Old Vision

"If you're going to do things like you've always done them, you're going to get what you've always gotten."

I'm at at conference sponsored by the ELCA this weekend. The conference is a gathering of 250 people who are either synod evangelism specialists, or are a part of the Christian Educator's Network. It's been an interesting event. There are big parts of it that have been driving me crazy.

I can't seem to get anyone to understand what I mean when I talk ab out "language" as being a key to evangelism. Unfortunately, this event isn't about that.

I've heard mostly stuff that is repackaged from the past:

• Hospitality needs to be a priority.
• We need to live the story.
• The story has power.

None of these things are wrong. But every time that they were spoken, I cringed just a little. They are the same things that we have been saying for what...10? 20? 30 years? And how well has that worked for us so far?

The ELCA has shrunk in membership. 10% of ELCA congregations have grown by an average of 1 member per year over the last 10 years. (Yes, I typed 1 member.) That means the other 90% have been stable or shrunk.

Evangelism hasn't worked for us.

Is it our culture?
Is it our methodology?
Yes.

It is not our theology and it is not our message. They are a constant and they are life-giving.

But we need a new language. Or maybe new languages. We need to speak to a culture who doesn't "get" us. We need change. I don't know what that change is yet, but we need to figure it out. It is a problem that needs to be solved.

I'm not sure that the people who are here are capable of figuring it out. I'm not sure that our church, institutaionally, has the courage it takes to make the kinds of changes, or to think in creative ways necessary to institute change.

More on the event later...