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ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

DISCOVERY PROJECT OF HOW LUTHERAN CHURCHES EFFECTIVELY FOSTER A SENSE OF CHURCH BELONGING AMONG MILLENNIALS

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY

BY RUSSEL THOMAS YOAK

ASHLAND, OHIO MARCH 9, 2021

To my wife Kristie who has always supported all my dreams

APPROVAL PAGE

Accepted by the faculty and the final demonstration examining committee of Ashland Theological Seminary, Ashland, Ohio, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Ministry degree.

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Academic Advisor Date

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Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program Date

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this discovery project was to determine how to best foster a sense of belonging among Lutheran Millennials. This was accomplished through the application of a survey to a cross section of Lutheran Millennials including ELCA, NALC, LCMC, LCMS, and non-affiliated Lutheran Millennials.

In doing so it was discovered that Millennials desire to be invited to participate in church via deep interpersonal connection and direct interaction.

This participation includes a strong emphasis on engaging the contemporary culture. However, two distinct population that share millennial characteristics and thought processes were discovered with opposing perspectives on engagement.

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...... vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... ix

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION AND FOUNDATIONS ...... 1

2. BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL

FOUNDATIONS ...... 23

3. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ...... 67

4. DESIGN, PROCEDURE, AND ASSESSMENT ...... 107

5. REPORTING THE RESULTS ...... 121

6. SUMMARY AND REFLECTIONS ...... 145

Appendix

1. PROPOSAL...... 172

2. ASSESSMENT TOOL...... 190

3. PERMISSION PAGE AND COVER LETTER ...... 195

REFERENCES...... 198

TABLES

Table Page

1. Table 1. Goal #4- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward belonging outside of congregational membership...... 121

2. Table 1a. Goal #4 Belonging Outside of Church ...... 122

3. Table 2. Goal #7- To discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship training...... 123

4. Table 2a. Goal #7 Classes, Retreats, and Trainings...... 124

5. Table 3. Goal #5- To discover millennials’ attitude toward belonging as it pertains to Lutheran identity...... 125

6. Table 3a. Goal #5 Lutheran Self-Identification...... 126

7. Table 4. Goal #9- To discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in deepening commitment to a congregation...... 127

8. Table 4a. Goal #9 Motivation...... 128

9. Table 5. Goal #1- To discover how millennials value the concept of belonging.

...... 129

10. Table 5a. Goal #1 Motivation...... 131

11. Table 6. Goal #2- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward traditional congregational membership...... 132

12. Table 6a. Goal #2 Traditional Membership...... 134

vii

13. Table 7. Goal #8- To discover what methods for building a sense of belonging the participants would be most open to ...... 134

14. Table 7a. Goal #2 Congregations Building Belonging...... 136

15. Table 8. Goal #6- To discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes affected individual’s long-term sense of belonging ...... 138

16. Table 8a. Goal #2 Catechism...... 139

17. Table 9. Goal #3- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward informal congregational membership...... 140

18. Table 9a. Goal #3 Informal Membership...... 142

viii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This paper has been made possible by the generosity of the kind people in my life. I would like to thank the following:

To my wife and children who have nurtured and supported me.

To all the campus ministry groups, youth groups, campus ministry administrators, youth pastors, and camp administrators who made the survey possible in the midst of COVID-19.

To the faculty at the ATS, especially Dr. Russell Morton and Dr. Jeffery

Stevenson. Your guidance was instrumental in writing this paper. Thank you sticking with me through this long process.

To JoAnne Shade for all your directions and corrections.

To Dr. Matt Bevere whose words of advice have rung in my ears the whole trip.

To Dr. Dawn Morton who was willing to flex with my journey.

To all those who have taken the survey, online and in person.

To my congregation who have been willing to allow me whatever time I need to do this, in particular council president Mark McKown.

To Doug Pretorious for copious amounts of reading.

Finally, and most importantly to my God and Savior, whose kingdom I work for in all that I do.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION AND PROJECT OVERVIEW

When I was eighteen years old, I did something I had always wanted to do: I spoke at my church’s annual meeting. While this may not be a highly sought-after experience, there was a problem being considered by church leadership that I felt passionately about. I was certain that my voice was the only one that could properly speak to it. The issue at hand was whether or not to install air conditioning in the sanctuary. While the topic I was interested in barely touched on the issue of air conditioning I took the opportunity to speak in order to segue to my concern none the less. I remember rising to speak in opposition to the issue, not because I was opposed to air conditioning, but because I felt that there was a bigger issue at hand that needed our attention. I remember the tension, the nervousness, the passion, and mostly the sense of urgency I felt.

