Will Rogers said, “Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.” Had the Holy Spirit not been poured out on the disciples, Will's words would have applied to them. The Holy Spirit was not about to work apart from moving human voices to carry the Gospel to human ears. I think St Paul's words also fit here when he said, “He who sows sparingly reaps sparingly.” In this seventh ABLAZE segment, I want to talk about one of the specific ABLAZE goals, that of reaching 100 million people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ by 2017.

Ohio District ABLAZE

In this month's ABLAZE segment, I'd like to address those who love our church year. Its schedule of seasons and readings really does help us preachers cover more of the whole council of God. It does create a nice rhythm and flow that rings truer than observing a bunch of other contrived celebrations. It helps us rehearse and re-present to ourselves the whole life of Christ and our place incorporated into that life. But there is a hidden treasure here that I'd like to use to challenge you, and it also has to do with the church year. In the distant past, the Church set aside the season of Lent as a time for catechesis, to prepare catechumens for baptism on Easter. The Church Year drives so much of our ministry, why not let it shape our outreach strategy as well?

This month I'd like to talk about revitalization. If you remember the goals of ABLAZE, you recall that one of them is to revitalize 2000 congregations by 2017. While a number of our congregations have asked to hear a presentation on this process, and while some have already begun the process, I want to draw your attention to a different kind of revitalization that four of our District pastors have been involved in at one time or another in their ministry (and not all of these happened while they were in the Ohio District). When they reached their congregations, these four pastors made a surprising and sad discovery: their congregations were no longer Lutheran. Oh, they were Lutheran in name, but certainly not Lutheran in teaching and practice. In several instances, some lay leaders and members proved to be quite hostile to any suggestion that Lutheran teaching should be reintroduced. Yet, to their credit, these pastors very patiently and lovingly set about to bring those congregations back into something resembling Lutheran congregations. For the most part, they taught and preached from Luther's Small Catechism. In some cases the teaching was received happily; in other cases, life became very difficult and challenging for them, especially when strong objections came or when people packed up and left. But these pastors persevered and with God's help, most saw progress. To their credit, when some laity saw that they were now being taught Lutheran doctrine, they left. They admitted they really did not believe our Lutheran teaching after all. I commend them for that integrity.

(Presented at the NE Circuit Convocation, April 26th, 2008)

In a staff meeting two months ago, we decided to see how many of our congregations were what we might call “at risk” congregations. “At risk” congregations are those that conceivably, could pass out of existence in the next 5-10 years. “At risk” congregations are those who may not be able to afford a full-time pastor and may need to reconfigure how ministry is done there. We stopped counting at about 60 congregations. A bit more than one-third of our total number of congregations! The same percentage that our Synod has set for a national goal for revitalization throughout our church body. Not all of those sixty are at risk for the same reasons. Not all of them are candidates for revitalization.