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RENEWING THE CHURCH - A GUARANTEED STRATEGY
Randy Freund
The last volume of SIMUL featured the life and work of Dr. James Nestingen. He had a heart for the local congregation and cared deeply about its renewal. His way of addressing this volume’s topic would be to ask his standard question, “What best serves the gospel?” This question guides my approach to renewing the local church.
Jim Nestingen
If we begin with the assertion that everything is a theological matter, it follows that renewing the local church is rightly included as a topic for a theological journal. We cannot suspend our theological lens as we think about growth strategies and church renewal programs. The principle of lex orandi lex credenda ought no more be applied to prayer, liturgy and worship than renewal in the local church. But caution must be exercised since strategies and programs for church renewal can teach in error. This therefore requires careful theological work, because what the church is, and how the church is created, is directly connected to “church renewal.”
I say this because in an article like this, the first impulse might be to quickly move to programmatic strategies and methods for renewal in our churches. Some readers may be disappointed to find no programmatic footnotes in an article whose title guarantees a strategy for church renewal. This is not because they do not exist. Many of these strategies are indeed helpful and proven. At best, methods for renewal can be good, helpful and necessary left hand kingdom considerations that ought not be easily dismissed. At worst, they tempt us to suspend theological convictions and turn to our natural tendencies. When we look only to ourselves, or to statistical data and self-proclaimed gurus as the sources of some secret knowledge needed for renewal in our churches, we get ourselves into trouble. This temptation to find a magic bullet can subtlety lead to the abandonment of good theology. Soon we may find ourselves in all kinds of ditches, or worse, deep in the ever-present forms of Gnosticism that continue to invade our churches.
So, our first step in renewing the local church must answer the question, “What is the Church?” Answer: The church “is the assembly of all believers among whom the gospel is preached in its purity and the holy sacraments are administered according to the Gospel.”1 With this matter settled, we can move to the “how” question. “How is the church created?” Answer: the same Spirit who gives the believer faith (not by our own reason or strength) also “calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth and preserves it in union with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. ”2 In short, the church is wherever people are gathered around the Word and the Sacraments. And the same Word that created the universe and creates faith through the power of the Holy Spirit, is the same Word that creates and renews the local church. One either confesses this to be true or one doesn’t. If one doesn’t, there is nothing more to say. If one does, Article VII and Luther’s explanation to the 3rd Article (above) are critical norms for discussion about church renewal.
The Hunger
After 37 years of pastoral ministry in churches of all sizes (with various circumstances and challenges), two things have become clear to me. First, there are always folks with ears to hear the gospel, in fact, they have a deep hunger for the gospel. Second, who they are, how many there are, what they hear and when they hear it, varies greatly. Here the pastor must first rely on the truth of Article VII and the power of the Word to create the church, “the Spirit’s workshop.”3 If not, one can give into all kinds of temptations. The list of these temptations is long, but they often find a home in call committees who imagine that a certain pastoral charisma, age, or experience with youth will renew the congregation. This notion almost universally gives little thought as to the church’s definition or its source of power named above. It is as if we know the theology, but quickly dismiss it to attain desired results. Many small churches today are subsumed by the curse of their small numbers. They are tempted to believe that the Word somehow has a number threshold. I can’t tell you how many small churches I have visited (to preach or teach in) where someone immediately apologizes for their small numbers. Here I often give an analogy. All who enter churches on a Sunday morning are wilted, dead plants in need of water for life. The Word of God is that water which gives life again. It is freely given by Christ alone. Jesus never looks out into a small assembly gathered on a Sunday morning and concludes: “Only 20 plants today? No water then.” But these seemingly small misconceptions can lead to bigger ones that are much more dangerous.
