by Bishop Bill Gohl
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ... - Romans 5:1
I had originally prepared a longer address for this Assembly. In the interest of making time in the agenda for the worthy resolution and memorial still before this body, I will refer you to my written report in your Bulletin of Reports, and I will amplify that report with four brief words: a word of gratitude, a word of struggle, a word of challenge, and a word of hope.
I begin with a word of gratitude: in the nine months that I have served with you as bishop of our synod, I feel a great deal of gratitude for strong prayer partnership, faithful financial support, tremendous encouragement, and gracious patience. I am grateful for this call.
In that vein of gratitude – I am profoundly grateful for our synod staff. They have and continue to do yeoman’s duty with good humor and a commitment to Christ and this church.
I give great thanks for the support, love and patience of my wife Arwyn as well as my children Saliese, David, Andrew and Joyanne.
And I want you to hear me say, I thank God for you, your congregations and our shared ministries – no matter the shape, size or location. Week after week, you are making Christ known, through worship, learning and service; for your faithfulness, I am deeply grateful.
My word of struggle is deeply personal: the demands of this office are many and I strive to never lose sight of my first priority, being available as pastor to the rostered ministers, congregations and shared ministries of our synod. But I confess that I have overextended myself, and there have been times I have been tired and not at my best. There have been a few times when events have conflicted and I have had to reschedule or cut short my time. For these times when I have disappointed you or let you down, I ask for your forgiveness.
On the other hand, the two hardest pieces of being your bishop often leave me weary. While it is not widespread, I could not imagine the heart-wrenching hours that would be sucked up by accusations of rostered minister misconduct – and whether substantiated or not, would exact a toll on the congregation, rostered minister, synod staff and bishop.
The second is congregations and ministers in strained or conflicted relationships. All want to serve Christ and Church, but sometimes it is very messy and sometimes it doesn’t end well.
My challenging word for this corner of Christ’s kingdom: As we welcome new staff, and in honor of our retiring treasurer, Pastor Bob Harvey, I speak this truth - we must live within our means. We can’t have more staff who are part-time and expect them to do everything their full-time predecessors did – and more.
Thirty years ago our synod budget was based on $3 million in shared Mission Support. Not only has our giving dropped by a third, the power of those dollars has continued to decline. I suspect many of us understand this in our congregations, offerings might be "level" – but the costs of fixed expenses, fuel, electric, salaries and health benefits have only continued to increase. When I was ordained 17 years ago – my health insurance was $3,000 per year, which was manageable for my first call congregation – last year, it was well over $20,000. These fixed costs threaten to drown the budgets of congregations and ministries of all sizes. In these years I've lived and served in our synod there are more part-time pastors, fewer congregations meeting salary guidelines, and exponentially fewer positions for associate pastors and lay staff. But as part of the larger narrative of being church, it means that great traditions need to be lived out in new ways, things like congregational dinners and strawberry festivals, Sunday schools and Lenten soup suppers – the needs are changing and the support doesn’t always materialize the way it once did.
Mission Support, what was once called benevolence, was seen decades ago as paying dues, sometimes even with elaborate "taxing" formulas of X dollars per confirmed and contributing member...now, we must recast here and in our congregations that Mission Support is a commitment to fund ministry together that we can’t do on our own. Our Mission Support allows us to do things like campus ministry, prison ministry, supporting seminarians and missionaries, outdoor ministry, Youth + Family Ministry – hallmarks of being church together in ways that individually, our congregations would be hard pressed to do on their own. If we don’t do these things together, they simply disappear.
Moreover, we need to be our brother and sister's keeper, reaching out to congregations around us that are at risk and not waiting until it is too late. Congregations that seek to compete with each other rather than formulating a strategy for cooperative mission and ministry are cynical and are contributing to their own demise; and, turning to the same lay leaders, year after year, is an indication that a congregation has a serious problem that the passing of time will only exacerbate; we are failing to disciple and transfer leadership from generation to generation; indeed, a church unwilling to make sacrifice and change to retain its younger members or to attract new people is mortgaging its future on a misguided notion that stability can be maintained – unless we change, we die.
We must dare to take some risks...to do some things we have never done before...to move out of the comfort zone and to take seriously that, while salvation is a free gift – discipleship costs everything.
While recognizing that each of us has a relationship with Christ and a conscience to which we must be accountable, the days of holding one another hostage to our fear and insecurities must be over. We bicker over "church-dividing" issues with such ferocity while forgetting that we are living, breathing images of God and our life together is about Jesus. We preach Christ crucified – and the reconciliation that comes from such great love and faithfulness. Leveraging my privilege as bishop and making a platform to amplify the voices of those who are oppressed, marginalized and forgotten is critical for these days we are living in.
Finally, a word of hope: Many of our congregations and ministry partners see themselves as part of something larger than themselves and they embrace this partnership we share. They are committed to reaching people with the good news of Jesus Christ; they are genuinely concerned about the suffering of people in their fellowship and their community; they are providing God-honoring worship in different formats, supported by good music and powerful preaching that are faithful to our tradition and enculturated to the community; they are empowering their members to live out their baptismal calling through participation in small groups, Bible study, and mission projects.
But I am most hopeful in the promise of Christ Jesus, not bishops, constitutions, not synod assemblies or programs that promise what they cannot guarantee – but in Jesus Christ, which, the scripture says, is our hope that will not disappoint. The 20th century Lutheran theologian, Dag Hammarskjold sums up my thoughts well: "For all that has been, Thank you. For all that is to come, Yes!"
Thus, it is with real gratitude, challenges to meet together; with struggles still to overcome, tempered by an irrepressible hope, I submit my first annual report to this Assembly.
The Rev. William (Bill) Gohl Jr., Bishop
Delaware-Maryland Synod, ELCA
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. - Romans 5:1-5
The audio of Bishop Gohl's Address to the Synod Assembly is available on our website.