Once the endless meetings, insulting slurs, character attacks, hurt feelings, and procedural difficulties involved in leaving one ecclesial community and entering another are over, the remaining congregation members are often fatigued. Yet they are often galvanized by the process’ inevitable conflicts and are more committed as disciples of Jesus Christ than ever. They hope that the Lord will reward their faithfulness by swelling their ranks, securing their sometimes-tenuous finances, and allow them to return once again to whatever is identified as the golden age of the congregation’s life.

The Lord, in His mercy, rarely does this, at least in any easily recognizable, straightforward way.  The process of reaffiliating for the local congregation is always, to a larger or smaller degree, a traumatic one.  Before a congregation is ready to properly disciple a significant number of people, there is usually work the Lord needs to do within us first.  There is a gap between what we were and what we will need to be for the mission the Lord has planned for us.  I want to encourage anyone facing this to GO intentionally into that GAP:

Go deep with God:  Lutherans confess that the Spirit uses God’s Word and Sacraments to create and sustain saving faith in the hearts of people and thereby constitutes the Church.  As Luther avers, it is only in this way that we are “called, gathered, enlightened and sanctified.”  Don’t do generic Bible studies but do some focused on God’s promises and power related to healing, mission, and yes, even vengeance upon those who persecute His people (having one’s character assassinated by people you love is a real, though mild, form of white martyrdom).  Let the Lord’s Word be a branch thrown into the oft unspoken tension, pain, and ennui of the bitter waters of church hurt and make them sweet.

Open your heart to the new thing the Lord wants to do:  Paul’s ministry changed radically after he was called by Jesus.  Your congregation has been called by Jesus too, and it is not likely that He has called it to do basically what it has done in the past, just with purer doctrine.  This is not because local traditions are bad or change is good, but because if Jesus has called you into a new denominational affiliation, it is for the purpose of mission, and the mission field is always in flux.  Indeed, learning that the mission field lies at our doorstep rather than in other countries is a radical thing for many long-established congregations.  Please note that what I am issuing here is not a call to radical change, but rather to radical openness to God’s leading.

Get to know your mission field: Don’t assume you know your community’s spiritual needs.  Remember, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME.  As a Gen X’er I typically assume that Christianity’s chief rival is atheism.  For those under 40, it is paganism.  Does your congregation’s ministry take this into account?  What are the socio-economic pressures with which your visitors are dealing?  What are the most common family dynamics and dysfunctions?  Learn what people will need in your context to become good Christian disciples apart from orthodox doctrinal commitments.

Align yourself with what God is already doing: Ministry changed for me and my congregation when we stopped having a plan to reach people and started recognizing what the Lord was already doing with those He was gathering, then putting our time, talent, and treasures behind that.  “Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborer works in vain.”

Patiently wait for God, then move decisively: Don’t let anxiety about the future push your congregation to waste energy on mission to which the Lord is not calling you.  The Church’s only mission is the Great Commission, but your congregation is not the Church.  Your congregation is a church, and God is not calling you to do everything.  Instead of trying to reach some group or create some ministry that leadership thinks is essential to the congregation’s long term survival, trust the Lord with your future.  It may be that the ministry everyone thinks critical must have the foundation the Lord wishes to provide now.

GO into the GAP without fear, for it is not the valley of the shadow of death, but rather God’s way of teaching you trust on the way to the green fields and still waters for which He has claimed you.

 

The events that put me at the front line of leading our church out of the ELCA began with an unexpected phone call from our founding pastor. Unbeknownst to him, I was frustrated with our congregation’s direction and the ELCA’s unbiblical stance on various issues.  Pastor wanted to know if I would be interested in being the Council President. Here I was ready to leave the church, and God provided a path to church leadership and fixing the problems that I saw. I agreed to his request, but it wasn’t with the fervor of ‘Here I Am Lord, Send Me!’

I had numerous discussions with the Pastor about leaving the ELCA, how to do that, and its impact.  He was led to believe that he would lose his pension if we left the ELCA. We now know this to be untrue, but it kept us in the ELCA for another decade.

Pastor retired during this period.  By this time, I was all-in on getting the right pastor to lead our church and made that known within the council and general congregational membership.  This led to my interest in serving on our church’s Call Committee. Now I was enthusiastically responding to ‘Here I Am Lord, Send Me!’  I knew that to save our church from the ELCA and lead us on a biblical path, we needed the right pastor.

