The Lutheran Zephyr

Faithfulness and Church Decline

From an ELCA press release entitled ELCA Council Hears Presiding Bishop's Call to Moral Deliberation:

Referencing a loss of nearly 80,000 baptized ELCA members in 2005 and some 275,000 members since he became presiding bishop in 2001, [ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark] Hanson said he wonders if the church has become ambivalent or suspicious about numerical growth.

"It doesn't seem to be a scandal in this church," Hanson said of the membership losses.  He said some people try to explain the losses by blaming changing demographics or simply cleaning membership rolls.  Others say it's "admirable," blaming "consumptive consumer-oriented churches" that sell out the gospel, he said.  Some even suggest that a faithful church is a declining church, Hanson told the council.

"I know congregations that are faithful to the gospel and to a cruciform life of discipleship and worship centered around the means of grace (that) are growing in membership and don't hold up decline as evidence of faithfulness.  We need to ask ourselves: 'Have we become a church of low expectations?'  I don't think we expect much from the Holy Spirit.  I really don't," Hanson said.

He also said he doesn't believe the church expects its members to invite others to church and it doesn't expect pastors to "be evangelical leaders of congregations in mission." Many congregations are not prepared to receive such leaders, he added.

This reminds me of a recent Sunday School lesson.  The teacher was leading a 5th grade class, and they were singing a playful song about fishing.  When he asked the kids, "Who are we trying to catch?" the kids answered, "God," and "Jesus," the typical Sunday School answers to Sunday School questions.  "No," he replied, "God catches us.  But, we're trying to catch . . ."  He pauses and looks to the kids once more, giving them every chance to get the right answer.  But they don't.  They can't.  Why not?  Because at home and in their years of Sunday School they have not learned one of the most basic elements of the Christian faith - that faith is something to be shared, the story of Jesus is something to be proclaimed, that the Good News is something to be given to others.

"But these were just 5th graders," you say.  Hogwash, I say.  Children are, as my mother often told me, a reflection of their parents and elders.  Much of what children know and don't know is up to us.  And indeed, the children in our churches do know a lot.  These children know that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died on the cross, that Adam and Eve were the first people, that Noah had lots of animals in the ark, that God loves us, that God is love, that Jesus was the Good Shepherd, that . . . Children, even 5th graders, can learn what we want to teach them about the faith and our tradition.  And even if they are not yet experienced practitioners of evangelism, it seems that they are capable of knowing that the Christian faith is meant to be shared, to be spread, to be given to the world.  But they can't know anything we're not willing to teach them.

From Deuteronomy 6:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates . . .

Martin Loser

This weekend at a junior high youth gathering in my synod I impersonated Martin Loser, the socially-awkward childhood playmate of Martin Luther.  I was initially asked to be Martin Luther, but I felt uncomfortable stepping into the shoes and persona of a historical figure about whom so much is known.  I opted instead for the latitude and creativity of a fictional character - Martin Loser - who would tell the crowd of kids about the importance of his old friend, Martin Luther.

And so with an overly nasal voice, many oddly stretched-out syllables, and geeky laughs and snorts, I told about growing up with Martin Luther.  I began the presentation with several fart jokes, taking advantage of the synergy between Martin Luther's prescription for getting rid of the Devil (he believed that with a fart you could banish the Devil from your presence) and the junior high penchant for toilet humor.  ("You had to be careful around the campfire with Martin Luther, especially if he had been eating the weiner schnitzel, because, whoa baby, if he was rooting and tooting the flames would shoot into high heaven!").  The fart jokes opened the door to talking about Martin Luther's understanding of the Devil and God, which led to presenting Justification by Grace Through Faith, Vocation, and Theology of the Cross. 

