4/7InkzHVUEQeEdU9vpc1tikzEhChrKmPfvXI-FSDBrBQ

church closings

Thank you for your words of support

elca mock logo
Anonymous Lutheran Addresses Redeemer Situation

I received an anonymous letter from a member of a SEPA congregation this week. The writer added a note that she was sending the letter to ELCA Presiding Bishop Hanson and several other church leaders including our local bishop.

She noted that she doubted letters make any difference. True, anonymous letters give the recipient an excuse to blow off any point the writer makes no matter how valid.

We understand the need for anonymity. We live in a Synod that is funding its ministry with seizures of property and lawsuits against laity.

Clergy have no room to criticize. Their universal silence on these issues is a form of anonymity.

We at Redeemer have written many signed letters almost all of which have been ignored. The single exception was the first letter we wrote to Bishop Hanson, probably early 2008. The Bishop glibly dismissed our very serious issues. Lots of God words, no God actions. His attitude trickles down to his staff and clergy. The ELCA legal offices, funded with parishioner offerings, responded to a Redeemer member’s letter with a note that they feel no obligation to get involved. Bishop Burkat has never responded to any of our letters. The people we pay to be there to make sure the congregations are protected spend our offerings protecting themselves.

We are going to reprint this anonymous letter because it has value. This writer took the time to understand the issues — something SEPA clergy, the Synod Council and Synod Assembly and the courts have failed to do. This writer nails the issues. Write on!

Here’s the letter (with minor spelling/grammar edits):

Dear Bishop Hanson,

I belong to Peace Lutheran Church in Bensalem, Pa., which is part of SEPA Synod. I recently attended a charity event in Philadelphia and met a woman from a church in Lansford, Pa. We got into a conversation about Redeemer Lutheran Church and Bishop Claire Burkat and how sad that their church was taken from them and how their valiant fight to regain their spiritual home was knocked down by the Pa Supreme Court, citing “church vs. state.” The woman I sat with told me that her church belongs to the Slovak-Zion Synod and that their Bishop (Rev. Wilma S. Kucharek) was investigated by the authorities for making improper withdrawals from a congregation’s accounts, causing the downfall of a church in New Jersey. She locked them out of their own church, like Burkat, and then sold their properties for a huge sum of money, forcing the congregation to now worship in a rented facility when they already had a mortgage-free church and parsonage of their own. She heard this from some people she knows that had attended a Synod Assembly cruise. Are you even aware of this in Chicago?

What kind of organization allows the taking of church properties that were built and paid for by the members of these congregations without any help from their synods. Just because you have hidden clauses in your constitutions that allow Synod Bishops to abscond with properties does NOT make it morally right. It is actually criminal to take by force another’s possessions for your own profit or gain. These clauses do not appear in the congregation’s constitution (I checked) but appear in the Synod’s constitution. How sneaky. Why didn’t you put this language in the congregations’  constitutions and spell it out more clearly so the average parishioner can understand the language? “That the Synod Bishop may close, at his/her discretion, the congregation’s church, seize their property, sell it, and then distribute the funds as he/she sees fit.” Wouldn’t that be more befitting to a religious organization to be honest and more forthcoming with the followers. You should also point out to the congregation to NOT come to you with their problems because you are an “interdependent” organization.

I am ashamed of how the ELCA has disgraced the Lutheran religion by ignoring Martin Luther’s principles of fair play for all. He would never condone abusing the weak by taking their possessions to further enhance one’s already lofty standing. Greed is a terrible sin. God knows who these bishops are. They can’t fool him with their empty prayers and their false justifications that they are doing this for the overall good of the Synod. These thefts of properties will be seen for what they are by the Lord.

