Redeemer members gathered this Easter on the sidewalks of our forbidden house of worship. Our pastor led us in a song. We took turns singing verses of I Know That My Redeemer Lives. Redeemer still is a church full of soloists.
We then went to a member’s home for Easter Fellowship. Ham and kielbasa. Delicious.
We had changed our Easter time to accommodate the plans of our members. So when two carloads passed by the church at the normal time for Redeemer worship (10 am) they found an empty church (as opposed to an empty tomb).
We caught up with them later and took a second photo.
Fortunately, we can resurrect our sign which our bishop was so intent on destroying. It’s looking better than the church!
Take away the name. Take away the heritage. Destroy the church. Control the wealth.
SEPA, let the people who love a church, care for it. That’s the Lutheran way.
In the story of the good Samaritan, the religious people (the priest and the Levite) find reasons to pass by the poor soul who has been robbed and hurt. In each case, their failure to act with compassion is prompted by fear for their own hides.
It is the Samaritan—the outsider, the person at whom the religious people of the day would collectively thumb their noses—who offered help—ongoing help, not just a quick fix.
We lived the Good Samaritan story this week. We needed help. One of our good members faced the imminent loss of her home and income due to the reign of terror inflicted on Redeemer and its members by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Our little church, which SEPA insists doesn’t exist, rallied.
We asked for help from churches who helped create this situation. They were prayerful but unhelpful. It’s so easy to find excuses to do nothing.
“We’ll pray for you” is the universal excuse of SEPA Lutherans. Their prayer, we suppose, is that someone else will fix the mess they created. How tiring all that prayer must be!
We went to unrelated Lutheran churches. We don’t do that sort of thing, was their answer.
At last we found the help we needed. One local church who has been helping us for the last four years offered major assistance with no expectation of return. A church some 200 miles away (and smaller than Redeemer!) both contributed and guaranteed what we couldn’t raise locally. Four individuals also helped graciously. As far as we know, only one has any church affiliation.
Two of them used the same phrase: “A wrong has been done and it must be righted.”
And so little Redeemer, raised the money we needed to satisfy Redeemer’s debt—twice what SEPA expects to pay. This debt would never have been a problem to anyone if our school were operating for the last four years and contributing to mission and ministry in East Falls. But SEPA, hungry for our assets, interfered with and ruined our 25-year relationship with a Lutheran agency and stopped us from opening our own program. They have kept the doors locked on both the sanctuary and school for nearly four years—no ministry is better than a neighborhood church they can’t control.
SEPA Synod took our property under questionable legality. A court split decision ruled in their favor, saying the courts could not be involved in church issues. The dissenting opinion pointed out that the legal arguments seem to favor Redeemer and the case should be heard by the courts. In five years, court room after court room, the case has never been heard.
We have always claimed that SEPA’s interest in our property was entirely a result of their failing finances and mission—not Redeemer’s.
This week is further proof.
We’ve been saying in our posts on social media that the power in the church is shifting. There was a day when congregations had to band together to provide services and perform effective mission. Individuals now have the power to do much more on their own. Support of hierarchy is more expensive than effective.
Redeemer (and yes, we do exist) proved that this week.
Don’t get us wrong . . . we appreciate prayer. But we appreciate even more those who help find answers to prayer.
Thank you to all who cared enough to do more than pray. You are a living parable.
Today Bishop Claire Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will gather her little chicks under her wing at Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in NE Philadelphia and celebrate its closure. They’ve been moving toward this date for the last year, since they sold the property to the United Church of Christ—and probably still longer.
This is also the fifth anniversary of Bishop Claire Burkat’s attempt to stealthily seize Redeemer’s property in East Falls. It was on February 24, 2008, that Bishop Burkat invited herself to our church supposedly to plan a closing service for a congregation that had never even discussed closing much less been given an opportunity to vote on it as is constitutionally necessary. She brought about nine or ten people with her with no notice, despite the fact that the congregation had warned her that the date she had chosen with no consultation with church leaders was already booked and that the congregation did not wish to meet at that time. The two members of Redeemer who met her that day were soon to discover that her plans had nothing to do with planning a worship service. Among her posse was SEPA’s lawyer who was waiting behind the building and out of sight in a locksmith’s van. When their strategy called for the lawyer and locksmith to make their presence known we don’t know. We had been forewarned by someone in Chicago that she was intending such a move and so when we saw the locksmith van go by, we were prepared.
The bishop’s embarrassment that day, which sparked five years of vindictive law suits, has cost mission and ministry in our neighborhood dearly.