Interspersed in the presentation was a silly obstacle course that led to grace and salvation (a parody of Luther's understanding of the late medieval practice of indulgences and good works), and an attempt to illustrate Luther's understanding of a hidden God by using two bedsheets - a red sheet representing God covered by a black sheet - and then cutting a cross in the black sheet, allowing the red (God) to show through.  It is through the cross - in the least expected of places - that we most clearly see God. 

My wife attended one of the presentations, and said the fact that the presenter was not a strong, bold, articulate person, but rather was a bumbling, awkward loser helped embody the message I was trying to communicate - that God is where we least expect God to be, and that awkward and weak people are also - are especially - recipients and bearers of God's love and grace.  And the nerdy/loser demeanor also helped keep the attention of a roomful of 11-13 year olds . . .

This description is just a brief thumbnail sketch of what I did.  It was a lot of fun to put together, and something that I will definitely keep in my back pocket for future use.  Presenting the theology and impact of Martin Luther to a group of junior high kids is a challenging task, but I think this worked pretty well.

(If you'd like a copy of my notes, please send an email.  My email address is along the sidebar in the "y'know you want to" section.)

My First Time (at MySpace.com)

I've been surfing around on www.myspace.com in preparation for a discussion I'm facilitating this weekend on Youth, Ministry, and the Internet (thank you to all who posted your insights!).  I had never been to MySpace until this week.  A few thoughts:

1. It's an amazingly unregulated website.  The quality of pages varies greatly, and I seem to have picked up some vicious spyware and other bad stuff while noodling through the website.  As someone raised on traditional websites such as www.cnn.com or www.yahoo.com, MySpace is pretty overwhelming.
2. Yet the flexibility and customizability of MySpace is genious.  It gives the largely young - teens and twenties - membership a chance to express themselves in numerous creative ways.
3. Since the web can be semi-anonymous, many youth express thoughts or feelings or ideas that, in my generation, you would write in a journal, share by passing notes in social studies class, or tell close friends at the pizza joint after school.  But thanks to the internet, you can share your self-mutilation habit, your love of rabbits, or your sexual curiosity with millions of people with a click of your mouse.
4. But it's not just about sharing your thoughts (it's not just a megaphone), but MySpace allows you to connect with other people.  Add people to your "friends" list or join any number of webrings that connect you to people who share certain interests or attributes - such as a webring for your high school, for Christian athletes, or for hot young bods looking for action.
5. And so, trying to think like an adolescent boy (not too hard), I easily stumbled upon some MySpace pages featuring pornographic images stolen from porn websites.  Less frequent, but still present, are pictures of actual high school and college kids in various stages of undress or even sex acts.  Many more girls post sexy - but clothed - pictures on their sites.  The comments posted on these girls' sites include the IM names of people interested in cybersex, requests for more pictures, etc. etc..
6. Finding communities to share curiosities surrounding sex, eating disorders, self-mutilation aside, MySpace is actually filled with lots of inoccuous - actually, rather simple and unspectacular - musings of kids.  "math class totally sucked. i cant wait till summer.  jenny is such a dum ho. my little sister is driving me nuts.  later."
7. And of course, MySpace offers a forum for good, not just idle chatter or harmful behaviors.  Earlier this week, postings on MySpace encouraged students in Texas to protest pending immigration reform, sparking a massive student walkout in some school districts.

As much as some kids might be really drawn into sites such as MySpace, and might be influenced by what they see there, I still believe that the most enduring and significant influence on kids are their flesh-and-blood friends and family - not any virtual community that they're involved with or any freaky pictures they're viewing online.

That said, parents, concerned adults, church leaders, and especially youth ministers should be online, familiar with what is out there, and part of their youths' online community.  We should talk with them about what they see and experience online.  We should monitor (as possible) the web activity of our kids (just as our parents attempted to monitor and limit our TV or telephone time!).