I was asked to serve on the Call Committee the day after my father passed away. It was a blessing in a time of grief. I was relieved and grateful that I was part of that committee. We went right to work and started developing a questionnaire to ask our congregation what it wanted in a new pastor.

During this process I had an opportunity to attend the Synod Assembly. I left home expecting to be filled with the Holy Spirit while there. I could not have been more wrong. I was fed lectures on white privilege, listened to poems from young black activists about why my whiteness was a problem and why I should ask for forgiveness, The list goes on. Nothing about Christ, nothing about Christianity, nothing except a church manifesting itself as a  political organization and promoting LGBTQ agenda with no regard to sin.

I came back early from the Synod Assembly, reached out to the entire call committee and asked for a special meeting.  “Houston, we have a problem!” echoed in my mind. I put together a synopsis of my trip and all members of the call committee were speechless.  One member said, “Well, I thought I was a liberal but apparently I’m a conservative and didn’t know it.” We contemplated our next steps. Since our congregation asked us to find a pastor, should we go back to them and suggest looking outside of the ELCA?

We felt this was a good course of action but eventually realized that we could not take that path…yet. We focused our search and questions on a path that would lead us to the right pastor…then we prayed…a lot! With God’s help and our listening, we finally found our pastor. But that was the beginning, not the end of our journey. I immediately approached our new pastor (before he was selected) to make sure he was willing to support our plan to leave the ELCA. He said the road would be tough, but we could do it if we wanted. 

When the ELCA announced that it would be a Sanctuary Church, there was a significant amount of publicity that went along with its decision. This worked in our favor because many more members became aware of what the ELCA was doing. Now I didn’t have to find people to talk to and convince them the ELCA was not aligned with our congregation’s beliefs. They started looking for me and saying we need to leave the ELCA.

 I started gathering signatures on a petition. It called for the formation of a Discernment Committee where we could prayerfully determine our church’s path forward. Over 25% of the active congregation members signed it; the council could not refuse our request.

We formed the committee with a mix of members who wanted to stay or leave the ELCA. This was harder than it needed to be because we wanted to hear all voices and concerns.  Pastor led four classes for the congregation which discussed issues within the ELCA and how it had strayed from Luther’s foundational beliefs. These meetings focused on:

These classes informed our congregation that the ELCA had changed. Our patience and plan worked out. Our first vote was 88% and the second was 89% in affirmation to leave the ELCA and become part of the NALC.

It started with Holy Communion.  When people ask me to share my experience with leaving the ELCA, the story begins where questions of church fellowship must always begin: the altar.

Following the churchwide votes of 2009, people started using “impaired communion” more frequently to describe the ELCA’s situation.  I particularly recall David Yeago using it to good effect.  To commune is to share something in common, and what the Church shares is Christ.  Not only the 2009 votes, but also the long trajectory of the ELCA’s doctrinal development, made it clear that differing Christs were confessed in the ELCA.

I remember a dedicated revisionist agreeing with me, already in 2003.  “Yes,” he said, “that would be the classical Lutheran understanding of our situation.”  Communion could not proceed as usual.  I realize that many people, including many conservatives, might disagree with that diagnosis.  But that’s where my experience began: the simple recognition that “impaired communion” impairs Communion.  It is there, at the altar, that impaired communion is either repaired, or it is not.

Our first bishop under this new circumstance didn’t like our perspective, especially when we informed him that we would no longer host the Supper at conference or synodical events, but he did not press us to change.  The second bishop was far less sympathetic.  Here I should pause and note that we’ve already encountered two key points about leaving the ELCA.  Having led two congregations out of the ELCA, and counseled and accompanied several others, I’ve seen these points prove valuable time and again.

First, start by asking what your dissatisfaction with the ELCA has to do with doctrine, if anything at all—determine if you disagree on the fundamental question of “Who do you say that I am?”—and distinguish those concerns from other, lesser ones (like, “We’re willing to bet we can get a pastor faster and cheaper somehow else” [unfavorable odds, honestly]).  Then, if you have a doctrinal disagreement, ask yourself how Jesus repairs that sort of thing.  Is it at the conference table, debating constitutions, or at His table, communing or not communing? 

