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You've got one lens focused
on the biblical narrative and
the other on the community. |
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Bob Hoem, Interim Pastor |
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MINISTRY
SUMMARY |
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Successful consolidation! |
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ReVision facilitator and grant provided by Synod |
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Facilitator and Interim Pastor focused on mission opportunity and
biblical imperative |
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ReVision focused change issues and created energy |
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Church open to ALL and committed to outreach |
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Nearby inmates included in ministry |
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Church seeking pastor who will be in sync with mission mandate |
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Merged for Mission
Click here to read the Full
Story |
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For most pastors who are called to one community,
one church, there's no place like home. But if you're an interim pastor and
soon-to-be-traveling theologian like Bob Hoem, it seems there's no place like someone
else's home. |
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Two years ago this long-time Lutheran pastor stood on the porch of his home
ensconced in a rural neighborhood of Washington state, clicked his ruby slippers and did a
reverse Oz—leaving his own church home to take on the full-time job of pastoring two
other congregations in Aberdeen, Washington. Hoem's mission was to help both churches
transition to a new pastor. What Hoem didn't know was that he would soon be taking on a
considerably more difficult challenge—that of convincing the two congregations that
they needed to merge. And one of them, at least, was not about to go quietly into the
night. |
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Their Synod, the Southwestern Washington ELCA, was reluctant to be in the
position of having to force Trinity Lutheran, the smaller of the two churches, to
give up the ghost—especially since it had been around for longer than most of them
had been alive. Yet even the larger church, Our Savior's, was on the verge of becoming as
obsolete as the honky-tonks and gambling houses that once lined the sawdust-covered
streets of this turn-of-the-century, logging boomtown. But booze and misspent fortunes
could not turn out anything as tough as white-haired Lutheran ladies who, a century later,
were about to be turned out of the only church home they had ever known. Newly installed
interim Pastor Hoem had considerable empathy for their plight. |
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But the reality was that consolidation (the word "merger" is verboten
in ELCA lingo) was inevitable if both churches were to survive. Trinity, the smaller of
the two Lutheran churches, although "swimming in money" according to long-time
member Dr. John Smith, was experiencing "only marginal growth." Our Savior's, on
the other hand, had a larger building, but was facing both a decline in membership and
financial hardship. Combining the strengths of both congregations seemed to make sense.
Still it was hard to face the idea of consolidation, even though the climate for doing so
had warmed considerably since the year before when talk of a merger set off a
mini-revolution. . . THERE'S MORE! |
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Read the full story!
— See how these two historic Aberdeen churches made the shift from trying to
"hang on" to an exciting new vision for their ministry together, and what part
Percept's ReVision and Context played in the process. . . -Jenni Keast |
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© COPYRIGHT 2008 PERCEPT GROUP, INC. |
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GO TO THE STORY ARCHIVE |
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