Have your congregation read Undercover Bishop, a new parable of the modern church, now available for download. Compare your own church stories with those discovered by the newly elected Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she travels from church to church incognito to learn what clergy and lay members would never tell a bishop.
Sixteen short chapters are followed with suggested discussion questions.
Bishop Kinisa visits
an urban neighborhood church,
a small town church, and
a church in the country.
She needs to return to each church to reveal her identity. You are invited to act out your own endings and submit them to 2×2.
Undercover Bishop is an ebook, which means it can be amended. We’ll be glad to add your endings in prose or video form to keep the discussion of small church ministry going.
The Ambassadors from Redeemer have visited nearly 50 churches since we were locked out of our own church.
We started with congregations near us, close to the city. Most of our early visits were to small congregations.
As we drifted toward the suburbs, we found congregations to be a little larger. But in all our visits we have visited only three or four churches with more than 100 in attendance (all but one on significant holidays).
As a general observation, the larger the church the more similar things are. The liturgy is more set in stone. The hymns choices are more predictable. You have the organ. You have the choir (with paid section leaders, in some cases). The involvement of the people is more standard. People file out of the sanctuary in groups that don’t interact much. The bulletins look alike. The list of activities could be cut and pasted from one to the other.
Smaller churches are unpredictable, more likely to be innovative in their worship, more diverse and more inclusive. They are livelier and more spontaneous. More people are involved — sometimes in unusual ways. There is more going on between the people, even in the worship setting.
No wonder most people belong to small churches! That may not be where the money is, but it is where there is a lot of action. And still the attention of church leadership is on bigger congregations — that overall fewer people will join—because most people choose to belong to smaller churches.
How do we grow small churches without forcing them to lose their personality? How do we tap their energy and ideas? Or are we most interested in tapping their assets? That’s a real question. There is an economic dichotomy in the Church that is the source of a great deal of church conflict. The economic model that the Church aspires to is not the economic model that people support with their hearts or their pocketbooks.
Most of the economy of churches revolves around the ability to pay clergy and support hierarchy, but that’s not necessarily where ministry is most effective.
No stone was rolled away at Redeemer this year. Maybe next year!
Nevertheless, Redeemer members gathered in front of the church, read the Easter Story, and prayed before heading to a member’s home for Easter fellowship. We had three new attendees this year, which has been steady growth since the lock out.
Please keep in mind that Redeemer members still live in fear of SEPA leadership. Not all will agree to be in a photograph—very sad commentary on the state of ministry in SEPA Synod of the ELCA.
(Our sign, which Bishop Burkat couldn’t wait to have torn down and destroyed as she pretends to honor the memory of Redeemer, will continue to live on as a witness to our ministry through the magic of Photoshop!)
We had a wonderful Easter — no thanks to the church!
“Why don’t ‘you people’ just find another church and stop all the anger?” a pastor asked one of our ambassadors on a recent visit.
That would make life so easy—if only victims would not fight back when they are bullied.
We assure the people of SEPA that Redeemer does not like being angry. Sometimes anger is appropriate.
Jesus became angry at the sight of the moneylenders defiling the Temple. For the last four years, Redeemer has watched those with financial interests in our property behave in similarly greedy and self-serving ways in our sacred space.
Anger is not fun. The alternative — to ignore anger—is to deny our sense of worth, our passion, our community…and not least…our faith. SEPA demands we mothball our memories and our heritage and that we break our friendships and connections with the community where we still live. We are expected to hide our light under a bushel and become passive pew-warming Christians in some other place than our own community.
SEPA discredits the volunteer hours that went into making Redeemer grow in the last ten years. Our documented successes go unrecognized; they collide with SEPA’s prejudice and true goals — acquisition of our assets.
The resulting conflict was needless. Despite reports to the contrary, there was NO forum for mutual discernment, NO long period of working together, NO consideration for the elected leaders of Redeemer.