But most importantly, we should trust our kids.  If we've equipped them with good sense, strong self-identity, love of self and neighbor; if we've nurtured and formed their faith; if we've helped them learn how to make sensible decisions; if they have a strong sense of right and wrong, and know when something is unhealthy or harmful; if we've done all of this, we need to simply trust that when our kids go online, when they go to a 7th grade party where they'll be playing Spin the Bottle, when they go on their first date, when they go to college, that they'll be able to handle the pressures presented to them and that they'll cry out for help when they need it.

Youth, Ministry, and the Internet

On Saturday I'll be facilitating a conversation with youth leaders about youth, ministry, and the internet, and I'd love to get some insight from my six faithful readers. I've got some questions below, but don't limit yourself to these five questions. Also, please forward this to anyone who works with kids in the church. Thanks!

1. In general, how do you feel about the internet and kids (very open-ended question, I know)?
2. Your church kids are online - right now, probably. Do you have any sense of how they use the internet?
3. Do you know if your church kids use the internet for anything related to their faith or to the church?
4. Do you use the internet in your youth ministry? If so, how? If not, why not?
5. Besides having content (news, information, sports, pornography, music, video, etc.), the internet is also a social medium, a place to meet other people. What opportunities or challenges does the internet as a social medium present to youth and youth ministries?

Thanks!

Spirit Room, in retrospect

I put together the Spirit Room at a youth event attended by about 200 youth this weekend.  The Spirit Room was never a scheduled part of the programming, but simply a Free Time option for the kids.  (I also served as the chaplain for the event).

Overall, I think the Spirit Room was a success.  We had a good number of youth and adults visit the Spirit Room, and several people spent upwards of 20 minutes in prayer and reflection in the room (some as long as an hour).

I may have offered too many reflection stations in the Spirit Room (which wasn't a huge space), and I'm not sure if my instructions were always very clear.  Here's a brief summary of each station and how it worked:

Baptism Station: Take a seat on a comfy pillow, grab a dry erase board and hold it on your lap.  Write your sins on a dry erase board, offer a prayer of confession to God, dip fingers in water and make sign of the cross to recall forgiveness of sins we receive in baptism, wipe away sins.  Baptism Station Grade: B.  (The idea is an A or A-, but my execution wasn't as clear as could be).

Small Catechism Stations: These each involved reading the respective sections of Martin Luther's Small Catechism followed by a reflection activity.  The activities were great, but I think that many people skipped these stations because they involved a modest level of reading.  Here are the activities:
10 Commandments: Since the 10 Commandments serve to reflect our sinful nature, youth were invited to write or draw a picture depicting one or more sins on a 20' by 10" sheet of aluminum flashing (approx. $9 at Lowes).  It was really neat to see the variety of sins the kids named and placed on the metal sheet.  These sins became part of our prayers of confession at Sunday worship.  10 Commandments Station Grade: A-
The Apostles' Creed: In the creed we confess our connectedness to God and to each other (yes, there's much more in the creed than that, but I had to pick something!).  Youth were invited to tie a 2-3 foot piece of yarn to the arms of a 5' cross, symbolizing their connectedness to God.  After a while, these pieces of yarn were braided together, symbolizing our connectedness to each other.  This was my favorite station.  Apostles' Creed Station Grade: A
Lord's Prayer: The Lord's Prayer contains all that we could ever need.  Youth were invited to write one or more things for which they are thankful to God.  This station's activity lacked the creativity of the other stations, but kids wrote prayers on several dozen post-it notes which they stuck to the wall at this station.  Lord's Prayer Station Grade: B
Overall Small Catechism Grade: B+  In retrospect, I would have offered summaries of the Small Catechism teaching and reduced the level of reading (providing catechisms for those who would want to read it, however).  I really think that many of the kids sped through the reading so that they could get to the activity.

