Part 3: Models for the Millennium
Chapter 22
Goal Setting : Evangelical
Lutherans
In the first two sections of this book we have assessed the forces shaping both society and religion as we race through the 1990s. Now it's time to look at some church models for the millennium — hardy perennials likely to endure well into the 21st century.
Church planners have been debating whether the strategies for the last of the 1990s can best be charted by studying the past or by forecasting the future. Jackson Carroll of Hartford Seminary thinks that for church executives "the big interest now is looking at the past."1
Tom Sine believes that churches are "doing long-range planning as if the future is going to be an extension of the present. We are going to be surprised by change as we were so often in the past . . . Christian organizations are tremendously slow . . . What we need is a renaissance of Christian creativity [applied to] the emerging issues of tomorrow's world."2
Indeed, in a decade when Christianity's position at the center of the religious stage is threatened, most churches are being "reactive" rather than "pro-active." The scholars among them read the present through the past. Combing case histories and tracing sociocultural change, they look backward for their understanding of current religious ferment.
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There are, however, a few forward-looking denominations and some creative congregations that are devising innovative strategies to harness the forces of the 1990s.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church, two mainline denominations, have focused on setting goals for the 1990s. A glimpse of these goals and the processes that brought them in to being may bring insight into how these models could work in your church or community.
My focus on these two denominations — and on the Presbyterian Church in America and the Southern Baptist Convention two evangelical denominations — is not meant to imply that they are the only church groups setting goals or creating innovative models for the future. They are simply representative. Also, they were off to an early start in the race toward 2001, so they have a slight head start.
Bible-toting, Tithing, and Inclusive
Though hampered by an acute budget crunch, the 5.25-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is taking bold steps to make the denomination — the fourth-largest U.S. Protestant body — a Bible-reading, tithing, "inclusive" church. Inclusive means having at least 10 percent of its members be non-white and/or non-English-speaking people by 2000. That would be a five-fold increase from the 2 percent of African-American Asian, Hispanic, and Native American ELCA members in 1989.
By mid-1990, about 70 percent of the church's sixty-five synods either had adopted plans for meeting the racial / ethnic inclusiveness goals or had already met them.3
The inclusiveness goal was written into the founding documents of the ELCA when three Lutheran bodies merged to form the new denomination in 1987-88 (see chart on page 153, "Declining Membership in Mainline Denominations").
Mission 90, the ELCA's statement of commitment for the 1990s was hammered out over a period of months after scores of meetings, assemblies, and consultations. Yet the statement was largely the work of the church's spiritual leader, Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom. The plan came "pretty much out of my own observations," Chilstrom says.4
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Mission 90 focuses on thirteen dimensions of "challenges and opportunities" for this decade. It calls for "seeing anew what it means to be a Christian"; "growing in our witness to the faith, in our giving, in our intention to become a more diverse church," and "serving the world in the cause of peace, justice and the care of creation."5
The statement looks at worldwide forces, saying that "a church born to this decade needs to understand and effectively respond to these conditions." The thirteen dimensions are (1) an unevangelized world; (2) religious pluralism; (3) urbanization; (4) interdependence; (5) poverty and oppression; (6) emergent churches and theologies worldwide; (7) the changing role of women; (8) high-tech communication; (9) antagonistic nationalism; (10) environmental problems; (11) international economic disorder; (12) multicultural realities, and (13) racial discrimination.6
As outlined by Bishop Chilstrom, the ELCA intends to emphasize seven basic goals in light of these thirteen "challenges and opportunities":7
(1) Gathering to reflect on what it means to be a Christian. This goal is very popular; in early 1991 more than 9,000 of the denomination's 11,000 congregations had ordered Chilstrom's tapes, "What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?" a faith-development program based on biblical and Lutheran material.8
(2) A new venture to encourage daily Bible reading. "Ventures in Bible Reading" was coordinated with the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
(3) Bible-study witness. This involves a relatively brief but intense course to teach key biblical themes and prepare people to share their faith in daily living.
(4) An accent on tithing. Chilstrom said he was looking for a million tithers (those who give 10 percent of their income to the church), or about one out of every five ELCA members.
(5) Partners around the world. Mission 90 calls for every congregation and synod to link up with another ministry in the United States and one overseas. "That could be another church, a hospital, school or seminary," Chilstrom explained — "a very specific place where a congregation would connect itself and learn as much as possible as partners."
(6) Peace, justice, and creation issues. The goals also link churches
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with the world, centering "on what we as believers can do to bring justice to the world and what we can do to preserve the Earth itself for future generations . . . It's an effort to help people understand these issues and connect them with environmental concerns," Chilstrom said.
As an illustration of a tangible application of this goal, the ELCA is using its position as a shareholder and an investor to effect change in U.S. corporations. The church's pension board alone owns almost $1 billion in stock and equities. In 1990, the church council approved thirty-two different shareholder resolutions, filed with fifty-nine companies. These included the tobacco industry, firms that develop military products, and those that do business in South Africa. "We concentrated our effort on environmental issues and poor and minority communities issues," said Edgar G. Crane, director of the Lutheran Office for Corporate Social Responsibility.9
(7) The 10 percent "inclusiveness" goal. "Unless there is the commitment of significant amounts of time, prayer, money, talent and support for these goals, the ELCA will remain an overwhelmingly white denomination in the midst of an increasingly multicultural world," declared Martin Smith, an executive of the church's Commission for Multicultural Ministries.10
Black, Brown, Yellow, Red — and Green
Skeptics doubt that the 10 percent goal is feasible. The ELCA, 98 percent white and in 1991 snarled in budget deficits for the fourth straight year, can't put enough money where its mouth is, gibe the critics. To reach the goal, said one speaker at the ELCA's first biennial Multicultural Gathering, the church needs more than a scattering of black, brown, red, and yellow faces. It also needs a lot of green — in the offering plate.11
Indeed, wallet woes in the 1990s may hamstring the best intentions of many major denominations. The ELCA's national offices trimmed $5.2 million from its authorized 1991 budget of $95.5 million. And 1991's red ink came on top of a $1.4 million shortfall in 1990, a $4.2 million shortfall in 1989, and a whopping $16 million shortfall in 1988, the denomination's first year of operation.
Among the reasons cited by the national church for its low income
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were rising health insurance costs for local pastors and a trend for congregations to prefer supporting various ministries, such as helping the hungry and homeless, at the local level.12
Some bishops were placing the blame on the income side rather than on the budget. Said Bishop Harry S. Andersen of the Northern Great Lakes Synod: "The great need is to generate new dollars, and we are not going to do that if we do not get the interest of the people. We have to give them the wider picture."13
Could Andersen have been reading up on how to get boomers to buy in?