Thirty three years later I can recall the exact words I said: “If we continue to focus on our building, our organ, and our ‘stuff’ instead of the fact that we are absolutely failing to address the problem of my generation leaving the faith, we will only have a museum of church equipment in twenty years, but no church.” I also remember getting a lot of sympathetic nods…and a new air conditioning system.

Five years later I went to seminary with one goal: to figure out how to stem the flow of my generation who are leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church in

America (hereafter referred to as the ELCA). Over the last twenty-three years I have started college campus ministries, served as president of the synodical

1 youth ministries, sat on college campus ministry boards, helped create the

Emerging Leaders Network in the ELCA, worked for the national body of the

ELCA as a mission re-developer in charge of restarting dead congregations, became a certified Natural Church Development coach, and worked as a church planter for the ELCA tasked with starting young adult congregations. Almost every step of my life since that one congregational meeting in 1987 has been pointed at the same goals: to understand why young people have left the church and to stem the tide of their exodus.

The journey culminated this year when, after finishing my long research and study, I reached the shocking conclusion that I no longer belonged in the denomination that gave birth to my faith. I no longer belonged in the denomination I had grown up in, the denomination I was ordained into two decades ago, the denomination I had labored for all those years. As a direct result of my conclusions, in March of 2020 my congregation and I left the ELCA to join another denomination. Even for our congregation, which includes fewer millennials than elderly, the issue of belonging was paramount. After all this time and thought, all my labors boiled down to a single word: belonging.

Purpose Statement and Research Question

Overview

The focus of this discovery project was to assess what the effective foundations of a sense of Christian belonging are among millennial participants which they use to form their Christian identity. The plan had been to use a survey utilizing both an online as well as in-person assessment tool to discover, over a period of six months, the elements that form a millennial’s sense of belonging in the Lutheran church which help individuals form their sense of Christian identity.

This plan had to be modified significantly due to environmental issues which inhibited in-person contact. Instead, the data had to be compiled using an online tool which was distributed around the ELCA, Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (hereafter referred to as the LCMC), Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod

(hereafter referred to as the LCMS), and North American Lutheran Church

(hereafter referred to as the NALC). These on-line responses were supplemented by two in-person interview sessions with groups.

The Lutheran tradition in America is struggling with many factors that affect its success with millennials. The historic means by which Lutherans build a

Christian identity has been intentional catechesis, which is to say, formal religious instruction. This intentional catechesis paired with membership and cultural identity no longer are sufficient to build a sense of identity for young

Lutherans. The data from this assessment points to a need to reconfigure the focus of young adult-oriented disciple making.

Foundations

I began at my current congregation in Shelby, Ohio on January 3rd, 2011.

In the nine and a half years that I have been pastor at this church, I have performed sixteen baptisms, nine weddings, welcomed seventeen new adult members, and confirmed thirty-nine teens who have completed the catechesis process. I have also performed one hundred and eighty-nine funerals. During the period that I have been writing this chapter I have had to modify that number up three times as a result of additional deaths. In one year alone, I performed forty- two funerals. The disparity between those two sets of data is the crux of the problem. One hundred and eighty-eight funerals are not offset by seventeen new adult memberships and sixteen infant baptisms. While my numbers are more pronounced than many of my colleagues, the ratios are consistent in my personal experience.

This is not just a Lutheran problem. A Pew Research Center report found that “fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as ‘atheist’, ‘agnostic’ or ‘nothing in particular’” (Lugo 2012, Pew

Research). The loss of older members is even more difficult when you consider the sharp drop off in church affiliation as generations progress. Lugo states that religious non-affiliation drops off generationally in that “less than one-fifth of people in their 30s (19%), 15% of those in their 40s, 14% of those in their 50s and 10% or less among those 60 and older” consider themselves unaffiliated

(Lugo 2012, Pew Research).

Personal Foundation

From my personal experience the problem we are facing has been addressed programmatically, stylistically, and sociologically, but the long-term solution is not in any of those structures. Programmatically we can look at much of the church growth movement and see an emphasis on programmatic improvements in the excellence of ministries. That is to say, that by improving the functional programs of the church categorically, one will cause church growth.

The popular Natural Church Development strategy of church growth quantified this approach into a series of quality characteristics of church programming excellence which “works on the assumption that the quality of the life of the community can be improved in a way that will lead to a recovery of stimulus of the community’s role in mission and evangelism” (Erwich 2002, 19). If the programs of the church such as inspiring worship services, functional structures, and holistic small groups are excellent then the church will grow (Schwarz 2020,

1). This would seem to point to style and methodology over substance.

