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evangelical lutheran church in america

Small Church vs Large Church — Looks Are Deceiving!

trinity-redeemer

Comparing SEPA’s Largest Congregation
with the Church SEPA Says Doesn’t Exist

What do Trinity, Lansdale, and Redeemer, East Falls, have in common?

We both engage with more than 700 followers each week.

According to Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Trend reports, Trinity, Lansdale, stands alone among Southeastern Pennsylvania churches in numbers. It has nearly 5000 members and an average worship attendance of 725. Most other large churches in SEPA — and there are only a few — average around 400.

Most SEPA churches are much smaller with about 100 or fewer at worship (many much fewer). ELCA Trend  measures only membership, attendance, income and expenses (in various configurations).

There are new statistics that will mean more in the emerging church. Churches don’t have to worry about collecting the data. The internet tracks results for you. This is where Redeemer is breaking ground no other SEPA church seems to be seriously exploring.

Redeemer is no longer listed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Trend reports, although the congregation never voted to close. We’ll take that up with the ELCA later.

Redeemer was growing quickly although we were still among the SEPA churches with fewer than 50 in average weekly worship attendance—the only engagement most churches measure. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod seized Redeemer’s property and locked our doors in 2009—something about inability to fulfill mission. (They approved a $275,000 budget deficit at the same time they claimed our property.)

There was plenty to question at the time, but no one did. There is more to question now!

Redeemer has continued its ministry without our property. There is no rule that a congregation must own property.

Locked out of God’s House in East Falls, we took our ministry online with our blog, 2x2virtualchurch.com. We now have an average weekly following approaching 800 in new traffic and about 150 who subscribe to our site daily. We engage between 1000 and 2000 readers each week.

Redeemer may have the largest engagement of any SEPA congregation! The potential for effective mission is huge.

While the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the ELCA has tenaciously tried to destroy our ministry, we adapted — and grew!

2×2 is written with lay leaders in mind. Our experience as a small church is that lay leaders are the innovators in ministry. Most have part-time pastors. Growing churches is not part-time work. The passion of lay people (an undervalued resource) is keeping many churches going.

Small churches need resources that don’t rely on paid skills.

We had an additional challenge. Redeemer is multicultural and multilingual. No single age group dominates. That means we can’t just turn to a choir or a youth group or a Sunday School class to create interesting activities. We developed materials that could be adapted to any eclectic grouping.

When we still had our building we posted these resources on generic ministry websites.

Two years ago we began posting them on 2×2.

We posted an Easter play Redeemer performed for all East Falls churches in 2009. It was downloaded 300 times last year and 3000 times this year.

This tells us how we can further serve the large audience of small churches. Search engine analysis shows us that people are beginning to find our content by specifically plugging in terms specific to our site (“2×2 Easter play” — not just “Easter play).” Our content is gaining a following.

We post at least two features a week which congregations can adapt. Early in the week we post an object lesson intended for adults based on the week’s lectionary. Mid-week we post an analysis of art that complements the week’s theme. These can be adapted to multimedia presentations that some churches now show before worship (just as Redeemer did). We will continue to build on this foundation.

In addition, we offer our experience in using social media with dozens of how-to posts.

One large church recently wrote to us: “A lot is written about social media and the church, but you are the only church actually doing it.”

In all likelihood, Redeemer has the widest reach of any church in SEPA Synod with followers all over the world. We engage with them one-on-one. We share ministry problems and successes and rely on one another for prayer.

What does this mean for ministry in East Falls? It means our worldwide reach can now benefit our local ministry. We have a new potential source of funding for ministry.

Redeemer always was viable despite SEPA’s self-interested reports. Our day school, locked since SEPA interfered, would be generating upwards of $6000 per month. (That’s nearly $300,000 of squandered potential over the last four years.) The web site could begin to generate several thousand a month within a year of nurturing—plenty of resources to fund a neighborhood ministry without a single coin in an offering plate.

Redeemer has never had more potential.