The Deviation
I began with the assertion that everything is a theological matter. If so, it would follow that renewing the local church comes under the category of theology. Many church constitutions read, “We believe, teach, and accept the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the sole authoritative source and norm of our proclamation, faith, and life.”4 But when a church, denomination or association does not take seriously what this actually means, dire consequences ensue — including theological division and conflict between congregational members. Here Luther is helpful: “If you want to become a theologian, you must carefully observe this rule, namely, where the clear Word of God contradicts your understanding, look for some other words that pleases you and say it is the Holy Spirit. After that, you may interpret the words as it seems good to you” (LW vol. 38, p. 297).5 Luther’s humorous “tongue in cheek” comment does not obscure his serious point. The same Word that creates the Church also creates its renewal. When we lose patience or are not satisfied with the results of the Word proclaimed, we will quickly give it our assistance, and we often do this in a way that fits well with cultural trends. But this kind of modification is only the beginning. We then continue to obscure the truth until we reach the point where we don’t even know the truth anymore. But following God’s Word always leads to truth. “If you abide in my word…you will know the truth.”(John 8:31-32). The late Flannery O’Connor once reflected on this as it relates to the demise of Protestantism: “One of the effects of modern liberal Protestantism has been gradually to turn religion into poetry and therapy in order to make truth vaguer and vaguer and more and more relative, so as to banish intellectual distinctions in order to depend on feeling instead of thought, so that gradually we could come to believe that God has no power, that he cannot communicate with us, and cannot reveal himself to us (indeed has not done so), and that faith is our own sweet invention.”6
But perhaps the most dangerous deviation comes from that old, recycled heresy called Gnosticism. The second century Gnostic, Monoimus once put it this way, “Man is a universe originating in himself. He is master of his own fate. Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own and says, ‘My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body.’ Learn the sources of sorrow, joy, love and hate….If you carefully investigate these matters, you will find God within yourself.”7 Whether it is not trusting the Word to accomplish what it intends, relativizing truth, or moving toward full-blown Gnosticism, the temptation to deviate from the Word as the “source and norm for all matters in life and faith” is real and indeed devastating for true church renewal. Here we are dealing with unbelief. In his book, The Spoken Word, Sheldon Tostengard put it this way. “There is a crisis in the church. It is, above all, a crisis of the Word. This crisis of the word is rooted in some form of unbelief. It is a failure to believe that God will come to us as promised, a failure to believe that there will be any saving word from beyond, a failure to believe that the distant God can draw near to us, as near as our hearing (his word). It is a failure to believe in a present God, a God who is at hand. The word crisis is rooted in the failure to believe in Jesus, the One who still wishes to speak a word of love and mercy to us.”8 A crisis of unbelief will not only hurt church renewal, but it also completely undermines it.
Flannery O'Connor
The Numbers
What about growth? What about numbers? How do we measure success? There must be something to say here. Let’s be clear about this. The Lord cares about numbers. Why else would St. Paul want readers to know that after the resurrection the risen Jesus appeared to 500 (1 Corinthians 15:6)? And after Pentecost, Luke is clear that this emerging movement grew by 3000 in one day through baptism into Christ (Acts 2:41). Numbers matter. Growth matters. Yet it is also the case that the biblical witness is clear about other numbers. In the three parables in Luke 15 (lost sheep, coin and son), one is a number that matters to the Lord. And before his suffering and death, Jesus’ congregation numbers 12, but that count quickly moves to 0. Judas betrayed, Peter denied and “they all forsook him and fled (Mark 14:50).” Paul also recognizes that people turn away (2 Timothy 1:15). So it is not that numbers don’t matter. It’s just that we don’t know which ones matter and when. This is because we are not in control of them — but the Spirit is. “The wind blows where it wills” (John 3:8). The question is, “what is the standard for how we measure renewal?” This will shape how we approach it. A false standard gives a false perception of renewal and growth in Christ’s church and leads to bad practice. Yet, we need a standard, and we need a way to measure. We need renewal!
Pentecost
As a first-year pastor in a small rural congregation, I experienced my first Christmas in the parish and learned a valuable lesson. As advertised, the Christmas Eve service was packed. This young preacher was thrilled to deliver that first Christmas Eve sermon to a packed house. What mystified me was the empty sense I felt as I drove home that night. Previous to that night, I was warned by parishioners to lower my expectations for the Christmas Day service. I wouldn’t likely see more than 20. This, along with cleaning up candle wax and crumpled bulletins from the big night before, did not help my attitude. But what I discovered was quite different. At that Christmas Day service, the Spirit was alive and active. The hymns were sung with passion. The hunger for the Word was evident in the eyes of those faithful 20 who gathered. What I learned is that only the Holy Spirit can determine the significance of numbers. Numbers matters to God and are an indication of renewal in the local church. But only God gets to determine the number, as well as how and when those numbers are a sign of renewal.
The Solution
The key to church renewal is hopefully clear at this point. We cannot deviate from what our biblical and confessional principles teach us. They are our guides for renewal. God then provides us discernment as to their meaning. We live with the mystery and in the tension inherent in Christian faith and teaching.
But let us not forget that there are other theological categories that help us think about church renewal, and we also learn some lessons from past mistakes. Let’s start with the mistakes. Here I find James Davison Hunter to be helpful. In this book, To Change the World, Hunter asserts that there must be an “alternative way” for Christian witness as it relates to culture.9 Christians have tried to conquer the culture, accommodate to the culture, or withdraw from the culture. But renewing the church and carrying out the Great Commission cannot be faithfully carried out in these ways. Interestingly enough, Hunter’s “alternative way” is awfully close to Luther’s Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms (although Hunter doesn’t specifically call it that). He names the mystery and tension of how the Christian approaches the culture as ‘antithesis and affirmation.’ We begin by affirming the goodness of creation, including the secular world (our vocations and God’s left-hand kingdom work). Hunter explains that affirmation is the “starting point because the story of life begins with God’s creative initiative and the affirmation it declares on it each moment of creation.” He goes on to say, “affirmation is based on the recognition that culture and culture-making have their own validity before God that is not nullified by the fall.”
