From the Pastor

April 2008

We placed an ad in the local paper advertising our Easter service this year.  It was nothing flashy, just a small ad giving the name of the church, the location, the time of the service, and a small slogan - something about ‘the light that the darkness did not overcome.’  Compared to the work some of you may do, or may have done, to promote your business, it was probably pretty insignificant.  But for me, as the pastor of a small, urban Lutheran congregation in the heart of the city, it was a significant exercise in marketing the congregation to the community.

Now, see right away, there’s a word that makes some of us uncomfortable – marketing.  Should the church engage in something so common, so plebian, as marketing?

The other controversial word that came up while planning this little advert was the word evangelical.  There might be people who see the ad who will want to know, what kind of Lutheran church is this?  We are a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church In Canada (ELCIC), and not a Missouri Synod congregation, for example.  There will be some people who will want to know that we are an ELCIC congregation so that they will know what to expect, or so that they might avoid us.  But, what about those people who don’t know the Lutheran ‘code’ words?  By putting the word evangelical in our ad, we may be sending the wrong message to those who don’t know what we mean by evangelical.  Conversely, there are people who will avoid coming among us simply because that word appears there – they, too, don’t know what we mean by it.

So, you can see, there are many issues that arise whenever the church leaves the comfort of its sanctuary and interacts with the world.  What kind of public face do we want to present to the community?  What is our message to the community – please come to our church, our attendance and offerings are down, or please come to our church; don’t worry, nothing will be asked of you.

I don’t know if the ad ‘worked.’  That is, I don’t know if anyone came to church on Easter Sunday because they saw the ad.  But what if we continue to do this and it does work?  What happens if more and more strangers come to St. Ansgar; people who don’t know the Lutheran system of liturgy (liturgy?!), people who don’t know Jesus from Moses, the New Testament from the Old, a sacrament from a hymn?  How would we welcome them?  What beloved Lutheran traditions do we jettison because they are strange to the rest of the world?  What new things do we adopt in the hopes of appealing to others?

Let’s face it; there was a time when St. Ansgar grew to be a very large congregation primarily because it was the church for Danish Lutheran immigrants or people of Danish Lutheran heritage in the city of Toronto.  When that particular niche all but dried up, St. Ansgar’s Danish character was exchanged for a more generic Lutheran expression.  And, while there will always be people who seek out St. Ansgar because they are Lutherans who have moved to the city, even that niche is drying up.  The new frontier for St. Ansgar’s evangelical outreach is non-Lutheran, maybe even the non-Christian – people who don’t share the common stories, traditions and beliefs we take for granted.

They are the future of St. Ansgar, but if we invite them will we be ready for them?

Peace,
Pastor Brian