Daily Life Meditation Station: A PowerPoint slide show of about 70 pictures from ordinary, daily life interspersed with about 10-15 scripture, Luther and other quotes highlighting the presence of God in our daily life.  People were invited to reflect on God's presence in their daily life.  Enigma, Moby, One Dove, and The Mission soundtrack variously provided the musical tone for this station and the whole room.  Daily Life Station Grade: A-

Bible Station: Free Bibles and a list of 60 essential Bible stories (borrowed from The Lutheran Handbook).  Youth were invited to simply spend some time reading the Bible.  No real "activity" here, and many youth did sit and read.  Some took a Bible home with them.  (Reading was the activity at this station.  In the Small Catechism stations, I  think that kids wanted to speed through the reading to get to the activity.  In this station, kids were more content to simply sit and look up some passages of scripture).  Bible Station Grade: A-

Liturgical Prayer Station: Several copies of The Lutheran Book of Worship with one post-it note marking a rite of Responsive Prayer and another marking a section prayers for various needs, occassions and situations.  This station was designed to get kids into their worship book and get in touch with some wonderfully rich - and often very old - prayers.  Liturgical Prayer Station: B+

Overall, this was a good experience and a nice environment for young people to reflect and pray.  I especially liked the idea of using the structure of the Small Catechism to shape part of the Spirit Room.  I had some problems with execution, but the concept is solid and I would use this again with only a few modifications.  I would love to hear from anyone who borrows these ideas and uses them in another setting!

It's a Miracle!

I've been part of a youth event this weekend - my role was to put together the "Spirit Room" - a room dedicated to prayer, reflection, and meditation, with several stations or activities to guide participants.

One of the stations was a Baptismal Station, in which young people were invited to write their sins on a dry erase board.  Then they were to offer a prayer of confession, dip their fingers in a bowl of water and make the sign of the cross to recall their baptism.  Then, they were to "erase" their sins from the dry erase board.  In baptism our sins are forgiven!

Well, one young woman ran out of the room to me and said, "It's a miracle!  Really, the brand of eraser is "miracle."  How perfect is that?!?!  It's a miracle that we are forgiven!"

Yes.  What a wonderful miracle.

Youth Spirit Room (in progress - feedback needed!)

I'm putting together the "Spirit Room" at a youth event this weekend. This is a quasi-chapel place where kids will come for reflection and prayer. In past years, adapted prayer labyrinths have been used. This year's Spirit Room will not be a labyrinth, but will be filled with various experiential activities. It will feature five stations inviting youth to various faith practices and reflections. A brief preview follows, and I would appreciate your feedback and ideas.

Baptism Station - A reflection on the forgiveness of sins we receive in baptism.
Materials: Bowl of water; dry erase board, markers, eraser
What they do: Read brief introduction to baptism; write/confess sins on white board; recall baptism; "erase" sins; go in peace.

Small Catechism Station - A reflection on Luther's Small Catechism.
Materials: Copies of the Small Catechism (up to 50 copies free for kids to take)
What they do: Read each of the primary sections of the Small Catechism (10 Commandments, Apostles' Creed, Lord's Prayer) followed by a brief reflection activity related to that section. Reflection summaries and activities are below:

10 Commandments: The 10 Commandments serve like a mirror, showing us our sin, our brokenness, our need for God. Youth will be invited to write a word or draw a picture of our sin and brokenness on a large mirror (or several cheap dorm room mirrors).

Apostles' Creed: After seeing our sin and inability to exist without God in the 10 Commandments, we profess our faith in God and recall all that God does for us and the world. Youth will be invited to contribute to some sort of communally constructed object that demonstrates our connectedness to God and to each other (any ideas?).

Lord's Prayer: All that we need comes from God, and is contained in the Lord's Prayer. Youth will be invited to pray the Lord's Prayer (out loud or silently) and then write things for which they are thankful to God on a large sheet of paper.

