Back in June I wrote an initial post about the denomination I am a member of and which I serve as a Pastor, the ELCA, preparing to reconstitute itself. I started off thinking about what had changed since the ELCA was founded three and a half decades ago, namely developments around Synodically Authorized Worshipping Communities (SAWCs) and Deacons. I noted that that Synodically Authorized Worshipping Communities are sometimes treated as communities struggling to become congregations and wondered what it would be like if we flipped that on its head and re-imagined every congregation as some sort of Authorized Worshipping Community. I also wondered if a secondary type of ministry community could grow up around Deacons, Authorized Service Communities. Then I offered a few models as alternatives to our current Three Expressions One Church way of being a Denomination.
I thought that was a one off post, but I was moved by the
possibility of the ELCA, after 35 years of saying we’ll grow into our new
identity, taking some time to ask fundamental questions about the nature and
task of Church, Worship, Ordination, etc, look at the world as it is and
understand the world we minister to and are church in, and reconstitute
ourselves to be faithful going forward. These lines of thought have spawned
more than a few posts, and will likely spawn a few more before I’m done.
Know thyself, so that changes you make are done in an
intentional kind of way. Having looked at the question from a few different angles
in a previous post, I landed on the following definition:
The Church is a body of diverse and fallible people who
are stewards of God’s grace.
That grace is found most completely in the person of
Jesus Christ, who is our crucified Lord, revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.
Our acts of stewardship consist of proclaiming the good
news of Jesus as both crucified and Lord in word and deed, and worshipping
together in ways that allow us to continue to trust in Jesus.
While an outmoded amount of time gets paid to ordained folk,
especially those ordained to word and sacrament, our first calling is always
that of our baptism, and for that matter layfolk make up the vast majority of
the denomination. As such, having a good sense of what a communal baptized life
looks like is incredibly important. Below is my articulation of that life:
Gather in community around Word and Sacraments.
Cultivate hearts of forgiveness, thanksgiving, and
generosity.
Go out in Christ’s name to witness, do justice, and serve
your neighbor.
This post was maybe a little more personal; it is the
combination of an old post I’d written for friends who had just entered
seminary and wanted to know concretely what the tasks of ministry looked like,
and a much more recent set of reflections prompted by several ministry and life
milestones all happening at the same time. From that I created 10 aspects of pastoral
ministry that I think most every pastor has to grapple and come to terms with. Unfortunately,
I titled the post 10 “rules” for Pastors, which came off as unsolicited advice,
aka criticism, instead of the distillation of my heartfelt experience of ministry.
So, in my reflection on the ordained life I've named 10 tasks that Pastors should wrap thier head and heart around:
Be a Person of Faith, Know your Calling and be Grounded
in It, Have a System for Ordering Your Ministry, You are the Most Responsible
Person in your Ministry Context, Care for God’s People, Protect the vulnerable,
Be Present Throughout your Parish, Play Well with Others, Think Globally and
Act Locally, Be involved with the Wider Church
These days many faith traditions describe the effects of
their practice upon a person; Buddhist mindfulness, Hindu Yoga, etc. Now that about
15% of our neighbors have never experienced Christian worship, it might be worth
describing what we’re up to when we say we “worship” on a Sunday morning. Not
only that, but what it does to you. As such, this is what I have experienced
Christian worship to do to me.
Because
of Christian worship I:
value and can navigate community,
have an increased sense of self-worth,
have tools to get over slights and make sense of life,
and am more content, generous, and gentle.
Centralized
and Decentralized
Church
In these two posts I lay out a few ideas of what a more
Centralized ELCA might look like, and push back a little on the idea that
centralization is the only way to organize people that is anti-racist, progressive, and non-coercive.
Finally, I wrote a little bit about an Atlantic article about
the emptying of the Church that was getting some buzz. At base, when the church
is meaningful and a community, people are more likely to stay.
So, that’s where we’ve been in this blog regarding the
Reconstitution of the ELCA. I’m going to be re-reading Trexler’s book on the creation
of the ELCA as well as a few other books on the subject that folk recommended
to me. I think I’ll also do a post on Deacons, Racism and Diversity in the
ELCA, and the Purpose Statements of all three expressions of the Church.
What other topics should be I thinking and writing about
regarding the Renewed Lutheran Church?
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