Major rambling and rabbit trails, open questions, trust, church failures, technology

First, I need to blame the LCMS for keeping me up all night. They have the most amazing Cyclopedia on their website. It all stared when I came across progressive invovements blog, where he discussed Sigmund and Gottfreid Fritschel. That led to a google search, which brought me to their Cyclopedia entry.

Which then turned into a fascinating read of American Lutheran history of the late 1800′s to the early 1900′s. I’m likely to spend hours digging through the cyclopedia. In the past I’ve talked about the election controversy of the 1880′s, but always suspected there was a lot more to it than that.. and yes there was. High church, low church, open questions, eschatology. All sorts of way cool things one can dig into.

And then open questions brought me over to Janice Heidlberger’s blog, where she discusses an article called “The Downside of Worship” which I commented upon, and copied the big issue here.

A guy named George stated

“God is big enough to handle our fear, anger and questions.” But there doesn’t seem to be a forum for these kinds of discussions in the church, he also said.

Why is this… or perhaps in more Lutheran terminoloy, “What does this mean?”

I’ve got some ideas… First, I know it can work outside of church, it works out pretty well online if the proper environment is created.

• I’ve connected with some pastors and seminary students on facebook in a small discussion group, where there is some seriously major big question discussions… Sort of the egads, man am I out of my league here type of questions.
• Along that line BelindaP and I started CFA a tad over a year ago with the same intent, to go after the hardcore questions in a safe environment, and it worked pretty well, Until we had a software crash which I’m still trying to debug.,, Granted, as we state in the preamble. …you will find topics that you don’t see on other Christian sites. Peoples’ exploration of faith is messy, so we allow for that.

But within the church proper, it doesnt seem to work out too well. I think a few things are the problem.

• Many hard core questions can be embarrasing or perhaps a tad too personal, and thats where anonymity online plays a significant factor. Granted I’m not anonymous online, but thats a personal choice I made… the vast majority of folks use psuedonyms or pen names online, and thats ok.
• In the midwest, we have mostly Norwegian or German heritage, and historically correct or not, today, it fosters a lot of independence. There is a lot less community within the church than their really ought to be.
• Many times the church has failed with a bang… how do you create safe environment, when you have ex-members whose confidence has been betrayed a church staffer, or have been abused, etc etc. Perhaps co-leading a large ecumenical ministry gave me a somewhat jaded view, but the heartaches shared by far too many doesnt bode too well for the church proper. At least within the ELCA the ecclesiastical structure’s oversights go a long way in preventing such, but I’m sure it still occurs albeit rarely.

Solutions… well, recovery from church failure is a tough one, and it will take time, and a ton of pastoral care, if a potential member can even get to that point. Community wise, well I think the economic downturn may well force the issue on that one, and mitigate it a lot. Still the hard core issue remains… anonymity in 3D doesnt work too well, and it requires a ton of trust.

George in the article describes himself as a long term church member… if time doesnt do it… People are fallible, as are pastors, yet within the scope of edification, open and hard questions very much fall within the churches domain.

Perhaps there is a blending of tech and church which could work though, the guys over at Grainger Community Church are doing some fascinating work with text messaging. Granted its a mega church with a budget large enough to support some cool tech, but the potential to address this hole in ministry is pretty amazing.