Bishop Hanson, I’m sorry to say, the ELCA is now being run by bureaucrats and lawyers who don’t know what it’s like to honor the Lord by doing what is right in the Lord’s eyes and not the courts. There can be a happy medium but right now there isn’t. By the interdependent nature of the ELCA, you’ve divorced yourselves from your followers (the mass that supports the organization) by taking away their right to a fair an unbiased hearing regarding the closing of their churches. They can’t go to the courts because of the “separation between the church and state.” The Synod assemblies are a joke. The people who sit on these assemblies have no training in judicial matters in order to make proper judgments. They are just parishioners of local churches who volunteer to attend a yearly gathering and are clueless as to what’s going on. They are heavily influenced by the bishops, plus I don’t think that the bishops even need their approval to close a church.

It’s just so wrong that just one person can decide the fate of so many. At least the Catholics can go the Vatican Council in Rome where they have already overturned church closings in places like Cleveland, Ohio, by over-ruling local Bishops. The Lutherans have no such recourse.

Claire Burkat may have sued some members of Redeemer for standing up to her abuses, but she will not be able to sue me.

Signed, Disgusted

Here are a Few More Supporting Points

This writer describes the problems fairly accurately. The interdependent constitutions leave parishioners vulnerable to various self-serving interpretations, putting anyone who raises an issue at risk. Parishioners are the most vulnerable.

The writer also does not mention the founding Articles of Incorporation of ELCA Synods. These foundational documents forbid bishops from taking property and limit the power of the Synod Assembly. The writer is dead right that Synod Assemblies don’t know enough about church law to make decisions. Also, about a third of the Synod Assembly (the clergy) have a built-in bias. They owe their next call to their relationship with the bishop.

The clauses in the Synod constitutions have been altered over the years. The original model Synod Constitution calls for synodical administration to be temporary in nature and with the consent of the congregation. It was intended to help struggling congregations. Tweaks here and there presented to unsuspecting Synod Assemblies have reversed the intent of the constitution and violate the Articles of Incorporation—which was further compromised by Judge Lynn’s order regarding Redeemer, issued without hearing the case. Saint Paul knew what he was talking about when he advised church people to stay out of court!

Consequently, a clause intended to help congregations find their way through difficult times is now used to seize assets and help the synod through troubling times.

In Redeemer’s case, Redeemer appealed the issue of Synodical Administration to the Synod Assembly. The Synod Assembly never voted on the issue we appealed. Synod officials used our appeal to present a question allowing them to take our property (which we had not addressed in our appeal). Like lemmings the Synod Assembly voted on an entirely different issue—and an issue over which they have no constitutional authority. All SEPA Lutherans were victims of bait and switch.

Because of Synod Assemblies unquestioning decision, no Lutheran congregation really owns its own property anymore. A long-standing Lutheran tradition is gone. Your bishop needs only to make a claim on your property and your congregation is toast. There are no standards to be met. If Bishop Burkat needs your property to meet her budget (including her salary) she can claim it.

Back when Redeemer’s money was taken (1998) we were told the money would go to a Mission Fund. It was later reported that Mission Fund money is tapped by the Synod to fill deficits. When our Ambassadors visited Holy Spirit in NE Philadelphia, the week before they closed, their pastor explained that their money would go the the Bishop’s Discretionary Fund. At least that’s more transparent if not nobler. We suspect there is even less control over that fund than the misnamed Mission Fund.

We hope there are more letters written and we encourage you to sign them. Send them our way. As long as they are factually accurate, we will consider publishing them. At least you’ll know your letter has a chance of being read. Right now, the ELCA’s circular files are wide and deep!

The best people to put an end to the travesties of SEPA Synod are SEPA Lutherans. Ask your Synod Assembly to revisit the issues with Redeemer. We are still alive and well. We have grown a base of support during our years of exile and are ready to resume our ministry with our property— if SEPA Lutherans can ever manage to deal with the issues for which they have accepted responsibility.

