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The Lutheran

Can the Church Afford to Give Anything Away?

What’s Keeping Us from Telling Our Story?

offeringI updated all the blogs I manage today. It was a simple click. Done.

When the installation was over a screen appeared detailing the benefits and features of the update.

There were three tabs at the top of the page: What’s New, Credits, and Freedoms.

I had already read What’s New. The Credits don’t interest me (although I’m grateful). I had to explore Freedoms.

The Freedoms tab explained the WordPress philosophy. The software is free. Anyone is free to modify and improve. In fact, they hope we do!

Several new business models revolve around the concept of “free.” Social Media is one of them. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. — all free to users. In the early days of this model, business people weren’t sure what to make of it.

Then FREE started to make billions. People chose to embrace the power of FREE.

Wikipedia has become an amazingly thorough and accurate encyclopedia with almost instantaneous updating. You hear on the news that a celebrity died. Check Wikipedia—it’s likely to already reflect the news.

Wikipedia opened its pages to contributors and editors — anyone. They rely on the idea that people want to share, appreciate accuracy and detail, and will correct what they discover is wrong.

You can find information on the most obscure subjects on Wikipedia. (We may start a Wikipedia page!) The editorial barriers that existed in a world of space limitations are gone.

What can the Church learn from this?

The Church is scared silly of FREE. They are protective of what they have. They want to give nothing away.

Control of assets is more important than use of assets.

That’s what is keeping the congregations from using Social Media.

Social Media costs practically nothing monetarily. The investment in Social Media is an investment of time and talent. It involves giving your message away.

Most churches have already dedicated a healthy third of their resources to proclamation. They hire a pastor to collate, interpret, teach and preach. Unfortunately most churches are investing that money on reaching very few people.

There is another way. With Social Media you can take the same message, already paid for, and reach millions.

But congregations, accustomed to old business models, ask, “What’s in it for us?”

Someone will be quick to say, “Let’s add a Donate button.”

This approach to Social Media is backward. Social Media works on the giveaway business model.

There may be a time and place for that Donate button, but first you have to establish voice and prove your dedication to your message and your readers.

But Church leaders are not leading the way. They’ve forgotten their roots! Our message should be free!

If there is any office of the hierarchy that should be subsidized, it is the church’s “house organ”—the voice of the denomination designed to reach every member. And potentially more.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has a magazine, The Lutheran. It is subscription-based. That barrier limits its effectiveness from the start.

The physical magazine works the old way. Readers get their magazine in the mail. They can read and participate by writing letters to the editor. Few will get printed. No room. The editors will choose who can comment.

There are no space limitations online. So why do we set up the same barriers as if there were?

The Lutheran online teases readers and expects them to pay to read and comment. They may be able to measure how that is working for them. What they can’t measure is how it might work better for them in the long run to eliminate that barrier.

Church house organs should be free. (Advertisers should be demanding this!). You want people to know your story. You want to engage the Lutheran community and build that community. There should be no fear of the dialog that results. It should be refreshing. People like to know they have a voice. They expect it today.

The same is true at the denominational and congregational levels. Their online presence should be delivering valuable information to the region and community. The news and features should be outreach-oriented—not all about how great the regional office or congregation is. The proof of the pudding is in the reading—and serving.

There is practically no effort at these levels to embrace the media tools available.

It’s all because we still focus on the offering plate and the structure that dwindling offerings must support.

The Church today exists in a world where people expect something for free. It helps differentiate those dedicated to service from those dedicated to self-interest and self-preservation. When people see you walking your talk — then they want to be part of the mission. When they are sure of their investment, they are more likely to become supporters of mission.

By the way, the giveaway model was how the Church got its start and spread all over the world within a few centuries. Imagine what we could be doing today with a simple return to our roots.

photo credit: archer10 (Dennis) via photopin cc
26 Jun 2013

Paying for Denominational News

An Antiquated Worldview Stifles the Voice of the Denomination

SUB0000001bThe turmoil in mainline churches is symptomatic. The concept of hierarchy is becoming outdated. In a decade or so we look back at how we did things before the computer revolution with the same incredulity we experience today when we review the history of the Crusades or slavery.

Until then there will be struggle as hierarchies try to hang on. It doesn’t have to be ugly.

A hierarchy that remembers that in the church we exist to serve is actually well positioned to meet the new age.

A hierarchy that is focused on its own power, importance and preservation will topple.

People who have embraced the new world can view what’s happening with amusement—if they are not part of tumultuous transition, that is.