There was never an attempt to work with us — we were not valued enough to be part of the discussion of our future. The names of our lay leaders were dragged through the mud—an attempt to validate Synod’s actions. The work of the laity was treated with total disregard. The people of Redeemer deserved the opportunity to work with and be in discussion with SEPA just as the people of Holy Spirit have been.
SEPA’s Articles of Incorporation forbid the Synod from confiscating congregational property without the consent of the congregation.
The more SEPA congregations allow this very important foundation of Lutheran polity to be ignored, the more endangered each congregation is.
Redeemer’s Ambassadors have now visited 56 SEPA congregations. We know that many of them are no stronger and more than a few are weaker than Redeemer. If Redeemer’s statistics were the reason for closing, about ten to twenty percent of the remaining 160 congregations should also be closed with more suffering the same fate within a decade or two if innovative steps aren’t taken.
We have always known that Redeemer’s property and endowment were the real attractions. In April of 2008, we discovered that Bishop Burkat had offered our property for sale to a Lutheran Agency without a word to our congregation. We learned this from a letter from the agency, dated in early April (only about 40 days after the February 24 showdown), informing us that they had done an extensive site evaluation and were denying the offer of sale. The timing suggests that the property, owned by the congregation, had been offered for sale even before Bishop Burkat came to the congregation—all without the knowledge of the congregation. Clearly NOT Luthean polity.
SEPA needed our money—quick and easy. This devious situation fueled the character assassination, personal attacks and refusal to work with Redeemer that has characterized the court battles. But SEPA seems to be unable to check and balance their leadership — as their constitutions call for.
In September 2009, Bishop Burkat at last achieved her goal. She locked out the members of Redeemer.
Undaunted, Redeemer continues its mission, achieving its greatest success with our online ministry. We have broken new ground in mission which is being recognized by other denominations if not our own!
While some members of SEPA Synod are celebrating the closure of a church, others are meeting on this date in Lansdale and on Monday in Burholme to talk about communications. Redeemer and its website, 2x2virtualchurch.com, could contribute a great deal to a discussion with church communicators. We have a ton of experience!
Redeemer’s 2×2 web site has made friends in ministry with several mission churches. The first to write to us was a house church in Pakistan. Pastor Sarwar wrote to us last year about this time. He sent photos of their worship — their members marching the streets of a Muslim city, celebrating Palm Sunday. We prayed for them while they were in hiding during the unrest sparked by a thoughtless movie about Islam We learned from them that a Lutheran Church in their city had burned. We tried to explain to them that the movie did not represent America and that most Americans had never seen the film. Since then they have undertaken a challenge to open 1000 house churches in Pakistan in 2013.
The second was a husband and wife in western Kenya who are taking in orphans to raise with their own children. The husband was attending Bible classes to learn more about leading a church. The mother was busy with the children and making necklaces to raise some money. She sent us a selection. They sent us pictures as they worked to build a house for the children. I promised them some art for the walls. I’d love to send them the painting of Jesus with the children which was on the wall of our educational building — now locked by SEPA Synod.
The third was an energetic pastor with a passion for the many orphaned children in Nairobi. He holds weekend worship events for the children. We sent them greetings and the children wrote back to us. We correspond with each weekly — sometimes daily. They pray for us and ask about our members by name. We help one another as best we can from such a distance and with limited resources. Mostly, we write notes of encouragement.
A few months ago, with the permission of each, we put each church in touch with the others so they could share and feel a bit less lonely in their work.
Yesterday, we heard from each church—one after the other in a span of a couple of hours. The notes were short, but the message was astonishing. These three churches, in two countries, and in two very different cultures were visiting one another. First, we heard from Simion, from western Kenya. He told us he was with Silas from Nairobi, about 300 miles away. Then we heard from Silas, who shared that he was traveling with Simion and was going to visit their home. Then we heard from Sarwar in Pakistan, he had sent a missionary to visit with them.
Three churches, each with tremendous challenges, each with the barest of resources to work with, were visiting and sharing the bonds of Christianity. Each had met through 2×2, little Redeemer’s outreach.
We are amazed—jealous that we can’t join them—and thankful that in Christ we are one.
Do not underestimate the worth of a small church in today’s world. Even a small church can do big things in mission. We didn’t need a national church or regional body to coordinate our mission. We just made friends with our blog.
God is doing something new in East Falls and in the world.
It may be Groundhog’s Day in Punxatawny but February 2, 2013, is 2×2’s second anniversary. Our experimental web site has been quite an adventure. Our ministry has gained influence and reach we never imagined and is poised to be an income asset for our host congregation, Redeemer.
