations? Do they treat regional leaders as more trusted and valuable than the people they are pledged to serve?

Successful ministry relies on denominations who care. “Care” is a verb. It requires action.

Look for leaders who care.

26 Jan 2012

The Four CHs of Christianity

There is a definite theme today in a number of today’s blogs. The same words keep popping up. Then Stumble Upon presented a quote in big bold letters. Here it is — tailored a bit for our purpose.

The four CH’s of Christianity:
Choices, Chances, Changes, Church
You must make a Choice to take a Chance or your Church will never Change.

The obvious biblical reference is to the Choices and Chances taken by the disciples and the Changes that resulted in the Church.

But what about today’s Christians? Our choices and chances are not likely to be recorded for posterity and referenced a thousand years from now by book, chapter and verse.

The choices in our lives are frequently taken from us. Signing on for Christianity can be a prescription for life in a religious rut, go to worship, do some church things — (teach children, sing, brew coffee, mow the yard), put money in the offering, and talk about taking stands and sacrificing. The mechanisms for serving become standardized — sign up for a charity run or volunteer in a soup kitchen. Others will likely join you and there is satisfaction in numbers. You can report numbers. “Ten members of St. John helped build a home for Habitat for Humanity.”

We never report or measure what we fail to do!

When the need for change becomes overwhelming, we often are ill-equipped to do more than talk about it. Leaders can find this comforting; more than talk might create friction. Friction is work.

Change does not happen without making some conscious choices and taking chances — some of which will not look prudent when the costs are projected. The choices that need to be made in the church today will not be popular. They will pull members and leaders out of their comfort zones. They will require new training and ways of thinking.

The chances that need to be taken may look foolish. They will seem daring . . . but that’s entirely biblical. You might have to spend some of that endowment money! You might have to look for new leadership.

Choices, Chances, Changes, and Church

Work at them with prayer. But don’t stop there. Take action.

24 Jan 2012

Are Your Posts on Topic?

Here is a tool to help you make sure your blogs are on topic and that you are writing about things in keeping with your mission. Wordle scans your most recent blog posts and makes a word cloud. You can change the colors and the fonts to suit your taste, but the words will be sized by frequency of use.

Here’s ours! We are happy that we are talking about the things we set out to talk about.

You can take the Wordle image and use it for a poster or some other decorative use.

23 Jan 2012

New Words to a Pop Tune to Use in Lent

Some popular songs are so beautiful it is a shame they are not hymns.

One such song, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” is a hauntingly beautiful tune with rather strange words about the temptation story of David and Bathsheba.

The church season of Lent begins with the story of Jesus’ Temptation. Here are some words to fit the popular song “Hallelujah” which make it usable for Christian worship.

Sheet music is available online. The easy chord progressions are also available on line. It works well as a solo or with small group. Two soloists can sing the dialog. The congregation can be the angel choir singing “Hallelujah.”

If your church “seals the Alleluias” for Lent, it may help to remember that the 40 days of Lent do not include Sundays. Every Sunday is a celebration of Easter! No reason to censor praise.

The words are ours to publish. Please feel free to use them in worship.

You climbed into the hills to stay
For forty days to fast and pray
A heart to heart with God is what moved you.
But underneath a craggy stone
The devil waited all alone
“Now’s my chance,” he muttered, “Hallelujah.”