It should be obvious to SEPA Lutherans that the sad story of Redeemer’s lack of viability was always a crock. Redeemer, even with many of its members in hiding, is stronger today than ever. We reach more people each week than any church in SEPA. We are positioned to restore our endowment to its 1990s high point—before SEPA cast its line over our waters (and they weren’t fishing for men).

There is more economic potential in open churches than in closed churches.

 

13 Apr 2013

Ten Reasons Churches Die

Why do churches fail?Churches Get Lots of Help Along the Road to Failure

I am adapting 10 observations drawn from David DiSalvo’s post published in Forbes Magazine.

He describes ten reasons businesses die. They apply to churches, too.

1. As Yoda said, you just don’t believe it.

Luke Skywalker says, “I just don’t believe it.” Yoda answers, “That is why you fail.”

For all the talk about faith and belief, the Church often acts as if we do not believe our own message. We don’t believe small churches can survive, so we do nothing to help. Our leaders see no economic incentive in helping small churches. Regional bodies see themselves as better managers of money. They often are not. When the assets of one closed church dry up, they look for another small church to loot. The altruistic promises made to justify the seizures, are quickly forgotten. No one really analyzes where the money goes.

Bishop Almquist told us our assets were being put into a Mission Fund. It was later revealed that the Mission Fund fills the synod’s own spending deficits (which were frequently in the healthy six-figures). A few weeks ago we learned that Holy Spirit’s assets would go to The Bishop’s Emergency Fund. Does anyone know what that means?

Belief in the purposes of church—as in life—is foundational to success. More, when we believe in an all-powerful, merciful and gracious God. If we in the pew don’t believe and the regional body has self-interest in our failure — we have a problem.

2. Other people have convinced you of your “station.”

This brings to mind the school principal who fired a teacher when she learned that the teacher had told students from poor urban neighborhoods that they would never amount to anything.

We need this principal’s kind of leadership in the Church.

Any church leader who goes to a small congregation, accepting a salary, with the message that the congregation will never amount to much should be history.

Redeemer was lucky. Bishop Almquist had left us to die. “You’ll die a natural death in ten years,” he told us. He refused to provide even a caretaker pastor. But we found a part-time pastor who served us for three years. He told us we could be a flagship church. We believed. While SEPA was waiting out the ten years, we began to grow.

DiSalvo quotes Tennessee Williams. “A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.”

3. You don’t want to be a disruptor.

DiSalvo writes:

Disruption means that consistency, stability and certainty might get jettisoned for a time, and that puts our hard-wired internal defense system on high alert. Sometimes, though, you have to override the alarms and move ahead anyway.  If you never do, you’ll never know what could happen.

Disruptive innovation is discouraged in the Church. We talk about innovation and change, but are ill-prepared for it.

Redeemer had put aside old expectations as we forged new ministry and began to experience success. SEPA allowed alarms to go off without ever sharing our successes.

 4. You think “what if I die tomorrow?”

We stop trying because we foresee our own demise. The Church feeds into this with its “caretaker ministries” concepts.  They use language like palliative care and putting the congregation on hospice. They use these terms and act appalled when people suggest they orchestrating the closing of churches. Meanwhile, we may be transforming into something the experts don’t yet recognize.

5. You wonder how you will be remembered.

We all want to leave a legacy. The Church feeds into this idea, too.

Our pastor in 2008 met with the bishop and never returned to our church. He sent word that rumors were being spread that he was leading a rebellion and he feared his reputation being ruined. A rebellion? A church defends its ministry and it is seen as rebellion! Bishop Burkat shamelessly used the fear of tarnished legacy to fuel her cause. She wrote in a letter to all pastors.

In the case of Redeemer, leaders did not cooperate with us and instead resisted tenaciously in an adversarial manner that publicly tarnishes the wonderful memory of ministry that has taken place in the East Falls community since 1891.

Small churches must learn to live in today’s world and guard against any appearance that protecting the past is mission.