In February of 2011, 2×2 had just one visitor for the whole month (and it may have been one of us). Last month we had more than 2100 first time visitors and that doesn’t include a growing number of subscribers and those who receive our posts via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Our cyber statistics make us one of the largest congregations in the ELCA. And we’re just getting started!
Our primary mission is to help small congregations with ministry challenges. We hope to do this even more in 2013. The Easter Play we posted last year has had 1000 downloads this year. Our weekly Adult Object Lessons has a regular following. And several church organizations have contacted us for help with web sites.
Our secondary mission is to be the voice of Redeemer. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has done everything it can to try to silence us — even suggesting that one of our members, an ordained ELCA pastor, be censored for speaking out on issues everyone else veils in silence.
2×2 has been an effective voice.
A surprise along the way has been the number of international friendships we have made and the youthful readership who make up the majority of our followers. 2013 will also be a year for building/nurturing these relationships.
Through 2×2, Redeemer is poised to take ministry to new places. We’ve earned our place in the ELCA which refuses to recognize our ministry, preferring our physical assets to our membership. Where is St. Lawrence when we need him!? (Turn us over. We are done on this side.)
It is time for those who decided in 2009 that Redeemer couldn’t survive and therefore they should have the benefit of our assets to reconsider their actions.
The resulting law suits have depleted what reserves there were for them to enjoy. The building has been locked to all for three and a half year — serving no mission purpose whatsoever. Yet good can still be salvaged.
The church is not a building. It is the people. The people of Redeemer have continued our ministry despite every obstacle thrown our way.
Under Lutheran governance, any synodical administration is temporary in nature. It’s constitutional purpose is to help congregations. The Articles of Incorporation make it clear that property belongs to the congregation and cannot be taken without a congregation’s consent. Most of the people who voted to do this had never read the Articles of Incorporation.
There is no reason why Redeemer with its physical and cyber assets cannot fund a full ministry. With a little nurturing it could be quite lucrative.
It is time to for SEPA to reconsider its actions in East Falls, return our property as they should under their constitution and restore mission to this neighborhood.
If this was about money, problem solved. We can afford our own ministry. We always could.
…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.—Romans 5:3-5
A friend wrote a note of encouragement this week to Redeemer, a congregation that continues to be abused by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (SEPA / ELCA).
He wrote that our situation reminds him of a song by Alice Cooper of the 70s. He quoted a song:
“I went to church, incognito, when everybody rose. The Reverend Smith, he … he recognized me, and punched me in the nose. I said, ‘No more Mr. Nice Guy.'”
That doesn’t begin to describe how the Lutherans of East Falls feel about the way their denomination has treated them. But it’s as close as anyone in the church has tried to get.
During the six years of Bishop Almquist’s term, during which SEPA was all but absent in its relationship with Redeemer, the Rev. Claire Burkat was making a name for herself as an assistant to the bishop.
She had a success of which she was particularly proud. She worked with a failing church and devised a plan. Synod would close the church with its aging members’ cooperation and reopen it weeks later with a new name.
In 2006 in her early days as bishop, Bishop Burkat came to Redeemer eager to replicate the experience which had been so successful (by her reports) before her election. In truth, it was too soon to tell if the mission strategy was actually successful. There were no statistics to support whether or not it was a good idea.
We have checked the current statistics of this congregation. They are not impressive. Membership seems to be under 50. About half the statistics of Redeemer in 2007.
Nevertheless in 2006, the experiment was touted as a promising innovation. Bishop Burkat was eager to replicate it and add another “success” to her résurmé.
The problem was Redeemer was not at all like the congregation that had agreed to pioneer this technique.
Remember, SEPA had walked away from Redeemer six years before and their memory was that the congregation consisted of a dozen old ladies. Their waiting game strategy should have been ripe for implementation, in Bishop Burkat’s view.
Things had changed at Redeemer. The elderly members who had met with Bishop Almquist had in fact gone to their heavenly reward. But there were now three times as many Redeemer members as when Bishop Almquist had released us from synodical administration—and that would soon double. Our members were mostly young families, most of whom had joined within the last ten years. Many were Tanzanian immigrants, but there were other new ethnic backgrounds new to Redeemer’s membership as well. Bishop Burkat even suggested removing the Tanzanian members to create statistics to justify the strong-arm tactics she planned to implement. Some had been members for a decade, some had been born into our community. This was (and is) insulting to Redeemer’s Tanzanian members as it should be to every Lutheran. As one young Tanzanian member noted at the time: SEPA is big on ministry to the Tanzanians — as long as we stay in Tanzania. (The statistics presented to Synod Assembly by the trustees excluded the Tanzanian members.)
