Looking for direction on Higgins Road (Sunday Reflections for October 10, 2010)

Change continues to be the dominant reality for the ELCA’s national organization. The Conference of Bishops met this past week to hear of a major reorganization of the ELCA’s churchwide operation. These changes have been necessitated by a continuing and dramatic fall-off in contributions to the synods and national church.

The details haven’t been announced yet but everyone knows major staff cuts are inevitable at the Chicago headquarters on Higgins Road. There have been lay-offs before but they have involved shrinking existing offices and departments. This time there will be a real reorganization. The national church will be different with, of course, some months of inevitable chaos and confusion bringing it about.

Last year, when a ten percent budget cut and corresponding lay-offs were announced, two ELCA leaders presented them very differently. Mark Hanson, the Presiding Bishop, lamented the cutbacks but insisted they would not materially affect the ELCA’s ministry. The church’s mission and commitments would remain. However, Pastor Wyvetta Bullock, ELCA executive for administration, in detailing the reductions admitted frankly, “We will be doing less with less.” Now, apparently, the ELCA will be doing even less, with even less.

These are tough times for the ELCA. The atmosphere in the Higgins Road office tower is understandably grim. The staff has known for weeks that major layoffs were coming but specifics weren’t to be announced until now. As church employees they are not covered by unemployment insurance. Those let go will probably get a small severance package which, in this economy, will run out well before they find new jobs.

I have yet to hear an explanation for why the church provides less of a social safety net than secular society. This issue is at the heart of another church employee mess, the cancellation of an Augsburg Fortress’ pension plan. Plan members have sued the ELCA Publishing House for fraud because it claimed exemption from the federal pension insurance program, ERISA.

The problem is that the ELCA has tried to have it both ways with Augsburg Fortress. Its sole purpose is to meet the ELCA’s publishing needs, is run by an ELCA elected board, and operates as a church organization for legal purposes, such as exemption from ERISA. Yet the ELCA also has claimed that AF is an independent organization, meaning the church has no financial obligation to it or its employees. This may be legally accurate (we’ll see what the courts think) but ethically it stinks and everyone knows it. No one in ELCA leadership can talk about it now that it’s in litigation, but it is just adding to the ELCA’s sense of confusion and deterioration.

I suppose it’s understandable, then, that Bishop Hanson seems to have assumed the role of denominational cheerleader. Most people give him a lot of credit for his dispassionate and even-handed management of last year’s churchwide assembly and the multi-year process leading to the approval of gay clergy. The dust is settling, it’s fairly clear what congregations have left or are leaving over this (significant but certainly less than 10%), so he wants to rally the troops to move ahead.

The ELCA news service published a summary of Hanson’s report at the start of the bishop’s meeting last weekend:

• It is time for the church to move forward and get over being “timid” about mission and ministry.

• "I've been pondering that a lot. Have we become a timid church?" Hanson asked the ELCA leaders. A sign of a timid church is one that describes itself by what it has lost and what it lacks, he said. Such a church is one that tries to hold onto the past and preserve what was, Hanson said.

• A church that defines itself by controversies and partisan divisions "will become a weary and timid church," Hanson said.… The presiding bishop also said he is "deeply concerned" that leaders preach with a sense of confidence.

• Hanson said he continues to have confidence in the two priorities for the churchwide organization: accompanying congregations as growing centers of evangelical mission, and building capacity for evangelical witness in the world to alleviate poverty, and work for justice and peace.

• He reflected on his experiences at recent gatherings [of teens and youth and campus ministry leaders]. "In those gatherings, I saw evidence of the stirring up of leaders in this church that gives me a sense of confidence and courage," he said.

• Hanson concluded his report by asking leaders not to lose confidence "in the gifts of the Spirit and what it means to live out the faith."

So, timidity is out and confidence is in. If only it were that simple. Actually, as I wrote to a colleague, I don’t think the problem is timidity as it is confusion. The Bishop wants the church to more forward, but which way is that? Unfortunately it is so easy in the church to get lost in rhetoric, speaking without actually communicating. Above Hanson describes the church’s priorities as “accompanying” and “building capacity.” Huh? Paul says somewhere that an army can’t move forward if the trumpeter’s sound is uncertain. I think we’ve found an example.

I don’t mean to dump on Bishop Hanson personally. He is a good man who has done very well in an impossible job. Rather I cite him because his words and actions reflect the state of the ELCA and church denominations generally. While recent controversies have given the ELCA a jolt, the downward trends have been in place for a long time, and not just for Lutherans.

Unfortunately Hanson and most church leaders are too close to the problems to get real perspective—and perhaps also don’t want to see what’s there. An ELCA staff member posted on Facebook a quote from the management guru Peter Drucker: "Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does." Perhaps the question the folks on Higgins Road and in our synod offices need to ask is, “What would happen, and who would notice, if we didn’t exist anymore?” It’s a question being asked in lots of places today, all around the world, and many are startled to find the answer is, “Not much and not many.”