August 23 - 29, 2004
August 23 - 29, 2004
SOLI/Update
‘Hello, Houston? We
have a problem!’
Like a slowly hemorrhaging wound that baffles doctors, membership in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America continues to slip, and a just-released report shows that in 2003 the denomination dipped below 5 million members for the first time. Okay, the slip of 1 percent of members from 2002 isn’t the end of the world, but edging below the 5 million mark should rouse us out of our collective slumber of denial.
All this is nothing new, because Lutherans and other Mainline denominations have been hand-wringing for years about their gradually ebbing membership. The United Methodist Church, still one of the big denominations with 8.3 million Americans, reports numbers down 1 million from 1982 to 2001. And the Presbyterians report a one-year drop of something like 2 percent to 2.4 million members in 2003.
But the question is, why are Mainline churches are losing out at a time when Christian spirituality is downright chic. I mean values – even religious practice – are criteria for major public office!
Mainline churches are like restaurants that can’t attract, or even keep, customers in the middle of a famine. The analogy is not farfetched because that’s what we have today – a spiritual famine.
With terrorism on the rise and crises present or looming in every continent, never before has the world been in so much need to hear the Good News of peace and salvation in Jesus Christ. Mainline churches are uniquely poised to bring this message. We have the history, we have great theology, we have seminaries, we have the pastors and all the church buildings we could need. And for the moment anyway, we have the member base.
But we don’t have the capacity, it would seem, to use all those resources to figure out how to reach people with our greatest strength of all: the Gospel. And in this, it becomes a stewardship problem. We are not being, as Paul charged us to be in 1 Cor. 4:1, good stewards of the mysteries of God,
Reflecting on the loss in his denomination, Presbyterian leader Clifton Kirkpatrick said the numbers “should call us to prayer and repentance.”
Amen!
-Rob Blezard, webmaster and editor
New This Week: Aug. 23 - 29
Miracle
Sunday stewardship
Here's a program outline for launching a financial campaign for a
major project. Through the example and experience of a local church that wanted
to pay off its mortgage to save interest and free up money for mission, you'll
get ideas on how your own church can manage a successful campaign. From the
Association of
Lutheran Resource Centers.
Transform
your indignation into action
"What is it
that you are justifiably angry at? It is something you think someone else has
fallen down on? Is it something you may even be angry at someone in church or
the government or even God for? So get angry and call someone. But don't stop
there. Do what you can do about it." In
Dana Reardon's weekly reflection.
Giving
extravagantly
"We are people
of great abundance, and we can afford to give extravagantly. Thousands of
children still die each day from hunger in this world. How can we continue to
deny an abundance that makes dieting a higher priority for us than searching for
food? ... But the most important reason of all to give extravagantly is because
we must give that way if we want to participate in the extravagant love of God,
the giver of Jesus Christ." Prophetic words in an essay by Margaret G. Payne,
Bishop of the
New England Synod.
Discovering
your church's mission
"The primary focus of the church centers on the Gospel. The work of the
congregation must grow out of this focus. The structure of the congregation is
helpful only as it facilitates mission and ministry. If we take away our focus,
the church has no compelling reason for existence."
By the Rev. Roger Skatrud
In
the Lutheran Laity Movement Archives
Weekly
Gleanings, a sampling of articles with stewardship implications
from the popular press.