Redeemer’s interest in working with SEPA was to build on its success. SEPA wasn’t listening. They knew best.
Closing Redeemer and reopening it under a new name was the only plan they would consider. Why?Their way gave them control of the congregation’s assets.
Here we go again! Mutual discernment at work!
Bishop Burkat made this proposal. She would close the church down, have a grand closing ceremony, and reopen it a few weeks later. Renaming the church was key to this strategy. There should be no confusion that the old church was dead and gone. The new name had to meet with her approval. Oh, and the current members would not be permitted any leadership roles. From where the new leaders were to suddenly emerge to take control of our ministry was not made clear. Meanwhile, Synod would reign with no one to answer to — hardly the Lutheran way.
Of course, this was offensive to a congregation that had worked hard to recover from the mess created by Bishop Almquist — and was succeeding.
The first proposal was the church should close for two weeks. That became six months by the time they saw us in court.
Well, in 2009, Bishop Burkat finally got her way and has control of Redeemer’s property. It has been locked to Redeemer and the community for three and a half years.
Redeemer remains active through 2×2 Foundation, waiting for the day that the Lutherans of SEPA recognize that maybe, just maybe, they were part of a big mistake.
The strategy of replicating one success in a different neighborhood has been disastrous for both East Falls and SEPA. Redeemer bears the popular blame, but SEPA with its selfish policies is responsible. Bishop Burkat defends her actions, citing the process of mutual discernment.
Once again, the definition of mutual discernment is “comply or goodbye.“
The work of Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson, Joseph V. Sinfield and Elizabeth J. Altman proposes three principles that characterize disruptive growth. They cite businesses that found a way to thrive when the trends and statistics were discouraging.
We think these theories point to the missing ingredient in the Church’s long and ineffective quest to transform. Here are the three principles which, if followed, lead to growth.
Serving “overshot customers” or totally new consumers
Noting that “good enough” can be great
Doing what the natural competitors consider unattractive or uninteresting
Let’s look at each of these as they might apply to the Church. We’ll use our own ministry as an example. Today we will look at Principle 1.
Serving “overshot customers” or totally new consumers
What does this mean in the world of Church? The study elaborates:
A truly disruptive strategy is unlikely to find success in a current market. Making that disruptive solution good enough for current customers often requires heavy investment to fix performance limitations. Those investments can snuff out the disruptive essence of the new solution. Furthermore, bringing the solution to established markets means following established approaches, which can blind companies to the new potential inherent in the disruptive model.
This is a description of the current situation facing thousands of mainline congregations today. The Church cannot transform without the support of the current membership. The Church frequently opts to discourage current members hoping for better luck and more influence with pews full of newby Christians. They are hoping that they will buy in, ask few questions and give money to support the way things are already being done. In so doing, they are wasting the investment they made when they nurtured and educated the existing members.
This is not insignificant. The current membership with knowledge of the church and its traditions is the most likely source of both sweat and financial equity. The Church is shooting itself in the foot (not to mention missing the point of Christianity) when it undervalues its current members.
The Church has its established approaches.
Thick manuals on how to minister to churches in transition. (We’ve read them.)
Book after book sitting on the shelves behind the pastor’s desk. (We read many of them.)
Changes in constitutions to give the hierarchies powers to force their ministry ideas on congregations.
In all this effort to follow accepted or conventional ministry techniques, the Church is eroding their foundation and missing opportunities that are begging for unconventional attention.
The second part of the above quote is equally important: while we are following the conventions of church building we are blinding our eyes to new possibilities — new potential.
How the Redeemer/SEPA conflict validates this principle
The Redeemer situation illustrates this principle. Redeemer members were following the Disruptive Innovation techniques, serving a neighborhood which church analysts had determined was “overshot” and totally new populations. We had never heard the term at the time.
One of the few pastors who have openly addressed the Redeemer issue (retired, of course) justified the Synod Assembly vote with a point that was never raised in either the Synod’s presentation or Redeemer’s allotted few minutes.
“There are too many churches in East Falls anyway. What do we need with a church there?”
(Let’s forget for now that under Lutheran polity this isn’t his or the Assembly’s choice.)
This is not true, the people of East Falls are largely unchurched—not over-churched.