6. You think there must be a pre-established role for your life.

This is part of the church model. We are who others tell us we are.  Don’t dare step beyond your role — even if the role you played historically no longer has a need in today’s world. Instead of using our assets to explore new ways of meeting needs, the Church attempts to find new places where the old ways might still work. They call this mission and celebrate it as innovative. It is not; it is replication. Chances are such replicated ministries will fail soon after the publicity value wears off.

SEPA’s vision of Redeemer was that of a small family church. Redeemer started to transform from a small white congregation in a working class neighborhood to an international church in a growing collegiate neighborhood. SEPA was unprepared to serve us. They had been counting on our failure for 10 years!

DiSalvo writes that these pre-defined roles (agency) “is a figment our brains rely on to manage difficulty with as little trauma as possible. The first thing to do is recognize that….”

7. Your career appears to be well-established and that’s good, right?

We all know the role of the small church. Serve the immediate neighborhood with the message of God’s love. Support a pastor to the best of our ability. Maintain the property. (Not necessarily in that order.) But what if you stepped out of that role and began to serve in new and innovative ways? How would the church react? (It isn’t always pretty.)

8. You are afraid of losing what you have built.

DiSalvo ponts out that this is beyond our control. There is always a danger of losing what we have built. It should not determine your ministry. Unfortunately, in the Church, there are people ready to help us lose what we have built. This fear of being a victim of hierarchical greed is actually crippling the potential of the church. Lutheran congregations used to be fairly independent. It’s written into our founding documents as “interdependent.” But lately, congregations are looking to the bishop’s office for approval of decisions that are constitutionally theirs to make independently. This is what happens when you start forcing church closures. Congregations start to live in fear.

9. You think “maybe I’ve hit my ceiling.”

Many small churches stop trying. Pastors often stop trying. Synods encourage this when they use terms like caretaker and hospice ministries. Small churches must fight this mindset. But that, we learned, can be dangerous!

Why do churches fail?10. Confusion about where to go.

This is a huge problem in the church because the Church really has no vision for where it is going. Frequently, the people we look to in the Church as visionaries are people who have found a way to preserve the concept of Church as we understood it in the past. They are few. These pastors write books about their successes, hoping they will help others. Some of them are pretty good books! These successes are, however, often the result of a serendipitous combination of personalities and circumstances that is hard to replicate.

The Church, I suspect, is headed someplace very different than what we have known. At 2×2, we are excited to be part of it—even as we have been made to feel so very unwelcome in it.

photo credit: komehachi888 via photopin cc
photo credit: Krissy.Venosdale via photopin cc
03 Mar 2013

Ambassadors Visit Holy Spirit, NE Philadelphia

DSCN0627

Ambassadors visit Holy Spirit before they give up the ghost

Redeemer’s Ambassadors visited Holy Spirit in Northeast Philadelphia on their last Sunday before their closing service. Pastor Sandra Brown invited us to return for the closing ceremony, but we told her, “Closing churches is not our thing.”

Pastor Brown greeted us when we came in and shared with us that everything was OK, they had gone through “the process.” We don’t know what “the process” is. Epiphany met for six months in our church as they went through “the process.” Holy Spirit, it seems, has continued for a year after the sale of their building. At Redeemer, “the process” was a locksmith hiding on a back street and five years of law suits. Our guess — “the process” is whatever works for the synod.

Pastor Brown is on the synod council that voted us out of existence. But there we were — in existence. She seemed to be unable to say our name. She introduced us as from East Falls. We corrected her that we are from Redeemer. But two more times she introduced us as from East Falls. That word—Redeemer—seems to be difficult for synod people to say. Even the bishop can’t say our name without prefacing it with “the former.” Keep pounding that nail.

We still claim that the Synod Council has no authority to vote churches shut without the involvement of the congregation. Call us by any name—Redeemer still exits.

Today there were 13 gathered for worship. After a year of a hopeless “process” you really can’t expect many more. Pastor Brown spoke to the people at length about what to expect next week and what they might be allowed to take from the attic in preparation for the archival vultures. The people seemed to be resigned.

