Listening to The “Nones”
New England Synod Bishop Jim Hazelwood has spent time listening to the “spiritual but not religious” people who profess no religious affiliation. Otherwise known as the “nones,” these people are often outside the circles of many church leaders. So Hazelwood brought a panel of “nones” to the Synod Assembly this year. From his listening, Hazelwood says these (often) younger people are asking different questions than Lutheran theology usually tries to answer. He writes:
I’m hearing a desire for:
1) Safe, non-judgemental places for people to explore the deeper questions of life, faith, God.
2) The great suspicion of rules, yet the hunger for relationships raises the possibility that people are seeking an authentic community.
3) I also sense a desire for people to clarify their purpose in life. What gives life meaning? How is God connected to that question?
How does your church address these questions? What might you do to engage people of no religious affiliation more deeply?
Watch some of the bishop’s “interview” with the “nones.”
Image Matt Stiles/NPR. Source: Gallup
Being Church in Emerging Culture
The postmodern time is one in which people are skeptical of authority and see themselves as having a global identity, Pastor Jay Gamelin told the 2013 Synod Assembly. We now also live in ambiguous times where there is a tension between reason and mystery, he said.
“Some of the most faithful people I know are physicists, said Gamelin, “because they get what it means to live in theory rather than truth.”
He said what begins to show up and come together in postmodernism is the character of Christ. We don’t just talk about the words Jesus said, book look at how he lived his life. We are actually watching Jesus. Read more 
“What Needs To Die In Your Church?”
In his second Assembly presentation, Jay Gamelin talked about his time in campus ministry at Ohio State University. When he arrived he could tell the Lutheran Campus Center had an identity crisis just by its many names on the sign. He decided to create a “gray space” in which he and the students could explore their struggles. The first year they studied the story of Jacob and for eight weeks put themselves into the story and wrestled with God. They explored what it would mean to not only wrestle with God, but leave limping like Jacob.
“The community eventually changed its name to Jacob’s Porch — because we wrestle with God and… because it’s a liminal space that faces outward,” said Gamelin. Read more
“I Love You. Love, God”
The Bible is a lot like the love messages parents receive from their children, Pastor Keith Anderson of Upper Dublin Lutheran Church says in a new YouTube video. “The Bible can be a messy, complicated, confusing book, but at the heart of the Bible is this message: ‘I love you. Love, God.” Short, direct video messages of inspiration can be easily shared via social media, and are easy for “wired” congregation members to share in their social circles. Read more
What if the kids don’t want our church?
In the Huffington Post, Derek Penwell writes that many young adults don’t want the “treasures” that their parents/grandparents have been accumulating for them. The trend applies to the church as well, he says. He writes that “churches with massive overhead invested in things like church buildings, denominational infrastructures, functional church organizational models…are awakening to the fact that the generations that are supposed to be taking the institutional baton are showing very little interest in grabbing for it.” Read more
“Dinner and B.S.”
Young adults aren’t always motivated to attend Sunday worship, and Gloria Dei, Huntingdon Valley, and Trinity, Fort Washington have found young adults ask for more when offered the chance to gather for a meal and conversation about life and faith. The two congregations, linked through the call of the Rev. Jim Goodyear as youth minister at Gloria Dei and pastor of Trinity, began inviting young people aged 18-30 to “Dinner and B.S.,” an informal meal and conversation Goodyear hosts.
“It’s designed to let young adults without children to get together and talk about life,” Goodyear says. As dinner morphs into “B.S.”, Goodyear says, “I listen for what’s going on in their lives, and bring a faith perspective to it.” Sometimes “B.S.” becomes bible study, and “sometimes it’s just about the B.S. of life,” he says. Read more
“God’s Giving Bin”
What is the “new thing” that you have perceived God doing?
God is calling us to engage our children more in worship.
How are you cooperating with God in this activity?
We introduced God’s giving bin. A bin we have the kids roll through the aisle prior to the children’s sermon collecting donations from our members. Read more
Young Christians Leaving Church…and Rethinking Faith
The alarming church dropout rate for youth leaving high school is less about young people losing their faith and driven by their alienation from church participation and their search to connect faith with the world they live in, according to new research from The Barna Group.
In “You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…And Rethinking Faith”, Barna’s David Kinnaman notes that “most young people with a Christian background are dropping out of conventional church involvement, not losing their faith.” (Read: Five Myths about Young Adult Church Dropouts). His research shows that about 3 in 10 young Christians stay involved with the church through college and young adulthood (although the ELCA has reported lower figures). Read more