If mission is the goal in East Falls (and it is definitely our goal) the best potential for ministry is to make peace with the Lutherans who have steadfastly maintained and grown mission during the last six years of conflict. The property should be returned to Redeemer. This would be in keeping with Lutheran polity.

Our journey has been a leap into the future of the church. We could still be a small neighborhood church serving a few, focused on survival and paying a pastor—as is the case of so many small churches.

We’ve learned that it is possible for a small church to grow. We are very aware that 2×2 can grow beyond our own vision.

Meanwhile, the largest church in SEPA and Redeemer, the largest online church, are both fulfilling their mission with impressive results.

God is doing something new at Redeemer, East Falls.

Can you perceive it?

10 Mar 2013

The Modern Story of the Good Samaritan

. . . or should we say Samaritans

200px-Cl-Fd_Saint-Eutrope-vitrail1In 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.

Bwana awabariki!

03 Mar 2013

Social Media Is Church Work

Value the skills of church communicators.

We’ve written this over and over.

Social Media is the greatest evangelism tool the Church fails to embrace.

It’s never a priority, so it never gets done.

If it is attempted, it is relegated to volunteers who follow their interests and skills in their available time. There is no plan or accountability. If your congregation has an especially skilled volunteer with dedication, you are lucky.

We live in the information age. It is time for churches to recognize that church communicators are people with valuable and specialized skills. They have the best potential to help congregations of any size to grow.

Communications has become a skilled specialty. Church communicators should be key members of any ministry team. Compensation should be considered. Otherwise, the work is likely to be inconsistent and potentially detrimental to ministry.

But churches are structured to pay pastors, organists, musicians, secretaries and sextons first. There is rarely money left for other skills—no matter how vital they have become as the world has changed.

In the day of the mimeograph or photocopier, communications was expected to be a skill set of the pastor with the assistance, perhaps, of the church secretary and maybe a committee that might meet once a month. Most communication took place before well-filled pews. It became the Church way because it was the ONLY way. Good-bye yesterday.

Communications today requires daily attention. This is good news!

The potential for Church Communicators to influence ministry has grown beyond exponentially.

It is beyond the skill set and/or time availability of most pastors. Without a plan or structure and only the expectations of volunteer efforts, effective communications mission work is unlikely. Congregations will wallow in unfulfilled potential.

A major mission of any congregation is to TELL THE STORY of Jesus and His love AND to tell THEIR STORY.

That requires planning and skill.

We’ll tell part of our Communications Story in the next few posts.

08 Feb 2013

SEPA Embraces the Wisdom of Seth

Lutheran Synod Embraces Marketing Advice

A newsletter from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) today begins with a quote from futuristic thinker, Seth Godin.

There is the mistake of overdoing the defense of the status quo, the error of investing too much time and energy in keeping things as they are.

And then there is the mistake made while inventing the future, the error of small experiments gone bad.

We are almost never hurt by the second kind of mistake and yet we persist in making the first kind, again and again.”

Words of wisdom. Except that SEPA has shown no inclination to follow them. Their decisions tend to be status quo-oriented at best—and remarkably retro overall.

Of course, we live in an age that if an idea is ten years old it is ancient. The playbook SEPA followed in East Falls was written in 2001.

Redeemer’s Ambassadors have visited 54 churches and we see the same ministry plan with few variations in most of them.

SEPA’s vision:

  • You will have a congregation led by a pastor which we will choose for you—but we will pretend it is your call —because that’s the church way.
  • You can worship any way you like, but if you aren’t celebrating communion weekly, you are just not with it.
  • Accepted worship innovations include drums and an audio-visual screen.
  • Your budget will maintain your building and pay for a pastor, organist, choir director, sexton and church secretary. If money allows, your next hires will be a youth or visitation pastor. That’s the church way. Employing clergy is your major missional purpose.
  • Your mission efforts will coordinate with our mission office (keeping us employed as well). Otherwise, any success will not count and your ministry will be judged as uncooperative
  • Your ministry will be supported by offerings from a dwindling number of supporters in a volatile economy. That’s the church way. Go ahead. Keep trying. We’ll wait a reasonable amount of time before we celebrate your failure. Pastoral help? Sorry, no one is available.
  • When at last our prediction of your poor ministry potential comes true, we will make sure any remaining assets benefit synod.