Today’s service was prayer, hymns and selected verses from a few favorite hymns. We joined hands and prayed together. Earlier in the service, Pastor Brown had taken extensive prayer requests and almost everyone contributed. It appears that they will soon be scattered in fellowship, joining a few different congregations. At least they avoided the Redeemer strategy — transfer all of us OUT of the church at the first sign of resistance.

Pastor Brown explained that two churches were meeting here, they and Living Waters, the UCC congregation who bought the property a year ago. Why is it other denominations see promise in city neighborhoods while the ELCA sees nothing?

The trappings of another denomination were obvious—the overstuffed chairs lining the chancel. The sound of trickling water from one of those indoor fountains was in the background. Was that symbolic of Living Waters?

It was not clear why the church was closing. They had a settled minister for 18 years, so short-term pastors weren’t the problem. They are in the middle of a vast neighborhood of row houses, so there is plenty of opportunity to interact and serve. The building is a gem. Beautiful, low maintenance brick throughout, with a nice wing added to the sanctuary and a decent yard. Parking did not appear to be a challenge. We noted long ago, before we heard of their closing, that there was no web site and today a church is not likely to attract visitors without one.

Pastor Brown said only that the opportunity arose to sell the property and that was an indication that the time had come. Yet the congregation was only 73 years old. Pastor Brown had been their pastor for a fourth of their history. The entire life of the church was one average life span.

Pastor Brown reported that she had taken the training to be an interim pastor. This is becoming a popular option for pastors. We have long thought that interim pastors are a detriment. We recently read a noted authority agreeing with us. We think interim ministries, with short, vague commitments and few performance expectations (answerable more to the regional body than to the congregation), serve the occupational needs of today’s clergy — not the parishes.

We will be thinking of Holy Spirit next week as the synod’s clergy come to celebrate the closing service—a kind of macabre ritual. Strange—everyone coming to rejoice while the congregation is mourning. Again, not something we want to be part of.

While SEPA leaders gather to celebrate failure, we’ll be working to keep our church open. The Church as a whole cannot grow without strong neighborhood churches. You cannot serve neighborhoods without a neighborhood presence. Presence in a neighborhood cannot fulfill the message of God’s love while you attack members of the neighborhood.

We were happy to worship this morning with the remnants of an able group who could be the core of such an effort. But others know best.

We wonder if anyone will track what becomes of Holy Spirit’s members over the next year. They should. They should not just assume because memberships are transferred today that a year later, the members are still active. In our experience, which includes observing Roxborough’s Grace and Epiphany, most members of closed churches are unchurched a year later—and stay unchurched.

We left with an invitation. Redeemer meets the first Sunday of the month at 10 am at the Old Academy in East Falls.

17 Feb 2013

What is the goal of forced church closings?

Every now and then a group of people, calling themselves a church, decides that they don’t want to be a church any more. They take a vote and decide to close. It’s sad, but they followed a prescribed procedure. Everyone can move on.

In the Lutheran church, a congregation gets to decide among themselves how to use their remaining assets to the glory of God. Standing on the sideline is the regional body or synod, desperately trying to find ways around their polity to guarantee that the wealth of the congregations goes their way.

To assure this, they have developed a new process. You won’t find it outlined in quite the way it is being implemented in any ELCA governing documents. (But that’s why we hire lawyers.)

It begins with a target painted figuratively in red on the church. This is followed by years of neglect, and knowing nods and glances among clergy when the name of the congregation comes up in Lutheran forums.

The next step is the lock out. They’ll be talk (with no specifics) of the heroic “efforts” that came between these two steps—as if God was at work and failed. Truth be told, the prescribed neglect is just that — neglect, and no effective help was ever intended or offered. This is the written advice of noted church leaders.