James Davison Hunter
Yet, there is an antithesis that Christians recognize is overagainst the culture. Antithesis “means that the church’s own structures and its own engagement with the world must be continually scrutinized.”10 Much could be said at this point on this most helpful offering of what Luther called the “Two Kingdoms.” But suffice it to say that renewal in the local church is a right-hand and left-hand matter. The “right hand” work is the proclamation of the gospel that creates, renews and sustains the church. The “left hand” work asks the biblical question from the famous Good Samaritan parable: “Who is my neighbor?”
There is no template for church renewal because every situation in which the Spirit and the Word actively work are different. Therefore, we must stick to what we know about who God is and what God has promised and where he has promised to be. Luther is quite direct about this. Christ has taught and warned me: ‘Hold on to My Word, pulpit and Sacrament. Where these are you will find Me. Stay there, for you do not need to go running or looking any further. I will never come any nearer to you than where My Gospel, Baptism, and ministry are; through them I come into your heart and talk to you. You silly men, why go running to wood and stone, where no Word of God is preached? Why stare with your eyes wide open at the devil’s signs, as if Christ were somewhere where His Word is not?11 Here Luther emphasizes Christ’s own warning about the power of distractions from the “main thing.” “One thing is necessary” – his holy Word (Luke 10:42).
Renewing the Local Church…a Matter of Vocation
Frederick Buechner once described vocation. He wrote, The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work a) that you most need to do and b) that the world most needs to have done. 12 This is not a bad way for a church to think about its particular call. Callings are therefore contextual because the neighbor to whom one is called to cannot be determined ahead of time. This is why there is no template for church renewal. But there is a sense in which we are called to be alert to what our congregations need to do most and also what the world needs them to do most. One of the reasons Dr. Gerhard Forde was so clear about the importance of left-hand Kingdom work is because it keeps people in readiness to hear the Gospel. It is only the Gospel that can renew and give life. But both kingdoms are a part of God’s creative and dynamic work.
The local church is then free to experiment, to try and err, and then to discover what the congregation needs to do most and the world needs it to do. With this kind of freedom, all things are possible. With solid preaching and teaching in place (right-hand Kingdom), the local church is free to serve the neighbor and the community. And here, the opportunities are endless, as the neighbor is served, gifts are used, people are kept in readiness to hear the Gospel and the local congregation is renewed. For instance, in many churches, there are grandparent programs that partner seasoned saints with young people. Countless churches have started after-school programs that are not designed to recruit new members, but instead are intended to simply to tell the stories of Jesus to those who have never heard them. There are both large and small churches willing to share church staff not as an optional outreach of their congregation’s ministry, but as a vital part of it. There are churches whose people actively volunteer in public schools. I know of one particular youth program that hosts and serves a meal near a local high school. The meal is free and of high quality and a gospel message is shared with whoever gathers. Other churches man food banks, cook community meals, and deliver groceries for the elderly. The list is endless. Indeed, the local church is renewed by answering the calling that lies before it. And it is in this ebb and flow of the right- and left-hand kingdoms that leads the local church into renewal.
Why is this a guaranteed strategy? Because of where it all begins (the Word) and what is promised by it. “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). The same Word that created universe also creates and renews the local church. It is God’s Word and promise.
Pastor Randy Freund serves as Service Coordinator for the Augustana District, LCMC. He has been parish pastor for 36 years, serving congregations in Madison, MN, Marshall, MN, Hutchinson, MN, Fargo, ND and Perham, MN. He currently resides outside of Vining, MN with his wife, Stephanie.
Endnotes:
1Philip Melanchthon, “The Augsburg Confession,” Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), 32.
2Martin Luther, “The Small Catechism,” Book of Concord, 345.
3Gerhard O. Forde and James A. Nestingen, “Free To Be,” (Minneapolis,
Augsburg Publishing House, 1975), 113.
4Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, Constitution, Statement of Faith, Article 2.03, accessed June 26, 2023, https://lcmc.net/lcmcconstitution/278.html
5Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 38 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971), 297.
6Flannery O’Connor, “The Habit of Being.” AZQuotes.com, accessed February 21, 2023, https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1165383)
7Monoimus, The Unity of God and Man (from Hippolytus), accessed February 21, 2023, https://sacred-texts.com/gno/fff/fff31.htm.
8Sheldon Tostengard, The Spoken Word (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 1989), 18.
9James Davison Hunter, To Change the World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 223.
10Ibid., 231, 236.
11Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, “The Sermon on the Mount,” vol. 21, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), 274.
12Frederick Buechner, Listening To Your Life (New York: HarperOne, 1992), 185.
