Pondering Along the Path: 2013

“Be still, and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress. Psalm 46:10-11 NIV©

The Board is reading a book a pastor suggested to me while I was on sabbatical. Jim_Collins writes mainly for business, but he has other organizations like churches in mind too. As mechanics like to figure out how motors work, Collins likes to figure out how human organizations work. But wait, the church isn't a human organization, is it? After 56 years of life in congregations, exactly half of that time as a pastor, I can assure anyone that the church is a human organization. To be sure, God is at work in it. But God is at work in our whole world, businesses, non-profits, trade unions, even the government! We have much to learn from those who figure out the mechanics of human institutions.

Let’s pop the hood with Collins. He writes about what he calls the "Stockdale Paradox." It's named for Admiral Stockdale, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. When Collins interviewed him, he asked him who survived the experience of being a prisoner of war, and who didn't. Stockdale told him the ones who didn't survive were the optimists. They said "surely we'll be out by Christmas" and when they weren't, they were heartsick. Stockdale's answer was to be brutally honest about the challenges they were facing, but never to stop believing they would prevail in the end. Those things sound contradictory. But sometimes the truth is best told by holding together two things that sound contradictory. (That the truth is often best understood by holding two apparently contradictory things together is at the heart of Lutheran theology!)

For decades, since the boom times after World War II, the traditional denominations in the US have been optimists, waiting for those boom times to come back, filling our Sunday Schools to overflowing again. That optimism has almost killed us off. How about if we try the Stockdale Paradox instead?

Here's the brutal reality: Society has changed, and keeps changing. American society no longer values religious community—that's just an option for those who are "into" church. There is no holy time in the week, no common time of rest, much less a common time for worship. Families are under increasing pressure. Organized sports have gone from an important way to teach teamwork and encourage fitness (both of which we need) to the main way Americans raise our children. America's faith is in sports’ ability to form the character of the next generation. The old-line denominations have made some fundamental errors in trying to pass on the faith, errors we recognize now but that aren’t easy to correct. That’s reality.

Zion is like most congregations in that it's been shrinking and aging for decades. Now, even the very conservative groups that boomed while we were already going bust find fewer people in worship, overall, and some are shrinking fast. As we try to carry into the future what we treasure, the good news of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of a church family, we are going against the stream.

Knowing this, how are we supposed to maintain our faith that we will prevail in the end? "Were they to take our house, goods, honor, child or spouse, though life be wrenched away, they cannot win the day; the kingdom's ours forever." We Lutherans love to sing those words of Martin Luther. Do we believe them? Yes, our God is a mighty fortress.

We're trying some new things this fall, not dreaming that these will magically bring back the boom times of Zion's past, but trying these things in the hope that these will help us move forward into the future God has awaiting us. This is a great congregation, with some wonderful young families, a lot of faithful seniors and a strong sense that God is at work.

Let's live in the Stockdale Paradox. Lutherans ought to be right at home there. These are tough, challenging times to be a congregation. On the other hand, we serve God, for whom nothing is ever too tough.