By this time, clergy have ceded their influence in the Church to lawyers. The Gospel is out the stained glass window with the law following. Separation of Church and State replaces the laws other people have to live by.

What is likely to follow is a legal battle pitting clergy with their loyalties to the bishop against laity whose loyalties are to their congregation and faith. It’s not supposed to be this way. We are supposed to be interdependent, working together as equals. This is the traditional Lutheran way.

2×2 grew from just such a debacle at Redeemer in East Falls, Philadelphia. We have 15 years of experience on our side.

We’ve heard of similar heavy-handed treatments from bishops in New England, Metropolitan New York and Slovak Zion Synods and there may be more. There are examples in other denominations, including an Episcopal Church in East Falls. (East Falls is a favorite target. It’s a nice, working class neighborhood with soaring property values. The value of our property has outgrown the value of our people.)

So what are the reasons behind these actions.

Some possibilities

  • The congregation cannot pay its bills.
  • The congregation cannot afford to pay clergy.
  • The congregation is heretical in its teachings.

(If the first two are a reality, the congregation is likely to know it and work together to solve the problem or close.)

Here are some other possibilities.

  • The regional body cannot pay its bills.
  • The regional body cannot afford its current staff.
  • The regional body is heretical in its teachings.

In this case, there is the need for a cover story to gain acceptance among church people who might find what is about to take place distasteful — if not sinful. In East Falls, the cover story was that  SEPA Synod intended to close the congregation for six months and reopen it with new and improved Lutherans that wouldn’t ask questions.

Well, SEPA has owned the property by court order for going on four years and done nothing with it.

This was not the real plan. The people of East Falls knew it all along!

The primary question that needs to be asked and answered is “What is the goal of forcing churches to close?”

The goal is usually stated as “better stewardship of church resources” or as a synod representative told Redeemer members, “ministry in East Falls is not good use of the Lord’s money.”

If this is the goal, the results point to high-stakes failure.

The results of this mismanagement, from which clergy and congregations shield their eyes, are ungodly. They include:

  • broken relationships — within the church, among friends, within families—and with God (the definition of sin)
  • children wrenched from the first support system they encounter outside their families
  • elderly living their later years under legal attack from the church they served all their lives
  • disabled or non-drivers, who relied on the local church, totally disenfranchised
  • an economic pit that gets harder to crawl out of every day for both the regional body, haughtily asserting its power, and the remnants of the congregation they set out to destroy
  • a Gospel message, preached weekly, but acted upon rarely

The stated goal—better use of church resources—is no longer even mentioned. The goal has failed.

The evidence is that if stewardship of resources is the goal, it is a far better to work with congregations interdependently — as our constitutions state.

Where do we start? What are your ideas?

09 Nov 2012

The Underestimated Value of Small Churches

There isn’t much difference between small churches and large churches and their mission potential. Redeemer’s Ambassadors have visited nearly 50 neighboring churches. We’ve seen small churches with impressive worship. We’ve seen large churches with ordinary worship. We’ve seen volunteer choirs in small congregations perform as well as larger church choirs with paid section leaders. We’ve seen small churches with amazing track records for supporting neighborhood mission. We’ve seen large churches doing similar things. We’ve seen innovative, scalable mission projects in several very small congregations.

Yet large churches have preferential ranking in the minds of denominational hierarchy. That’s because there is one thing larger churches can do better than small churches. They can better support hierarchy.

Hierarchies are expensive and self-perpetuating.

There is rarely talk about reducing hierarchy. This may be precisely what is needed.

Hierarchies are responsible for keeping church professionals employed. They are also supposed to provide services to congregations. Most congregations have little contact with their regional office unless they are calling a pastor.

Clergy rely on the denomination for access to and approval of a call. The regional body becomes their employment agency.

In the corporate world, employment agencies work for either the employer or the job-seeker. In the church, a regional body, acting as employment agency, holds some power over both the job-seekers and the limited pool of employer congregations within their region. They serve two earthly masters and tend to favor the clergy.

