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.

I once thought that reviewing the catechism with the congregation on a regular basis was pretty boring. I don't think so any more. What pastors know by heart is not always embedded so firmly in the hearts and minds of those we shepherd. A daily barrage of “Christian” radio and TV can muddy our distinctives over time. How pastors re-establish Lutheran teaching varies with each congregation and with each pastor's ability to apply the catechism to today's American version of Christianity.

These pastors could have taken an easier route. They could have rolled with the situation and continued down the path they found. But instead, they took the road less traveled. The saving Gospel of Jesus Christ, minus legalism, minus decision-theology, minus pietism, was restored in all of its comforting beauty and power. Wherever people hear that their sins are forgiven and that through faith in this Christ, a glorious eternity awaits them, a fruitful response comes and the congregation is strengthened.

I am fully aware that other pastors share the same desire to see their congregations revitalized in just that way, too. Restoring a Lutheran identity is a commendable task. But do you have the patience? Do you possess a winsome spirit? Can you be happy with progress sometimes measured in millimeters? If not, instead of revitalization, you may bring even worse discord and division that now has been agitated by a strident personality. It was said of our Lord that “a bruised reed He would not break, a smoldering wick he would not extinguish.” Besides a love for the Truth, an evangelical spirit coupled with a love for your people must be in any pastor who undertakes such an ambitious and praiseworthy revitalization project. Without them, however, the last state of such a congregation may become worse than the first.