Author: Halldór Guðmundsson

National Church in Iceland (revision)

Nine years ago, I was asked to write a short overview of the National Church in Iceland and the theological landscape in “a historical light”. The original post can be found at The National Church in Iceland | (ispeculate.net). Since then, a lot has changed. So, I decided to revise the text a bit.

The National Church in Iceland, or The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Iceland, was a State Church until 1997 or perhaps rather 2021. Until 2021, salaries for pastors were paid directly by the government. It was a part of an agreement between the church and state. The agreement involved a complicated land swap deal from 1907. According to a supreme court ruling in Iceland around 2015, pastors were considered government employees with all rights and obligations of such employees.

Continue reading National Church in Iceland (revision)

The Role of the Homebound

I had short conversations yesterday regarding homebound or shut-in members of congregations. An issue that has not been in the forefront of my work since I participated in writing “Heimsóknarþjónusta kirkjunnar – Fræðsluefni” with Ragnheidur Sverrisdottir and Gudrun Eggertsdottir, either 2002 or 2003.

During the conversations yesterday, I felt I was kind of defensive and I didn’t claim fully my experience and understanding. As I started to think more about the issue of homebound or shut-in members of congregations this morning, I got stuck thinking about how congregations can extend and celebrate the experience and knowledge that our shut-ins have and create a meaningful participation for the homebound and the gathered congregation. How can we look at our shut-ins as an asset to our current congregational life instead of a task that needs to be taken care of. I am throwing out some initial unorganised thoughts that could serve as a starting point.

  • The classical way is to ask homebound members to help us pray, and surely many do.
  • The monthly visit from the pastor is often an important church ministry.
    • In larger congregation it might be a visit from a Stephen Ministry Team.
  • Some churches ask homebound members to write cards.
  • It is important to bring communion to those that are unable to attend.
  • Other churches have Sunday school kids create cards for the homebound as part of Sunday School Curriculum.
  • If there is a decent Children’s choir, they might go for a visit to the homebound and sing a song. Adult choirs could do that as well.
  • I wonder if, in a time of digitalised worship experiences, there are new opportunities.
    • What if our homebound would read one or more texts in the Sunday Worship?
    • What if we would create a regular place for a testimony in our worship from our wise elders.
    • We could also offer up a glimpse of the church’s history, thrown up on a screen for all to see.
  • The operating question in my mind is: How can we help our homebound to participate in a meaningful way, not only for them but the whole congregation, without regard to their ability to be there in person?

Having a talk about the future – Congregational Training

As I was going to Home Depot this morning I was thinking about vision and mission statements for congregation in light of the question “Who owns the church?” Without going into the details of my thought process I ended up thinking about the stakeholders in a congregation and how we can use stakeholder model to enhance conversations about vision and mission. A possible conversation starter would be to use a venn diagram and go through different areas without any biases.

  1. Our Hopes ∩ God’s Will ⊄ Community Needs
  2. Our Hopes ∩ Community Needs ⊄ God’s Will
  3. God’s Will ∩ Community Needs ⊄ Our Hopes
  4. Our Hopes ⊄ God’s Will ⊄ Community Needs
  5. God’s Will ⊄ Community Needs ⊄ Our Hopes
  6. Community Needs ⊄ Our Hopes ⊄ God’s Will
  7. Community Needs ∩ Our Hopes ∩ God’s Will

We could follow up with questions about any of these areas, and perhaps wondered aloud if there is a place on the venn diagram that can be described as a sweet spot which we should try to expand and stay in, and leave all other stakeholder goals behind.

I think this could be a fun exercise, if we remember there are no right answers. If we start out by looking at each category separately. Starting with Our Hopes, moving next to Community Needs, and finally asking what God’s will is for the church. Starting with questions about God, might pollute the rest of the categories. 

Add on: This is a simplified model, and what is missing is f.x. Pastor’s Ambition and the fact that the congregational leadership might not have a unified hope.

Low Budget – High Impact Live Streaming Equipment for Worship

Many churches are hoping to get back to in-person-worship this fall, but are aware of the need for live-streaming worships in the future, for those that are unable to attend any gatherings due to COVID or any future reasons. In other words, all churches need to recognise that live-streaming is unavoidable for most of them.

For the last few weeks I have been working with a congregation assessing the best way to have a decent live-streaming without the need for a complex tech or a commitment from too many volunteers.