When pastors are vying for the most lucrative or beneficial assignments, the regional body as employment agency begins to judge congregations by their ability to meet clergy needs. If a congregation insists on finding a candidate that fits ministry needs, they can be judged as uncooperative—a judgement that could follow them for decades.

Mandated initiatives that make no sense to congregations can result. The regional body might recommend merger or acceptance of an interim pastor for an undesignated time—or they may recommend closure.

Denominational leaders are acting as managers. Looking at the map, it may make perfect management sense to merge two or three congregations within a two-mile radius. The thinking is that if you merge two 150-member churches, you will have one church with 300-members and that’s a magic number for supporting clergy.

It doesn’t work that way. In the church . . .

1 + 1 = One half

Churches are little communities, something like families. They come with their own traditions and social structure. Merging them to save management costs makes about as much sense as merging three or four unrelated families to make utility and grocery bills more reasonable.

You cannot mandate community. Attempts to merge congregations often end up with one even smaller congregation.

There is another side effect. In the corporate world, mergers and management decisions often result in similar products and services replicated in similar ways. The beauty of small congregations is their individuality. Without small churches we will end up with cookie cutter large churches, worshiping in similar ways and providing similar services and mission opportunities.

The loss of neighborhood ministries will be felt far more deeply than any temporary gains of church closures and mergers.

We must make small congregations a priority. We must find ways to help them get over decades of neglect.

10 Apr 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

Measuring the Potential of Church and Ministry

Today we are witnessing the end of the Medieval Era. The Church may be the last vestige of Feudalistic Society — where communities operated, lived and served under a select group of people who protected them.

That is the model of today’s church which found its enduring structure in the Middle Ages.

Today, Philadelphia is reeling over the proclamation from Roman Catholic leaders, based on a “Blue Ribbon Commission” report, that will close or merge dozens of neighborhood parish schools. There are strong hints that this is Stage One, with church closings to be announced next year. Dangle the string in front of the mouse a bit longer.

Decisions made by church hierarchy tend to be based on their own needs and resources more than the needs and resources of neighborhoods. There was a day when loyal lay people would not venture such criticism. Yesterday’s newspapers show that day is over.

Neighborhoods are beginning to recognize that the Feudalistic Church is no longer serving their needs and mission. It is existing to protect itself. It is a bitter pill for the most dedicated church supporters. We wish it weren’t so.

Hierarchies could make changes in policies and traditions at the leadership/service end, but it’s easier to dictate change to the rank and file.

Catholics are not alone — but they are in today’s spotlight. What results from the wisdom of the Catholic leadership remains to be seen. It is likely that the decision will accelerate any existing decline.  Affected congregations will lose a core part of their ministry focus. Their loyalties will not automatically transfer to consolidated schools — the hearts and souls of people just don’t work that way. The parishes who survived will not reap a windfall in support. The Church will be weakened. People will drift. Resources will be further strained. Substantial spoils of closed churches/schools, contributed by generations of neighborhood families, will go to enrich the unyielding hierarchy.

These decisions were likely based on statistics. Statistics tend to work against lay people. They are minimally involved in either collecting or reporting data. The data recorded may mean very little in a fast-changing world.

A fresh approach might be to stop measuring the people who are there and start measuring the people who are not there. Instead of measuring the services the church provides, measure the needs of the people who are not in church. This is a very biblical approach — something every congregation talks about doing, while they are measuring and reporting useless statistics.

Think about it. . . if you measure what you have, you are valuing and protecting the status quo. The church becomes a protective organization, making decisions to hang on to things as they are and hope for slight progress doing things the same old way.

If you start measuring needs and counting the people who are not in church, you are opening your community to service, mission and outreach. It will change your focus and thinking. The Bible is full of mandates to do just that.

We just have to get as good at measuring potential as we are at measuring failure.

09 Jan 2012