Daily Life Station - A reflection on God's presence in daily life
Materials: PowerPoint slide presentation (that I have yet to create!) featuring images of the ordinary stuff of life, interspersed with scripture passages, Luther quotes about daily life, and 'religious' images
What they do: Watch the PowerPoint loop and reflect on God's presence in their daily life

Bible Station - A reflection on the Bible as God's Word
Materials: Bibles (50 free Bibles for kids to take, and several other Spirit Room Bibles for kids to read), "essential Bible passages" hand-out
What they do: Look up and read various passages, and alone or with friends ask how God might be speaking in this text.

Suffrages Station - A structured prayer from our Lutheran Book of Worship
Materials: Copies of the Lutheran Book of Worship
What they do: Pray Responsive Prayer 2: Suffrages alone or with a friend.
(Why: I think kids can and do get into tradition, ritual, and prayer, and should be exposed to the prayer rites from our primary worship book).

Well, let me know what you think. 4 days and counting, and I have lots of work to do yet!

(*Please note that the Baptismal Station activity is adapted from an activity originally appearing in Here We Stand, Augsburg Fortress' new confirmation ministry curriculum. The 10 Commandments activity is vaguely inspired by a mirror-related activity on the same subject in Here We Stand.)

Cheerin' Them On

I love this commercial from MasterCard ("Professional Fan" featuring Peyton Manning cheering on diner waitress, grocery store attendant and other hourly workers while on the job). Not only is it funny, but it is exactly what we in the church should be doing.

Huh?

Vocation. Encouraging people in their daily work, their ordinary day-to-day tasks. And not just encouragment, but authentic God-given words of blessedness. When is the last time an accountant, plumber or engineer got props from the pulpit for their daily work? Or, when was the last time they heard in Bible Study, worship or fellowship that their work had value and meaning in the eyes of God?

The problem with so much of our spiritual regimens (both present-day and past) is that they depend on importing "Godly things" into our daily lives - a few minutes of prayer each day, Bible study, weekly worship, etc. But this "I have to bring spirituality into my daily life" attitude implies that our daily life has no inherent spiritual value. But what about the God-pleasing, neighbor-serving aspects of the various ordinary, unheralded vocations that turn the wheels of our society and world every single day? Daily work - even "non-religious" work - has significant and inherent spiritual value that gets little attention, support or notice from the pulpit and parish. Additionally, our holy-task orientation towards spirituality puts God into a clearly-defined spiritual box, to be opened (and closed) at our discretion, whim and convenience.

This is why as a youth director I spent youth ministry money to purchase advertisements in the local high school football and school play programs, giving full-page encouragement and blessings to all the youth involved in those activities. This is why as a youth director I encouraged kids to miss youth group meeting if they were using their God-given gifts in activities I couldn't offer at church - making sure they knew that the church supported them as they pursued and developed their gifts at school and in the community. I didn't see my job as one of convincing the youth to choose church over school or community activities. Rather, it was my job to let the kids hear, know and experience the love of God and support of the Christian community in all they they did - that their lives and gifts and passions and interests were God-blessed, God-given, and were avenues for faith formation. Being a Christian isn't just about church participation. Too often we lift up the committee chairperson or the Sunday School teacher as the model Christian to the detriment of all the wonderful ways to serve the world beyond the church doors.

Sorry for my rant.

I talked about this theme earlier (and here too) but just wanted to come back to it. Eventually I'll offer a less passion-filled and more articulate expression of this concept.

I'm not sure how vocation works with this Sunday's text of Jesus' first miracle in Mark, but I'm supply preaching and would love to bring Peyton Manning with me into the pulpit . . . (he, of course, has an open schedule ever since the Colts' horrible loss last week)

The Problem with Church Fundraisers

Lutheran youth around the country are busy raising money for the ELCA National Youth Gathering. This is a problem. Fundraisers are lousy things for kids to be involved in (right up there with sex, drugs, and the Young Republicans, but I digress). Here's a few reasons why:

Kids do fundraising. Adults don't. When it comes to church fundraisers, its generally the youth - and not the senior choir or adult education program - that's begging for money. This teaches the youth that the adult programming is important enough for the church budget but the youth programming isn't.

