The bishop of Minneapolis Area Synod lists the congregations that have taken a vote on leaving ELCA in response to decisions made at the Churchwide Assembly 2009.
From the Bishop – July 2010 | Minneapolis Area Synod.
Seen first at Pretty Good Lutherans.
The mainline denominations do seem to be weak in the sense of being unable to generate and maintain high levels of commitment among a substantial portion of their adherents. Although we are skeptical of Kelley’s argument about the relation between strictness and church growth, he is right that weak churches are in a precarious position as organizations because further weakening may diminish their members’ commitments to the point of noninvolvement.
via Mainline Churches: The Real Reason for Decline.
Benton Johnson, Dean R. Hoge, and Donald A Luidens look at the mainline decline, and come to the conclusion that people don’t show up because it does not matter.
My name is not “Those People.”
I am a loving woman, a mother in pain,
giving birth to the future, where my babies
have the same chance to thrive as anyone.My name is not “Inadequate.”
I did not make my husband leave –
he chose to, and chooses not to pay child support.
Truth is though, there isn’t a job base
for all fathers to support their families.
While society turns its head, my children pay the price.My name is not “Problem and Case to Be Managed.”
I am a capable human being and citizen, not a client.
The social service system can never replace the
compassion and concern of loving grandparents,
aunts, uncles, fathers, cousins, community –
all the bonded people who need to be
but are not present to bring children forward to their potential.My name is not “Lazy, Dependent Welfare Mother.”
If the unwaged work of parenting,
homemaking and community building were factored
into the Gross National Product,
My work would have untold value. And why is it that mothers whose
Husbands support them to stay home and raise children
Are glorified – and why don’t they get called lazy and dependent?
This is a beginning of a poem by Julia K. Dinsmore. Her book took me back to my short experience in Detroit. The injustice, the lie called the American Dream, the difference between neighborhoods, the blatant racism, the systematic violence, the corrupt system, and the working poor stuck in a cycle of poverty, all is there in Mrs Dinsmore’s poetic memoirs or at least I sense it there.
Thoughts after reading the book My Name is Child of God … Not “Those People.”
From its beginnings in 1886 until its gradual decline following World War II, nearly thirty Icelandic Unitarian congregations were organized in Western Canada, the Upper Midwest and Washington state. At its peak in the 1930s, there were eighteen active churches and preaching stations.
via Icelandic Unitarians.
The influence Unitarians had in Iceland and the number of Icelanders in North America that became Unitarians is not well known. Here is an attempt to give some overview.
Sarah and Mark have created an interesting website where they introduce and give examples of contemporary christian music. The site is called songs we love..
Evaluation of the ministry and the leadership of a congregation is natural and inevitable. Evaluation happens and a carefully designed evaluation process is vital for the health and growth of both pastor and congregation.
This packet is designed to provide an orientation to the delicate art of congregational leadership evaluation. It provides several evaluation tools designed for specific kinds of congregational situations.
via Pastor and Congregation Evaluation Packet.
This is a material from the Mennonite Church in Canada. I have not been able to take a close look at it, but it seems to be worth mentioning here. The “weakness” of this material seems to be the same as with most evaluation models for churches, it focuses mainly on the Leadership and the pastor in particular.
The medical establishment’s narrow view of there being only one way to handle the dying patient–by using every last resource available to try to save her or him–has greatly hindered the quality of our deaths. Physicians are trained to believe that they have done their job only if every last measure is taken, regardless of what value this saps from the patient’s quality of life. This is the model by which the medical establishment measures its success.
What is needed is a paradigm shift in the educational curriculum of medical schools. No one can place value on what any individual considers to be “quality of life” because we all have different bodily functions that we consider more important than others. What one person considers an extraordinary means of intervention, another may see as typical. Furthermore, what is extraordinary at one point in history isn’t necessarily extraordinary at another time.
Health is central to our well-being, vital to relationships, and helps us live out our vocations in family, work, and community. Caring for one’s own health is a matter of human necessity and good stewardship. Caring for the health of others expresses both love for our neighbors and responsibility for a just society. As a personal and social responsibility, health care is a shared endeavor.
via Health and Healthcare – Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
If you want to move the world, move a congregation. The Alban Institute was founded in 1974 as a major resource for American congregations facing the challenges of a changing society. While today’s challenges are even more pressing than they were three decades ago, the opportunities have never been clearer for congregations to be vital communities of faith, health, and leadership. Alban stands at the forefront of knowledge and experience regarding congregational vitality and positive trends across denominations and faith traditions. Our work is helping shape the strong congregations of tomorrow.
Why do I remain in the church? Because of the just foundations of the church. I am inspired by Jesus Christ himself, his Spirit. I do not live as a solitary individual. I stay in a community, my community of faith. Wherever I go–Japan, Pakistan–I always find people of my community. This is the community in which I was born and baptized, in which I have had so many positive experiences, a community of 2,000 years. Why should I be alienated from this? As a Canadian you may have some problems with your government but you will not go away seeking a better country. I shall remain in the Catholic Church and in Christianity.
via Hans Kung: happy to stay in the church; happy to change it – page 2 | Catholic New Times.