Church leaders are slow to understand the gift that has been handed to them with social media.

We see it with the pope. He will tweet but he will not follow. The power of Twitter is in following. But popes and bishops are tempted to see that as beneath them. Communication has been one way for thousands of years. This is to be expected.

We will soon see it in religious social services. it will not be long before religious social service agencies admit that their association with a denomination may deter mission efforts. They can now reach volunteers and supporters more easily themselves than through national or regional church efforts.

American Roman Catholic nuns have already experienced this.

Similarly, mission efforts that rely on denominational funding will soon realize that they are not as in touch with the people who support them as they could be without the filter of hierarchy.

How Church Hierarchies Are Unprepared for Modern Publishing

There are also big changes in church publishing—or there should be.

Church hierarchies were once needed to support church publishing. Their pooled resources were the only way a denomination could afford the cost. Because they were needed to fund publishing, they got used to thinking that they were needed to control what was written.

That day is over. Anyone can publish.

But our denomination is stuck trying to adapt old publishing models to the new media. They are missing the fact that the whole game has changed.

Unlike some of the other things mentioned, national church publishing can still play a major —but very different—role.

First, the regional and national church should make it a mission priority for every congregation to become familiar with social media. There is no excuse for any congregation to not have a web site or blog. They cannot be effective today without one. Everyone checks online for everything these days. No web site. Few visitors.

More important, churches and pastors must learn to use social media. Having a web site is one thing. Using it as a mission tool is another. This can no longer be overlooked and the regional and national church can lead the way.

If the denomination cares about member churches, they should help them make this transition. Both large and small churches find this to be daunting. The denominational and national church could and should help. Make it a mission priority and make sure pastors are trained to use social media.

Before they do this, they need to understand the power of the web themselves. In this they are missing the boat.

Standing on the dock and watching the ship of church sail

The ELCA publishes a “house” magazine. It is called The Lutheran. It contains a little bit of denominational news and feature stories of how the denomination and its congregations work in mission.

The Lutheran mails to 200,000 subscribers (only a small percentage of its 4 million membership).

It is also online. Sort of.

If the magazine prints 200,000 magazines, those magazines — assuming some are shared — might result in 300,000 readers—still a small fraction of total members.

An open and free online readership could easily magnify this reach. A good article might get 100,000 reads and then be passed onto 500,000 who might then pass it on to 2 million others. Wow! Imagine reaching the world with your message every month. Exciting!

But what does The Lutheran do? They feed you about ten lines of a story online and ask you to pay to read the rest. They limit dialog on the articles to subscribers. No pay. No say.

Engagement is the goal of almost every organization these days. Corporations understand that engagement is pivotal to relationships, sales, their mission and survival. Meanwhile, the church barricades themselves from engagement!

They are missing out on the social nature and evangelical power of the web. When they place that “pay to play” obstacle between them and their readers, they keep them from further sharing the good news. (Explain that to advertisers!)

Of course, they are interested in subscriptions. That’s the old publishing model. But The Lutheran is a “house” magazine. It should be looking for ways to get the message out to everyone—especially to people who just happen along who might be learning about the denomination from a friend who sent them a link.

They are hampering their own mission.

In the new world, religious magazines should explore a new funding model. Perhaps their work should be totally subsidized. Forget subscriptions.

There are other ways of adding to the income while enhancing the dialog within the church. Partner with denominational authors. Be a Kindle storefront for them. Empower the news potential of every congregation and every potential writer in the denomination. It’s new territory with great potential.

The denominational magazine will then be so much more powerful and able to attract a new level of advertising.

If preserving the publishing model of the past is the goal, keep it subscription-based with limited reach. A private club. All the members breathing the same stale air.

If influence and reach are the goals of church publishing, content must be free.

31 Jan 2013

Why do churches leave the ELCA? Why do they stay?

A retired pastor and former assistant to the bishop of the Metropolitan Washington DC Synod, Rev. Ronald Christian, wrote a short editorial view in the current issue of the ELCA’s denominational magazine, The Lutheran.

Why do they leave? he asks about the mass exodus of congregations in the last few years.

His question reveals just how clueless leaders in the ELCA are.

NOTE: Not all synods operate with a lack of conscience. We hope the horrific activities we recount are not as widespread as they seem.

Rev. Ronald Christian writes in the first hundred words or so (The Lutheran asks us to pay to read to the end, but I’ve given about all I can to the ELCA.):

The ELCA requires nothing of congregations. A congregation will not be removed from the roster for lack of giving, lack of diversity in membership, lack of a youth ministry, lack of mission activity, lack of social work in its community, lack of Bible studies, wrong vestments or secular music on Sundays.