At the very least, that sort of reflection will help clarify your thought.  Constitutions are works; Communion is grace.  Are your problems with the ELCA work problems or grace problems?  If grace is being misunderstood, then the place to begin the remedy (and, potentially, to begin changes in fellowship) is where grace is clarified.  Trying to address a grace problem through a works solution (i.e., trusting a constitutional rearrangement alone) won’t get at it, ever, because the problem is not disagreement about your works, but about the Lord’s gifts. 

Fumbling this distinction continues to hound the various departure movements, I would suggest.   Holy Communion is where Jesus forgives sins.  So, if we now disagree over what sins He forgives, how He forgives them, or who He even is, then we also disagree about what He does at His altar.  Burying that simple problem under layers of constitutional finesse will not clarify the situation to you or to the people whom you serve—and when I say, “the people whom you serve,” I include representatives of your synod, which brings me to the second point.

One bishop is not like another.  Like you and me, each is his or her own little bundle of insecurities, aspirations, and ideas half finished.  If you think it’s hard to be you, being you as an ELCA bishop would be ten times worse for everyone.  I don’t say so out of any animus towards those who hold the office.  We should sympathize with them.  The office as presently constituted is a nightmare, as if someone had found the corpse of a thirteenth-century bishop of Bangor and used an electrical storm to try combining it with Grok, only to find too much personality remained.  The point is: the bishops need your help.

The bishops and their representatives belong to a much larger organization that tries to solve grace problems with work solutions.  “Synod means walking together,” apparently, and each churchwide assembly tries to lock the step, but the differences only widen because they’re trying to heal a flesh wound with a welding torch.  Still, that’s the solution they have, and so the bishops and their representatives will come to you by way of constitution, not Communion.  If your beef is a grace problem, you will need to help them face it, not for the sake of justice or something like it (you’re a Christian, so there’s no room for revenge here), but for the sake of their own souls.  

They will not appreciate this idea.  It won’t be easy.  I call it “playing catch with someone who won’t throw back.”  Here’s how it went for me:

Bishop: “Well, Steve, thank very much for meeting with us today.  I appreciate that your time is valuable.  Why don’t we begin with you explaining to me what your concerns are?” [this starting point can be a trap, but that’s another article]

Me: [Explains my concerns.]

Bishop: [silence]

Me: [shrugs eyebrows]

Bishop: I’m not going to engage you on that topic right now.

Different words could be used. Sometimes no words would be used. There would simply be a long stare, followed by a deep breath and a change of subject.  At other times, there may be honeyed expressions of sympathy followed by continued denials: “That is not the problem.”  Or as one bishop put it to me, “I don’t accept what you’re saying, because I never learned that.”  He said so years ago, and it’s not a horrible answer in some instances.  But it is rather like being asked to play catch, and in good faith tossing the first pitch, only to watch the other person catch the ball, drop it in a bucket, and look back at you.

They won’t engage you on theology.  They don’t think it’s a grace problem.

So if you have a confessional point you want to make, you will need both to confess the truth and to create a situation in which they slow down long enough to a) hear it and b) consider their own confession in light of it.  At its best, the process of leaving the ELCA is an opportunity for everyone to walk away knowing more clearly who they are and why.  There are some synodical leaders who understand this, and if you should encounter some, you’ll feel the difference and be thankful for it.  Either way, remember that what you’re doing is for their sake, not yours, since you are a Christian.  The goal isn’t for you to win, nor is it only for the congregation to leave, but also for the bishop and their representatives to grow in the faith.  They will not necessarily look at it that way—to many of them, you are the problem, and you will be fixed constitutionally—and so you must help them see it.

You’ll do so by starting with Communion, not the constitution.

With all that said, there is one particular way that the ELCA constitutions perform a strangely gracious function, though I’ve rarely heard anyone acknowledge it.  By including in its governing documents a method for leaving the ELCA, the ELCA acknowledges that leaving its fellowship is both permissible and potentially good.  Constitutions are works and seek to govern works.  By including among their works the ability to leave the ELCA, the ELCA constitutions confess that it’s a potentially good work to do so.  If you are part of a congregation considering leaving the ELCA, please make that point to your congregation: the ELCA believes it’s okay to do this.