Continue reading Low Budget – High Impact Live Streaming Equipment for Worship

Þankar um þungunarrof

Langt fram yfir miðja síðustu öld var það tiltölulega algeng skoðun í evangelískum kirkjum í Bandaríkjunum að líf hæfist við fyrsta andardrátt. Byggði sú nálgun m.a. á hugtakinu lífsandinn sem kemur fyrir margoft í Biblíunni. Við sjáum þessar hugmyndir um lífsmörk endurspeglast m.a. í sálmum á Íslandi.

Einhvern tímann af “einhverri” ástæðu breyttist þessi nálgun í mörgum evangelísku kirkjunum og sönnunartextarnir um upphaf lífs urðu m.a. köllun Jeremía og Sálmur 139, sem virðast leggja áherslu á að Guð þekki okkur áður en við drögum andann í fyrsta sinn. Skilningur sem átti sér vissulega lengri sögu í rómversk katólskri hefð.

Það er nefnilega ekki til staðar einfaldur og einn Biblíulegur eða kristinn skilningur á upphafi lífs, sem afgreiðir umræður um þungunarrof. Nema jú, það er alveg ljóst að hugmyndir um að möguleikinn á að greina hjartslátt fósturvísis í móðurkviði sé mark um líf á sér engar Biblíulegar forsendur. En það er um þessar mundir tískunálgun sumra prédikara hér vestanhafs og sér þess merki í lagasetningu í sumum ríkjum.

Í umræðum um þungunarrof stöndum við því frammi fyrir vali milli þess að þröngva okkar trúarskilningi og túlkun á upphafi lífs upp á aðrar manneskjur eða virða sjálfsákvörðunarrétt einstaklinga. Þegar við höfum í huga að túlkun á upphafi lífs er margbreytileg og Biblían virðist bjóða upp á fleiri en eina túlkun, þá er ég alla vega ekki nógu hrokafullur (lengur) til að krefjast þess að allir fari eftir því sem mér finnst. Eins hef ég tilhneigingu til að treysta fólki til að leitast við að gera það sem það sjálft telur rétt þegar kemur að erfiðum og flóknum ákvörðunum.

Hugmyndum um að stjórnvöld eigi að hafa síðasta orðið um að skerða sjálfsákvörðunarrétt einstaklinga þarf alltaf að nálgast með gagnrýnum huga og spyrja hvaða raunverulegar ástæður liggja að baki inngripinu. Trúarsannindi geta vissulega verið gild ástæða til að taka persónulega afstöðu í fjölmörgum málum og auka réttindi og lífsgæði fólks, en þau eru að öðru jöfnu ekki góð ástæða til að skerða réttindi. Sér í lagi ef trúarsannindi eru notuð til að skerða réttindi þeirra sem aðhyllast aðrar hugmyndir en ráðafólk.

Shameless

The unhealthy and damaging sexual education that is offered to children, youth, and young people in many churches and some religious communities in the US, is being address in Nadia Bolz-Weber’s upcoming book Shameless.

This damaging and narrow education is not bound to the US, and I am guilty of both participating in enforcing an unhealthy sexual understanding and of being on the receiving end of a judgmental narrow minded behavior by a patriarchal leadership.

Anyway, Shameless has been published and a good reason to check it out.

Changes in Religious Landscape

For a while I have been gathering articles and texts I have been planning to read and disect to understand the changes in our religious landscape, mostly wondering about the declining role of the church.

On a regular basis I am confronted with this reality. There are many empty pews on Sundays, not only in Europe but in America. There is also a declining interest in theological education in formal seminaries. So as the church decline continues there is even a more rapid decline in people willing to serve, which might accelarate the church decline.

There are writing about this issue from various perspectives and some of them are listed here below.

Michael Lipka looks at the religious landscape based on a study by The Pew Research Center. He looks at 5 Key Findings about the Changing U.S. Religious Landscape.

Some people try to find an obvious reason that makes all the difference. One of those is to blame some aspect of the multifaceted tasks that pastors have. One aspect that is fun to blame is pastoral care. Carey Nieuwhof writes an article, How Pastoral Care Stunts the Growth of Most Churches. In it, Carey Nieuwhof points to reports by Barna Group that is interesting and helpful.

The Barna group reports the average Protestant church size in America as 89 adults. Sixty percent of Protestant churches have less than 100 adults in attendance. Only 2 percent have over 1,000 adults attending.

He then adds that when churches grow to more than 200, the pastoral care demands become unbearable and unsustainable, leading to a failure.

Dr. Marjorie Royle writes an article, Denominational Identity – A Plus or a Minus?, about church planting and different attitudes towards denominational identity.

Heather Hahn writes: What draws people to church? Poll has insights. In the article she looks to Barna Group, a research done for United Methodist Communications.