Raising money distracts from faith formation (part 1). To raise money, youth often perform various menial tasks - from making bad hoagies to doing a poor job washing cars to rent-a-youth-days that resemble slave auctions to selling Entertainment books - that have little to do with a life of discipleship. Even if the fundraising event is somewhat classier - like a dinner or a musical performance for which attendees purchase tickets - it is still transactional in nature. Wouldn't we rather have our youth make hoagies, wash cars, give a performance or serve dinner for free - for the neighborbood or the poor - as an act of service, as a baptismal calling?

Raising money distracts from faith formation (part 2). When fundraising is crucial, the whole youth ministry program becomes a series of fundraisers rather than a series of intentional faith-formation, discipleship experiences.  Do we want our youth ministry programs to be structured around fundraisers or faith-formation experiences?

The money is already in the pews, anyway. The money that is raised almost always comes from people in the congregation. Why can't church members just give their money in the first place rather than extract some low-quality chore in exchange for a $10 donation to the youth program?

And of course, this all goes back to stewardship and discipleship. Stewardship is not just about money. It is about living a life of intentional discipleship, about recognizing that everything "we have" really belongs to God, and about using our God-given gifts for the benefit of the church and our neighbors. I know that we continue to be simul justus et peccador, but it seems to me that our youth programs can't help but benefit from being surrounded by a community of disciples who strive to live, breathe, eat a stewardship-oriented, discipleship way-of-life. (And a nice byproduct of this orientation, of course, would be more funding for the youth ministry . . .).

Next year, when your congregation is putting together the church budget, propose calling for a year-long moratorium on youth fundraising (imagine, a year of meaningful youth programming rather than wasting time on fundraisers!). Increase the youth budget by the amount of money the youth would have to raise on their own. Get the money by moving funds from some other budget item - such as music or adult education or property. Or, to avoid ticking off Mildred, get the money by simply asking for it. Make the case for your kids. Ask people with money. Ask people with a heart for kids. Ask.

(I know that fundraisers are a necessary evil for many congregations, but they're precisely that - an evil. Nobody really likes fundraisers, do they? There are some pretty good fundraising ideas and programs out there that aren't demeaning, but in the end fundraisers represent the fact that a particular ministry was not funded through the church budget, and thus not valued in the same way as other aspects of the ministry. If its important, I say it should be in the church budget - even if that means growing the budget by increasing giving.)

Sunday School Lesson Planning

I'm in the midst of a three-week stint teaching Senior High Sunday School.  Last week we looked at several passages that show God's preference for life (healings, etc.), and next week we're going to look at various stories of death and violence in the Bible.

Life.  That's easy.

Death.  That's harder.

I could easily hand-pick stories that, though dealing with death, are somewhat easy to explain.  Or, I could whip out stories like Judges 19 (especially vs. 22-30) and just let some of those difficult passages hang out there for these kids to read and wrestle with.  Cain and Abel resolves somewhat cleanly with God wagging a divine finger at Cain.  Elijah and the prophets of Baal is a bloodbath that looks like a precursor to the Crusades.  The entire Egyptian Army is killed when the Red Sea recedes after Moses and the people of Israel cross it, but our 21st Century sensibilities are not offended by this story (we like David and Goliath, Robin Hood, underdog-justice kind of stories).  There are the seven plagues in Revelation 16, and even the crucifixion story in Mark, which (according to several ancient and reliable manuscripts) ends on a dark note tinged with fear and trembling.  We can also look at the various crucifixion stories and the suffering servant images and discuss how they have been miscontrued so as to permit domestic violence . . . This list is only the tip of the iceberg.  Are there other "good" stories of violence and death I should consider?

Well, I promised the kids that we'd look at death and violence in the Bible this week (you know, those stories that our elementary Sunday School curricula appropriately avoid), but I'm not entirely sure how to procede.  Any ideas?