Redeemer’s members, most of whom are entrepreneurial in their private lives, determined that we had to have a different kind of ministry. We had worked with Synod’s plans for a decade. Some showed promise, but SEPA’s support for their own proposed ministry plans was self-serving and ephemeral. The interim pastor we agreed to call for 18 months was recalled by Bishop Almquist after three months. He was needed in Bucks County. The covenant we signed with Epiphany was broken with the support (and to the benefit) of SEPA.

Redeemer’s vision:

  • Relying on offerings will guarantee failure. Providing pastoral needs as a priority will deplete resources with no measurable benefit.
  • Serve the community with profit center ministries.
  • Use the educational building to operate a community day school (with religious instruction) which might also reach the neighboring public school. Projected revenue $6000 per month.
  • Invest the skills of members in ministry that would serve the immigrant community while generating income. Projected revenue $10,000 per month (anticipated to grow with experience).
  • Experiment with social media, sharing ideas and potentially creating an income stream. Projected revenue within two years ($1000 per month with much more potential).

So Redeemer set about reinventing its ministry. Redeemer presented a detailed plan to Bishop Burkat who never reviewed it with us before (or after) announcing her plans to close our church. No questions, no answers, no complaints, no discussion, no congregational vote — just a declaration of closure. SEPA had a six-figure deficit clouding its vision. Redeemer, on the other hand, was living within its means.

Redeemer was willing to take calculated risks with its own resources for the benefit of its own ministry. Redeemer asked nothing of SEPA except their approval of the pastor we hoped to work with and who was entirely qualified and agreeable to the plan. He disappeared after a private meeting with Bishop Burkat. He resurfaced with an interim call to good old Bucks County.

While reinventing our future, we were willing to make mistakes along the way and planned for careful monitoring to maximize success. We set about our new ministry by rallying the support of members, involving them in the planning and shaping of their own ministry.

Outsiders, with no interest in our assets, have commented that we were doing a pretty good job. (Some of them were Lutheran!)

But status quo SEPA, facing its own murky future, decided that they had better plans for Redeemer’s assets. And so there has been no SEPA-sponsored ministry in East Falls in four years—Redeemer’s assets serving no ministry purpose. A legacy of distrust growing daily.

Meanwhile, Redeemer continues as much of its ministry as we can, under hateful conditions, while SEPA uses our resources to sue us.

If only SEPA had come across Seth’s words of wisdom before they fouled the baptismal waters in East Falls.

Looking for Success in the Wrong Places

As it struggles, the Church tends to misidentify success. They look at the largest dozen or so churches that attract larger numbers. They can still afford a few pastors and a staff. Careful analysis will show that the larger churches are also struggling. It just isn’t as noticeable. So their “success” is emulated.

We are emulating failure.

The Small Churches and Laity Are Pivotal to Change

The ideas that are going to change the Church are most likely to come from the laity in the smallest churches. (Tweet)

Small churches are keenly aware that complacency endangers ministry. Most small churches have strong lay leadership. Synod shows no interest in serving them. It’s a waiting game. A death watch.

If SEPA Synod is sincere in wanting to foster innovation, they must turn to their smallest congregations and work WITH them.

Here’s why the laity are key to innovation.

  • Lay people do not rely on the approval of hierarchy for their career trajectory. They are more likely to take innovative risks.
  • Lay people tend to circulate among other churches, religions and denominations — fodder for creative ideas.
  • Lay people are dedicated to the church and the neighborhoods where they live. They have no plans to move on to a bigger church in seven years.
  • Lay people provide the funds that support ministry. They care about how THEIR offerings are spent.
  • Lay people collectively bring the wisdom of many disciplines to the Church. Clergy get similar training in whatever seminary they choose.
  • Lay people serve with no expectations of reward or credit.