East Falls has
a Roman Catholic Church
a Presbyterian Church
an Episcopal Church
Redeemer with its locked doors but open hearts
The Roman Catholic Church is reeling from its own conflict with its hierarchy. The hierarchy, ever attentive to their own fiscal challenges, closed St. Bridget’s relatively successful school in an attempt to bolster the numbers at a school a couple of miles away that was failing despite the diocese’s investment in renovation. (Now both schools are closed. Great job, hierarchy!)
Five years ago, when SEPA’s attention turned to closing Redeemer, Falls Presbyterian Church had half the membership of Redeemer. Their denomination decided to support the congregation with a minister who has helped them make significant progress.
Five years ago, the Memorial Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church was struggling, following the unexpected death of its pastor. They turned to then synod staff member, Claire Burkat. As a consultant, she determined that this congregation, located at the more affluent end of East Falls, with a location on a side street with no parking lot (a criticism she hurled at Redeemer) had ministry potential. While supporting the Episcopal congregation in East Falls, Bishop Burkat was soon plotting the downfall of the congregation in the same neighborhood that had supported her work for decades.
It should be noted that East Falls once had
a Methodist Church, which failed when its location became locked in the crowded streets of an old neighborhood
a Baptist Church, with similar challenges
a Congregational Church that closed more than 30 years ago
and a second Episcopal Church that did not survive a conflict with its bishop
There is a track record here of techniques that don’t work. Redeemer noticed and addressed its ministry challenges with them in mind.
So the neighborhood, in the analysis of church experts, was over-served but in reality it was “overshot,” a fertile field of “nonconsumers.” Prime ministry territory for Disruptive Innovation.
When the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Church in America decided that this was the next church they could turn to as a solution to their fiscal problems, Redeemer had already taken significant and promising ministry steps. We were able to forge a new direction in part because SEPA Synod was following its guidelines of NOT HELPING churches they determined might die in TEN YEARS. An unbelievable philosophy that is documented.
Pastors were discouraged from serving here. In that void, the laity charted an unconventional but promising 2008 Redeemer Ministry Plan, which we are still following this plan today, with necessary adaptations, despite the fact that SEPA excludes us from church membership.
During the ten years that SEPA thought we were dying, Redeemer was reaching newcomers to the East Falls area—some with Lutheran roots, some without. They were different from Redeemer’s historic membership in that their roots were in East Africa as opposed to England, Scotland and Germany.
SEPA Synod and Bishop Burkat in particular looked at our membership list and criticized it. “A lot of these names look African.” She tried to remove our African members asking our pastor to take them with him to another congregation—choosing for them which church they should attend, something she would never dare try with white Lutherans. She never counted them — reporting to the Synod Assembly in 2009 that we had only 13 members. We had only 13 white members. We had 60 or more black members that SEPA refused to recognize. They were unconventional.
SEPA wanted to see a conventional ministry here, opting to follow the trend of three other denominations that failed following the same “tried and true” ministry strategies. Pastor Patricia Davenport made a presentation to East Falls Community Council last March, repeating “We want a Word and Sacrament church at that location.” Why they evicted the Word and Sacrament church that was there was not explained. Redeemer, if given half a chance, would be flourishing and paying the debts the Synod continues to fight over in court.
And we would be forging new ministry techniques that might help others.
Last Sunday, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) held a gathering they called
“Plant It, Water It, Watch it Grow.”
It was supposed to be a presentation on SEPA’s mission work.
Redeemer wasn’t invited. We are the weed, we suppose, in the SEPA garden.
SEPA Synod evicted a vibrant, growing congregation, locked everyone in town out of God’s House, and sent a caretaker to rake the leaves and shovel the snow. He does a good job, the neighbors tell us.
But GROW! That’s the part SEPA Synod has trouble with. Almost all of its congregations are in decline or flat-lined. In fact, Rev. Hilgendorf of St. David’s, dean of the NE Conference, addressed the Plant It, Water It, Watch It Grow concept and talked mostly of helping congregations save money by consolidating purchasing. This really has nothing to do with planting, watering or growth.
Botanists describe weeds as flowers that are reproductively successful.
What SEPA Synod needs is more weeds — like Redeemer.
They wouldn’t know what to do if they had a garden filled with them.
That’s why Redeemer is about to celebrate its FOURTH Christmas locked out of the church. And none of the people who attended Sunday’s “Plant It, Water It, Watch It Grow” conference have demonstrated that they care.
While all those church leaders were together talking about mission, we wonder:
Join Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she visits small churches "under cover" to learn what people would never share if they knew they were talking to their bishop.
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Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
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at
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or 215 605 8774
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).
2×2 Sections
Where in the World is 2×2?
On Isaiah 30:15b
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
Can No One Roll the Stone Away?