It is possible to be removed if a congregation votes to disavow the constitution of the ELCA and the congregation’s own documents of affiliation with the ELCA. But then it has removed itself from the family.

He clearly has not heard about the cannibalism going on in SEPA, in Metro New York, in Slovak Zion and in New England Synods (the ones we know about). There is a plague of synod leadership moving in on congregations with stealth, deceit and all the power their awkwardly written constitutions steal from their Articles of Incorporation.

These synods haven’t read their founding documents as Rev. Christian seems to have. They rely on no one else reading them either. They also rely on their protected status under the Bill of Rights to continue their activities without legal challenge—even as they use the courts to force their will on member churches.

Constitutionally, the synods do not have the power to remove a congregation from the roster unilaterally. This doesn’t stop them! If a congregation does not vote to close when asked to do so, the synods simply replace the congregation’s authority with their own. That eliminates the work of serving the congregations—their stated mission.

We found out we were closed a year after the fact when we googled our name and the SEPA Synod Council minutes came up.

There was no conversation, no congregational vote and no notification—just a Synod Council blindly following orders.

The national church is useless. Congregations pay for the infrastructure in Chicago. But Bishop Hanson and the ELCA legal offices refuse to deal with congregations. Congregations are lucky to get form letters in response to complaints. We wrote monthly to Bishop Hanson for almost a year back in 2008. He responded benignly to only the first letter.

There is no impartial place within the ELCA to turn.

How did this come about?

Giving is down. Attendance is down. SEPA synod staff is bigger than some of their congregations’ Sunday morning attendance. Synods are looking for money. Small congregations with endowments are tempting.

It’s all about assets. If the people dare to protest, a synod can identify the most influential lay leaders and attack them personally, pitting the combined resources of a couple hundred churches (failing as they may be) against the household incomes and life savings of individual volunteer church members.

It’s open season on the laity. We have no place to turn.

Laity who served faithfully all their lives are suddenly considered enemies by church leaders. Why? We stood our ground (like a certain forefather). We deserve anything that happens to us as a result is the attitude. That includes being ostracized, losing our church home, losing our personal homes, spending more money than we have on legal bills. Anything! And never an attempt to work with the congregation.

Where are the clergy? They flee. We had two pastors whom we never saw again after private meetings with the bishop. One of them had just encouraged us to “stand firm.”

As part of the merger, ELCA agreed to call our presidents bishops with the promise that the title change meant no change in power. In fact, it has changed attitudes and perceptions. As Dr. Phil says, perceptions are reality.

As a result it is increasingly difficult to recognize or participate in the ELCA. Do as you are told or be closed.

The people do not have access to their governing bodies.

  • Synod councils act in a vacuum getting all their data for making decisions from the synod office. No contact information is listed on our synod’s website.
  • Synod Assemblies are dummied down by the maze of quota voters (many of whom have no knowledge of the issues).
  • The time constraints of a weekend Synod Assembly has turned them into “feel good” showcases for the administration.
  • The entire structure is designed on paper to be representative. In practice it has become top down.

Bishops view their power differently than presidents. People respond differently.

Presidents can be questioned. Presidents represent the people who elect them. Bishops—not so much.

Clergy increasingly stay arms length—content to stick to their parish worlds and protect their standing with the bishop. They “cannot question the wisdom of the bishop” they repeat as an excuse for hiding their eyes.

OF COURSE THEY CAN! The Church relies on them questioning the wisdom of the bishops.

This has created a mess!

The question is not Why do churches leave? Rather, it is Why in heaven’s name do they stay?

Lutherans used to have something to be proud of. A little piece of me still is.

PS: Redeemer was one of the only growing congregations in SEPA in 2007 when Bishop Burkat, facing a $275,000 annual deficit, decided she needed our assets. Redeemer was cross-cultural, multi-lingual, and entrepreneurial with youthful demographics—all the things churches are looking to achieve. We were self-supporting. We had more money than synod. SEPA’s treasurer had just reported they were within $75,000 of depleting every available resource when it was suddenly determined Redeemer should die. We voted to leave. SEPA refused to engage in the constitutional process for leaving. You can’t leave; we are terminating you. (That way they get the money.) Several churches were similarly challenged before us. We were the first to say NO!

Redeemer is not closed.
We are locked out of God’s House by SEPA Synod.

07 Jan 2013