Maybe they know something we don't...

Most pastors I know are curious types.  They want to know what they don't know.  Most of us have at one point in our lives or another presumed that there are secrets, hidden wisdom, and better ways to grow the Church than what we have been doing -- no matter what we have been doing.  There is a certain assumption that others might know something we don't and so we watch and listen in the hope of discovering their secrets or finding out their hidden wisdom, or developing our skills.  Then the Church will grow.

It happens when we are confronted by growth even in those kind of congregations we typically disagree with on just about everything.  So Lutherans turn up their noses at the theology of the evangelicals but we listen in almost reverent attention when they talk about how much they have grown.  We want to know how they are doing it so that we can do it too -- even if it might involve a little questionable theology.  After all, we are failures if we do not grow.  We all know that.

For most of us as Lutheran pastors, explosive growth is a thing of our dreams that will never happen.  Sure, we might bring in a dozen or more folks in a good year -- some of them even adult confirmands.  But for most of us, these numbers will never happen — even on a great year!  We hope and pray we do not decline and, if we do, we pray that contributions will go up even if the bodies in the pews remain the same.  It is not simply true for us Lutherans.  Most congregations have less than a hundred real members and typically the average is about 60-70 or so — despite what our membership numbers say.

We typically sell down the theology and would gladly sell out if it meant we could reverse the decline in our congregation, district, or Synod.  It is great to have theological integrity and all but it would be better to fill the empty spots on Sunday morning.  How many do you worship?  We have our price.  All of us.  For most of us, the price of growth has been to lose confidence that the Word will do what it says and that the Sacraments will deliver what they sign.  In other words, Sunday morning is the venue which is most open to change in order for us to get the perceived growth we want.  We will not change the creed or the confession but we will change the methodology and practice.  That is where much of the talk lies in Missouri — not in changing doctrine but loosening up practice in everything from the way we train up pastors to the way we worship and preach.

We are in the boat we are in not because Lutherans are dull or not very creative.  Well, we may be dull and we just might mimic others more than think for ourselves, but the reality is that the best ideas, in our minds, seem to be coming from those who are living on the edge of our reality more than the middle.  Ours is not a crisis of creativity but of confidence in God's Word to do what it says and His Sacraments to deliver what they sign.  Nobody would be abandoning the liturgy if we were growing and growing by big numbers.  But since we are not, the liturgy seems to be the first on the chopping block, so to speak.  We are idiots.  If our theology cannot even muster the power to inform and shape our liturgy and practice, how do we expect it to help us bring new people in?  Worship wars are the most natural things on earth precisely because they are bring the most obvious things into conflict — what we believe and how we worship.  As if the evangelicals and giant big box community churches figured out how to get it right.  Grow up, Missouri.  Stop letting us think the problem is a lack of creative, novel, and inventive means and admit this is a faith problem first and foremost.  All of this navel gazing is hardly helping anything.  To allow us to question what we should be confessing is literally to invite people to abandon who we are to become the illusive church the secular world really wants.  Maybe the inventive growth gurus really don't know anything at all or know less than we do?  You will not fill the gas tank by staring at the gas gauge.  Know who you are and let it be enough that who we are flows from Scripture and things may change.  Borrowing what is not us from people who do not even want to be us will empty the seats even faster.