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Few years ago I wrote a short presentation about the theologian Hans Kung for a class in Systematic Theology. I decided to focus on his connection to the RCC, and his connection to the current pope. Here are few links on articles.
There are at least three main strands of law codes found in the Torah.
Book of Covenant: Exodus 21-23
Here we have texts that are connected strongly to the Code of Hammurabi, with code intertwined that is related to the protection of those on the margin.
Deuteronomic Law: Deut. 12-26
The Deuteronomic Law Code legislates a one central place of worship. It assumes that the people under the law are living in the land God gave. It is probably from the time of Josiah (621 BCE) and is perhaps part of the law reclaimed/found by the prophetess Huldah. It is a Yahweh and Jerusalem focused law.
Holiness Code: Leviticus (some of it anyway)
It is likely written later than the other. It is seen as part of the priestly source of the OT. Some of the laws might have been older than the written form it appears in.
David G. Horrell looks in his paper at how the Pauline literature moves away from using sibling language (άδελϕοί) and starts to refer to the Christian community as a household (οἰ̑κος θεου̑:) and wonders whether this is an indication of growing hieararchial tendencies in the early Christian church, as the household was a hierarchically structured entity.
From άδελϕοί to οἰ̑κος θεου̑: social transformation in Pauline Christianity – University of Exeter.
The Episcopal Church has developed a great resource about children’s protection in church context. It is called “Model policies for the protection of children and youth from abuse” and can be found here (PDF).
ELCA has gathered information on a one place on their website. The informations are at http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Office-of-the-Secretary/Congregation-Administration/Legal-Issues-for-Congregations/Questions-About-Protecting-Children-and-Adults-from-Abuse.aspx.
In Ohio there are few Revised Code sections that deal with this issue: 109.574, 109.575, 109.576, 109.577, 121.401, and 121.402).
One of the many books I read without quoting it in my STM thesis was “Bound to be free: Evangelical Catholic Engagements in Ecclesiology, ethics, and ecumensim” (2004) by Reinhard Hutter. This caught my attention:
The only way to think about the the church theologically that is neither sectarian, claiming the fragment as the whole, nor “Platonic,” forgoing the church’s concrete existence and settling for its bare idea, is specifically and forthrightly ecumenical. In short, ecclesiology – thinking theologically about the ekklésia – must be done ecumenically or it amounts to a self-deceptive sham that is bound to fail before it even begins. (p. 2)
This spring a certain Christian layperson has been criticized for not exiting his local church when he disagreed with something his pastor preached.
The experts on the subject have been, as far as I can tell, media personnel who never go to church, do not know what sermons are for, and have not experienced lively congregational participation; people who value fidelity very little and church hopping and sermon shopping very highly; those who have political stakes in their judgment; and people who pay no attention to the contexts of messages.
In terms of spending, the more control the board exerts, the less a ministry can respond immediately to current needs. The more freedom ministries have, the harder it is for the board to monitor exactly what’s going on. Each church has to find the middle ground.
via Who Spends the Church’s Money? | Free Article Funds Budget Pay Income Expense.
Arlin Rothauge’s “Sizing Up a Congregation” (pdf) is a great overview of the dynamics found in different sized churches.
It addresses the Family Church (0-50), The Pastoral Church (50-150), The Program Church (150-350), and The Corporation Church (350-500+). From the perspective of the pastor, the issues are different in each of those. The smallest one calls the pastor to be innovative and finding things to do, but at the same time be available. The Family church is all about being reactive, there is not a lot of room for innovation, the pastor often seems to have favorites (those that have initiative to be in contact). When we move into the program church, the root of complaints towards the pastor is that he is not available for all groups, and does not participate in all programs. The issues in the largest church group are seldom about the pastor, more about lack of space for various tasks (lets build something together).
Rothauge does not address what we might call mega churches or multisite variations.
The United Methodist Church or, more specifically, its U.S. component, often continues to be entangled in U.S. political and economic ideologies and desires. … we must clearly grasp that the so-called “American Way of Life” requires critique. Capitalism and consumerism are not practices taken straight from the gospel.
Elaine A Robinson has an interesting article about the need to restructure UMC in an Age of Empire (PDF). Asking questions about the unbalanced relationship between north and south.
PREP (Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program) is one of the most comprehensive and well respected divorce-prevention/marriage enhancing programs in the world. PREP is a skills and principles-building curriculum designed to help partners say what they need to say, get to the heart of problems, and increase their connection with each other.
On their website are various resources about marriage, cohabitation, and divorces. It has a bend towards traditional understanding of the family, but valuable nonetheless.
Prep, Inc – Articles. – Of special interest is Marriage in the 90s: A Nationwide Random Phone Survey (PDF).
ELCA’s understanding of Global Mission in the 21st Century is explained in the paper “Global Mission in the Twenty-first Century: A Vision of Evangelical Faithfulness in God’s Mission.”
The focus on ELCA’s Global Mission is the word accompaniment that is explained here.