It’s a good thing. We rarely get it.

15 Jan 2013

Prayer Is the Answer. Now What Was the Question?

I had an uncle who was a Methodist preacher. He often said, only partially jokingly, “Jesus is the answer. Now what is your question?”

There seems to be a similar “go to” response in the Church today. When you don’t know what to do—or when you do know what to do but don’t have the courage to do it, there is an easy answer. Promise to pray.

It’s been tough going for our congregation as members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Bishop Claire Burkat of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod went on the warpath against Redeemer Lutheran in East Falls, Philadelphia, including personal attacks on lay members. Acquiring the assets of Redeemer seems to have been part of the plan to fund massive budget deficits from the very beginning of her first term in 2006.

Large deficits have been routine since the beginning of SEPA back in the late 1980s. Giving and attendance were (and still are) in serious decline. There was no plan for reviving small church ministry beyond neglect and waiting for failure. Several congregations folded rather than swim upstream without the cooperation of SEPA leadership.

The assumption of SEPA leadership is that if they neglect ministry for a decade, ministry will fail to the benefit of Synod coffers. Under Lutheran polity this isn’t a given. Congregations can determine where to donate their assets. But Synods are finding a work-around that guarantees they will benefit. Simply declare the congregations “terminated” before they can have any say. This means that the congregations have NO rights within the Church they have served for decades or centuries. They need not even be consulted! Constitutional checks and balances are ignored.

Redeemer was getting the “10 years of neglect” treatment. But it wasn’t going as Synod planned. Lay leadership grew. Alliances were made with several dedicated pastors. Redeemer was in a promising position, with a five-year commitment of a qualified Lutheran pastor, working under a detailed plan that the congregation had spent six months drafting. In fact, our ministry continues to grow, despite the abuse.

But the efforts of lay people are not valued.

And there was that $275,000 deficit budget approved by Synod Assembly at the same time they voted (against Lutheran rules) to take our property.

The deceitful maneuverings which characterized this hostile attempt at a land grab have been a fiasco that Lutheran leadership is unable to resolve without jeopardizing ministry, the livelihoods of lay people and perhaps even the entire synod. And at considerable expense.

It’s a mess. A shameful, unnecessary mess.

And all of this has gone on while the clergy of SEPA Synod have watched.

Our members have approached people who should be in a position to at least open dialog on the issues.

There are fairly specific guidelines for resolution of disputes in the Bible and there are governing documents that could be followed within the Church. But ELCA leaders do not bother. They rely on “wisdom.”

We’ve heard all kinds of excuses.

  • From Bishop Hanson: Just talk it out. I have great regard for Bishop Burkat.
  • From a Synod Council member: We have no intention of negotiating with you. (Synod Council is supposed to represent the congregations.)
  • From deans: Silence
  • From pastors in a position to help: We have to trust the wisdom of the bishop.
  • From pastors who visited Redeemer 30 or 40 years ago: We know your history (as if Redeemer was stuck in a time warp).
  • From pastors who don’t know anything about Redeemer — but voted with the crowd anyway: Sorry! We didn’t know.

Whatever the excuse, it is always accompanied with a sanctimonious, conscience-assuaging promise to pray.

We wonder what these learned church leaders expect to come of prayer.

  • That someone else—anyone else—will play peacemaker.
  • That God will suddenly fix everything without any work.
  • That whatever happens won’t affect them.
  • That miracles will replace gumption.
  • That whatever happens, their jobs will be secure.
  • That they will never be the victims of the type of leadership abuses that have characterized this sad episode (and perhaps others before us).
  • That life in SEPA will go on as if Redeemer, and Epiphany, and Grace and others never existed—and the list will probably continue to grow.

Lutherans pride themselves on an interdependent structure. That means we are supposed to work together.  

Here’s a suggestion:

By all means, keep praying, but recognize that the answer to prayer is probably in getting off your backsides and doing something.

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do
for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 

02 Nov 2012