You’d be forgiven for not realizing it.  I do know one bishop who acknowledged that leaving can be a good work, and she didn’t even mean it in a passive aggressive way.  The acknowledgement is rare!  But no matter.  It’s there in print, and no church should pass into law something it thinks is inherently sinful.  If it is—if a church thinks that leaving is inherently wrong—then it needs to take the process right off the page.  But if it stays on the page, and so far it has, then every congregation needs to know that even the ELCA thinks this process is a totally okay thing.  Sure, you’ll sin along the way—watch for it; repent of it—but so it goes for every good work.  Abusus non tollit usum: the abuse of a thing does not nullify its use.

Don’t look at the process as your enemy.  It’s a friend if you make it so.  “To the pure all things are pure” (Titus 1:15).  You agreed to that process by virtue of being in the ELCA, so follow it.  That’s part of love.  At the same time, you can always read the process closely.   To create a circumstance where you may press the confessional point and help everyone clarify who they are in the light of grace, you may find unexpected, entirely permissible ways to fulfill and participate in the process outlined.  These unexpected ways will surprise others, but just so, they may create, for the Gospel, a forum. 

The cool kids are now calling that sort of thing “interruptive,” and they make it part of their mission statements.  I’d suggest that you just call it “all in day’s work” and not think very much about it.  It can be done politely and kindly enough, even joyfully, the way you’d perform a Baptism or eat soup at a soup supper (yes, Baptisms are very different from soup-eating, but you doing the Baptism, and you sitting with your congregation and eating the soup, are not).  Other, cooler kids will have even more important things for you to consider than what I’ve written here, but this is what I’ve got: start (and end) with Communion, be prepared to play one-sided catch, work hard to create a situation where they at least catch it, and know that the ELCA totally thinks this is an okay thing to do.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t be on the page. 

 

Editor’s Note: Dan Hetherington is the pastor at St. John Lutheran Church, Columbia, MD.

We have heard many stories from around the country about the problems some have faced in leaving the ELCA.  For us, at St. John, it was rather straight forward; however, a lot of the reasons why go back to leadership of previous years.

For many years, prior to my arrival at St. John, the staff and church council had refused to update their constitution and bylaws and so were operating under a different set of guidelines than most.  This was also before any regimented changes to bylaws from ELCA upper leadership.

The congregation of St. John has always been a ‘mixed bag’ when it comes to members’ political leanings.  For some, political affiliation has always been a leading influence on shaping values and beliefs, yet for others, Scripture has been the overriding authoritative source and norm for life. 

The straw which broke the camel’s back and led to the senior leadership beginning the conversation, and taking what they found to the Council, was what can only be described as movements towards universalism and, more concerning, paganism.

Once this was shared with the council there was deliberation on how this would be received among the congregation and what any fall-out might be.  Before anything was decided upon, we took our time to make sure that our membership roster was up-to-date and that only those who still have a ‘true’ interest in the mission of St. John would have a voice when it came to deciding our future.

Having things lined up, letters were sent to the congregation from the council president and from myself as the senior pastor, stating the requirements for discussing and ultimately voting, as well as sharing the primary concerns.

The bishop and his staff were very good.  He heard our grievance, spent time in speaking with members of the congregation, which brought us to the point whereby we could vote and then enter a process of discerning to which network we moved (either LCMC or NALC).

I have no doubt that the right decision was to leave the ELCA, and although this resulted in some people leaving the church, the major test for us was in our dedication to be who we said we were – and after voting to join with LCMC, keep to the statement of faith to which we agreed to uphold.

Being part of the ELCA had allowed for the church to be many things, and for a lot of our members, that was not Lutheran.  There were difficult discussions which resulted in people walking away over our stated beliefs and some of the practices which now held a stronger place in our worship.

All-in-all although the church membership is greatly depleted, and the active participation in worship even smaller, I believe that we are a mightier body than before.  The strength that I have seen from those who remain has given me great cause for celebration.  We don’t all agree on everything – there is still a divide in political alliance, and with that certain views on what some refer to as political issues and others moral issues.  But we stand together, and we hold the Scriptures as being the sole authority on which all things we decide to do must stand.