Carlos Wilton reminds us that the declining church participation is not a new concept in the article, Are the Pews Half Empty or Half Full? Lessons From 734 A.D.

Here are three articles about what might slow down the decline.

Here are two articles about what might accelarate the church decline.

 

Anecdotes as a Sunday School Project

For some time I have been interested in using story-telling and anecdotes from congregants as an assignment or project for Sunday school. There are various ways of doing this, having congregants visit our children during Sunday school hour to share with them there personal stories, having the children ask and collect stories in coffee hour, or doing a more ambitious project like having the kids create a podcast about the congregation. The possibilities are endless.

At one time I collected few links that could be helpful for this project:

The Owners of God’s Word – Sermon at Pilgrim Congregational UCC (10/08/2017)

Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Amen.

The Owners of God’s Word

Phil 3:4b-14, Matt 21:33-46

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.

We tend to see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear, don’t we? And when I am forced to hear what I wish I didn’t, I try to change the narrative. Particularly, if I have the power to do so. Continue reading The Owners of God’s Word – Sermon at Pilgrim Congregational UCC (10/08/2017)

Driving for LYFT

Few weeks ago I started driving part time for LYFT. It has been an interesting and mostly fun experience, the customers are way more diverse than I could have imagined, be it an organ donor flying in for a yearly check-up at Cleveland Clinic, a 9m old pregnant woman nesting, and needing help with her purchases of children’s stuff, a mom searching for a birthday gift for a 13 year old, a teenager late for her job at a fast food chain, or a musician going catching a flight to audition across the country. Not to forget drunk Roman Catholics celebrating St Patrick’s Day a week early. Continue reading Driving for LYFT

Noah: Study Guide – Learning to Read the Bible

Comparing Film and Text(s)

When learning to read and understand the Biblical text, it is helpful to look into the writer’s motive. This simple study guide provides few questions but no answers.

Read Genesis 6-9, and try to see at least two different accounts of the flood narative intervowen into the text. If you are up to it, you might even try to disentangle them.

Watch Noah.

Questions:

  • What is the film maker trying to say/teach us?
  • What is/are the Biblical Story/ies trying to say/teach us?
  • What is the right story of the flood and why?
  • What makes a story RIGHT?

And the Home of the Scared

Hans Rottberger was born and raised as a Jew in Berlin, Germany. In 1935 he traveled with his wife Olga and the two year old Eva on the passenger ship Godafoss to Reykjavik. They were fleeing what they considered a volatile situation in their home town. Mr. Rottberger and his family got a temporary visa in Iceland, he learned the language, and built a company with a local resident. The family grew, a son was born in 1937. Continue reading And the Home of the Scared

Amazon Affiliates

As part of my website building projects I try to stay up-to-date on simple tools to use for my clients. One model that could be helpful for churches is a connection to the Amazon Affiliates program. A neat example would be for a Book Club discussion, were the church would be able to get a 4-6% referral rate on each sold book through a link on its website.

So for example, if a book club would like to discuss [amazon_link asins=’0684815001′ template=’NameLink’ store=’ispeculatenet-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’884e2f29-d9b2-11e6-8176-85f1b02b0c35′], the link would bring the user to the book on Amazon, and the church would receive a certain percentage of the price paid.

Nýr dagur í Trumplandi

Á mánudögum sit ég heima allan daginn og sinni verkefnum sem hafa ekkert með Bandaríkin að gera. Eftir að ég hef komið börnunum í skóla og konunni í vinnu þá sest ég inn á heimaskrifstofuna og sinni verkefnum fyrir sjálfstæða reksturinn minn. Continue reading Nýr dagur í Trumplandi

How Are You Today?

Á lestarpallinum á leiðinni í vinnuna í gærmorgun var ég spurður, “How are you, today?” Spurningin “How are you?” er einhver sú marklausasta í enskri tungu og eftir 10 ár í Bandaríkjunum hef ég lært að svara “Fine and you?” og ganga síðan framhjá viðkomandi. Continue reading How Are You Today?

Forsetakosningar í Bandaríkjunum og hugmyndir um Guð

Hér fyrir neðan er handritið að fræðsluerindi sem ég flutti á Sæludögum í Vatnaskógi sumarið 2016. Það er alltaf nokkrum vandkvæðum bundið að færa erindi sem er flutt munnlega inn á bloggið, viðbótarútskýringar sem ég bætti við í framsögunni og viðbrögð úr salnum vantar en innihaldið er í grunninn óbreytt. Continue reading Forsetakosningar í Bandaríkjunum og hugmyndir um Guð