There WAS ample abuse of the constitutional processes.
Lawsuits could have been avoided. Financial challenges could have been minimized. There were numerous paths to peace. SEPA leadership chose aggression at every turn.
In another synod, a congregation much smaller than Redeemer appealed a similar synodical decision to close. Their story is much like Redeemer’s, complete with a locksmith raid. But comparisons end there. Their Synod Assembly supported the congregation. This congregation is still small but has started community outreach that is funding their church well. They have been helping Redeemer.
Redeemer, easily five times the size of this church, had similar plans which by now would have been quite lucrative and supporting an exciting ministry in East Falls.
Instead Bishop Burkat continues to create a widening wake of hurt, anger and destruction.
Lutheran constitutions and government depend on the understanding that laity and clergy are equals and the organizations within the church are interdependent. Lutherans are supposed to work together.
This cannot happen as long as SEPA Lutherans stand on the sidelines and watch in silence as member churches endure abuse.
Back to the pastor who advised us to just stop being angry.
Why don’t we just find another church?
Our answer. We’ve been vagabond Lutherans for nearly three years. We’ve reached out to 43 of SEPA’s 160 congregations. We’ve visited. We’ve left contact information. We’ve written letters. We’ve made some friends along the way, but the fact is . . . none of the congregations still within the ELCA have reached out to us. No active pastor has visited our members to offer any kind of pastoral care. (Two retired pastors have helped.)
SEPA, the conflict is in your hands. You could turn this around at May’s Synod Assembly by demanding your leadership work to reconcile with the Lutherans of East Falls.
We repeat a wonderful quote all congregations should take to heart.
People should not have to find a church. The church should find them.
As Redeemer Ambassadors began our second year of church visits in August, we began to feel more comfortable in our visitation. Perhaps that’s because we are beginning to discover connectivity — sometimes spanning decades, sometimes a century or more.
Our first visit rekindled an old working friendship which had been dormant for decades. In November we visited St. Mark, Conshohocken. The grandfather/great grandfather of two of our Ambassadors was one of the founding pastors of that congregation and visiting the church we had heard about so often from our ancestors was very meaningful. We also discovered that some of the Epiphany members who once shared our building were now worshiping there.
Almost every week, we find something in common with the people we visit. At St. John, Folcroft, one of our ambassadors mentioned her college and a St. John member responded, telling us about her college. We soon learned that the woman had been college friends with one of our ambassadors who was not present and had sung in the college choir with his wife.
At Grace, Mantua, we learned that the pastor and his wife shared mutual good friends with one of the Ambassadors. Similarly, we learned that the pastor of liberti presbyterian shared mutual friends. We had heard stories about one another for years but had never met!
This morning, we visited Trinity, Fort Washington, where one of our former members attends. We were pleased to talk with her many friends. Our former member and her family had been among the earliest and strongest Redeemer supporters. We also discovered that their new pastor was from a church near the childhood church of one of our ambassadors and they knew some of the same people. His home church was that of one of our ambassador’s earliest relatives to come to America hundreds of years ago.
As we share stories of our other visits, we learn of their connections with the people we are currently visiting. “That’s where I was married.” “That’s the church my husband and I visited when we were trying to decide on a church.”
Redeemer is part of the precious interconnectivity of Lutherans and Christians everywhere. Locking our doors won’t take that away!
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.
Undercover Bishop will always be available in PDF form on 2x2virtualchurch.com for FREE.
Print or Kindle copies are available on Amazon.com.
For bulk copies, please contact 2x2: creation@dca.net.
Contact Info
You can reach
Judy Gotwald,
the moderator of 2x2,
at
creation@dca.net
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
Have your congregation read Undercover Bishop, a new parable of the modern church, now available for download. Compare your own church stories with those discovered by the newly elected Bishop Ruby Kinisa as she travels from church to church incognito to learn what clergy and lay members would never tell a bishop.
