by Bishop Bill Gohl
"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus..." - Philippians 2:3-5a
On Saturday, November 18, I was a guest of the Westminster Conference as they gathered for a Mission Strategy Conversation. The idea for that kind of conversation emerged from a conversation I had with Pastor Amsalu Geleta, Executive Assistant to the Bishop and Director for Evangelical Mission, and Pastor Robin Simpson Litton, Assistant to the Bishop for the Western Cluster. Westminster Conference is one of our larger conferences and has a considerable number of pastoral vacancies. Within those vacancies are some historic multiple-point parish arrangements and a number of congregations who are not a part of parishes, but have been at some point in their histories. The premise of the gathering was, while so many congregations are in transition, does it make sense to have conversations about shared mission and partnership on the ground rather than "the synod" trying to arrange partnerships simply to share rostered leadership support expenses. Establishing what our churchwide organization calls a Mission Table ensures that everyone is, literally, at the table: congregations, lay leaders, rostered ministers, synod staff and institutional ministry partners.
Pastor Jake Jacobson, Assistant to the Bishop and Director for Evangelical Mission in the Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod, ELCA writes of the need for these kinds of Mission Tables:
We inherited a picnic table that my wife's grandfather had built. I soon discovered it was in need of serious care. Inattention had allowed dry rot to waste away much of the supportive structures. I went out and bought wood and refashioned replacement parts and put a new coat of paint on the whole table. That sufficed for a while. Over the past few years more parts have been fashioned and replaced and more paint applied. Despite all of my work it continues to deteriorate slowly. Inside I know that the best course of action is to build a new table that will meet our present needs but things are changing so fast in our lives that I haven’t found the right design. That’s actually not true. I have not taken the time to assess our current situation and design a table to meet our situation that will be substantial as well as adaptive.
As I look around our synod I find many of our congregations are in similar situations. We know that our current tables are in need of "something" but we have not been able or had the opportunities to assess our situations clearly and build new "tables."
While we initially expected to invite those congregations who were in transition and some who were at some level facing financial problems, the experiment caught the imagination of the congregations who were not in those places, but saw themselves as part of the larger conversation and whole. With the support of Pastor Michael Dubsky, Dean of the Conference, the invitation went to all of the congregations in the conference with representation turning out from Keysville, Calvary, St. Benjamin's, Messiah, St. James, Immanuel, St. Peter's, Christ Trenton, Grace, Trinity Taneytown, Jerusalem, St. Mary's, St. Paul Upperco, St. Paul's Harney, Mt. Joy, St. Abrahams, Holy Spirit, Trinity Deer Park, St. Mark's Snydersburg, and St. John Leisters.
When I arrived, late from an LYO All-Team Meeting in Frederick, you could already feel the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit. The gathering was help, quite appropriately at Carroll Lutheran School, which is a living testimony to this conference and its cooperative work over the years; both Carroll School and Carroll Lutheran Village were begun as joint mission projects in the Westminster Conference! As congregations were led to help one another know who was at the mission table, a surprising number of similarities and differences surfaced. Some congregations immediately started having conversations about shared ministry possibilities – moving from this kind of "speed dating" event into a time of serious courtship! There was a sense of being witness to a Pentecost moment happening in this particular corner of Christ's kingdom. Grounded in prayer and the Word of God, the gathering moved in many different directions yielding a shared interest in gathering again in January to further explore what God is up to in Carroll County!
About fifteen years ago, Pastor Dubsky and I were both serving in the metropolitan Baltimore area of our synod and were in a DMin program at our seminary in Philadelphia. One of the classes we took with Dr. Robert Hughes on Congregational Mission and Strategy led us to take a tour of Baltimore City to explore many of the nearly 60 congregations that have been closed in Baltimore since the end of World War II. That exploration left us lamenting that congregations had closed, en masse, in some areas leaving very little Lutheran Word and Sacrament ministry witness; whereas in other areas, we had Lutheran Churches almost on top of each other – in some cases less than blocks apart! As a synod, rather than being strategic about ministry resources, we left congregations to themselves as a matter of natural selection – and now there are wide swaths of Baltimore City where the Lutheran Church has withdrawn with very little hope of returning.
Before you get the idea that the Mission Table in Westminster is about deciding which congregations stay open and which are left to die, that is not the purpose at all. The thrust of mission planning is to help every congregation discover its missional future as part of the larger whole of our collective ELCA witness among a particular place and people.
I am grateful for Pastor Geleta and Pastor Simpson Litton – their leadership in this strategic work is much needed. More so, though, I am grateful for the ministerial and lay leadership from Keysville, Calvary, St. Benjamin's, Messiah, St. James, Immanuel, St. Peter's, Christ Trenton, Grace, Trinity Taneytown, Jerusalem, St. Mary's, St. Paul Upperco, St. Paul's Harney, Mt. Joy, St. Abrahams, Holy Spirit, Trinity Deer Park, St. Mark's Snydersburg, and St. John Leisters who are willing to invest their time, much prayer and holy discerning to see how God might move the whole church forward from natural selection to strategic mission.
And Frederick Conference, we’ve heard a similar interest from among you, too! You’re next!
"If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." - Philippians 2:1-11
We inherited a picnic table that my wife's grandfather had built. I soon discovered it was in need of serious care. Inattention had allowed dry rot to waste away much of the supportive structures. I went out and bought wood and refashioned replacement parts and put a new coat of paint on the whole table. That sufficed for a while. Over the past few years more parts have been fashioned and replaced and more paint applied. Despite all of my work it continues to deteriorate slowly. Inside I know that the best course of action is to build a new table that will meet our present needs but things are changing so fast in our lives that I haven’t found the right design. That’s actually not true. I have not taken the time to assess our current situation and design a table to meet our situation that will be substantial as well as adaptive.
As I look around our synod I find many of our congregations are in similar situations. We know that our current tables are in need of "something" but we have not been able or had the opportunities to assess our situations clearly and build new "tables."
While we initially expected to invite those congregations who were in transition and some who were at some level facing financial problems, the experiment caught the imagination of the congregations who were not in those places, but saw themselves as part of the larger conversation and whole. With the support of Pastor Michael Dubsky, Dean of the Conference, the invitation went to all of the congregations in the conference with representation turning out from Keysville, Calvary, St. Benjamin's, Messiah, St. James, Immanuel, St. Peter's, Christ Trenton, Grace, Trinity Taneytown, Jerusalem, St. Mary's, St. Paul Upperco, St. Paul's Harney, Mt. Joy, St. Abrahams, Holy Spirit, Trinity Deer Park, St. Mark's Snydersburg, and St. John Leisters.
When I arrived, late from an LYO All-Team Meeting in Frederick, you could already feel the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit. The gathering was help, quite appropriately at Carroll Lutheran School, which is a living testimony to this conference and its cooperative work over the years; both Carroll School and Carroll Lutheran Village were begun as joint mission projects in the Westminster Conference! As congregations were led to help one another know who was at the mission table, a surprising number of similarities and differences surfaced. Some congregations immediately started having conversations about shared ministry possibilities – moving from this kind of "speed dating" event into a time of serious courtship! There was a sense of being witness to a Pentecost moment happening in this particular corner of Christ's kingdom. Grounded in prayer and the Word of God, the gathering moved in many different directions yielding a shared interest in gathering again in January to further explore what God is up to in Carroll County!
About fifteen years ago, Pastor Dubsky and I were both serving in the metropolitan Baltimore area of our synod and were in a DMin program at our seminary in Philadelphia. One of the classes we took with Dr. Robert Hughes on Congregational Mission and Strategy led us to take a tour of Baltimore City to explore many of the nearly 60 congregations that have been closed in Baltimore since the end of World War II. That exploration left us lamenting that congregations had closed, en masse, in some areas leaving very little Lutheran Word and Sacrament ministry witness; whereas in other areas, we had Lutheran Churches almost on top of each other – in some cases less than blocks apart! As a synod, rather than being strategic about ministry resources, we left congregations to themselves as a matter of natural selection – and now there are wide swaths of Baltimore City where the Lutheran Church has withdrawn with very little hope of returning.
Before you get the idea that the Mission Table in Westminster is about deciding which congregations stay open and which are left to die, that is not the purpose at all. The thrust of mission planning is to help every congregation discover its missional future as part of the larger whole of our collective ELCA witness among a particular place and people.
I am grateful for Pastor Geleta and Pastor Simpson Litton – their leadership in this strategic work is much needed. More so, though, I am grateful for the ministerial and lay leadership from Keysville, Calvary, St. Benjamin's, Messiah, St. James, Immanuel, St. Peter's, Christ Trenton, Grace, Trinity Taneytown, Jerusalem, St. Mary's, St. Paul Upperco, St. Paul's Harney, Mt. Joy, St. Abrahams, Holy Spirit, Trinity Deer Park, St. Mark's Snydersburg, and St. John Leisters who are willing to invest their time, much prayer and holy discerning to see how God might move the whole church forward from natural selection to strategic mission.
And Frederick Conference, we’ve heard a similar interest from among you, too! You’re next!
"If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." - Philippians 2:1-11