The “worship wars” of contemporary versus traditional practices are a good example of a stylistic approach. In many situations this stylistic approach sees “traditional liturgy, doctrine, and preaching as barriers keeping the ‘lost’ from entering the church” (Martin 2018, 13). In like fashion, those who have stood by the traditionalist approach ascribe virtue to the style of previous generations while targeting “worldly” worship style as a source of church loss.

Martin, a Missouri Synod pastor and frequent author of articles in First Things, attributes the LCMS loss of “almost 20 percent of our membership since 2000, in

5 striving to reach the world, we’ve become worldly” (Martin 2018, 12). However, for the more “liberal” branches of the Lutheran tradition style is less important than social consciousness.

Within the ELCA, much of the hope for healthy congregations lies in the production and implementation of social justice measures. As Viviane Thomas-

Breitfeld, former bishop of the South-Central Synod of Wisconsin, ELCA says, “I hear hope in the fundamental teachings of the social statement that acknowledges God’s desire for abundant life for all” (Thomas-Breitfeld 2020, 60).

In his comments, Thomas-Breitfeld is speaking about the document passed by the ELCA as a social justice measure countering sexism. This social statement is one in a long line of other social statements mandated by the ELCA. This ELCA mandate states “This church shall develop social statements … that will guide the life of this church as an institution and inform the conscience of its members in the spirit of Christian liberty” (ELCA 2020).

As a result of my experience and research, I believe the solution lies with neither a program of action, style of organization, nor call to social action, but in a radical reconfiguring of personal identity that comes from a belonging-based ideology. Each of the three other points of view assumes that the church is something we have, and that we oversee its shaping. I believe that a true belonging-based approach assumes that the church is something that has us, which is in charge of shaping us extra nos, or “outside of ourselves”. The biblical foundation to this begins with an extra nos calling.

Biblical Foundation

The Markan calling account of the disciples at work on their fishing vessels, and the commissioning of the disciples to take on the work that belongs to the church, will serve as the biblical foundation. In Mark 1:16-18 and Mark

3:13-15 one can see how individuals very much immersed in a multi-ethnic, complex geopolitical setting can be swept up into the work of the church via a calling that assumes ownership over their time and efforts, not the other way around. As Stein says, “The call of Jesus was not to find fulfillment in what they were already doing, but to a radically new purpose in life” (Stein 2008, 78). In doing so, Jesus puts those who decide to follow him to work for the good of the church. In the third chapter of Mark Jesus makes the early followers into

“disciples” but in doing so effectively obliterates their previous identity. “Jesus

‘made’ (ἐποίησεν) twelve, a verb whose nuances range from simple formation to authoritative appointment” (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 106). In “making, them” Jesus overwrites their purpose with his. As Donahue and Harrington explain, he makes them over to take on the “two responsibilities that he himself has executed: preaching and authority (or ‘power’ ἐξουσία) to cast out demons”

(Donahue and Harrington 2002, 107).

In researching these texts, I found myself having to reconsider entire portions of my personal understanding of what the role of the church actually is.

As a clergyperson who has spent a significant portion of my career working in church planting and replanting, I have had a decidedly ‘attractional’ or ‘seeker- sensitive’ focus. The notion that the church is not so much about making itself

7 attractive enough to draw in believers is directly countered by what this text is saying. We are actually to call people to belong to the life and work of the church without catering to the preferences or social context of the world. Instead, we are to be embraced by, and changed by, the preferences and social context of the incarnated Kingdom of God. As much as this shifted my personal perspective it must be said that historically the Lutheran tradition has been engaged in this same sort of re-making of the called via the process of catechesis enabled through the application of the Small Catechism.

Historical Foundation

Looking at the historical foundations of the idea of radical belonging, the

Lutheran tradition is firmly rooted in Martin Luther’s seminal document, The Small

Catechism (Juerchen 2018, 44). This document was meant to be the foundation defining the life of a believer who belonged to the church and the authority of the church to lay claim to an individual. By this means, “In Luther’s hands the catechism underscores both individual faith and relationship with God, on the one hand, and the responsibility of life as a member of faith, on the other” (Harran

1997, 204). If we look at the long road this document took to arrive in Lutheran hands, we can hear echoes of the current geopolitical realities we face today.

Likewise, looking at our more recent history as Lutherans, we can also see how fractures in the application of the concept of belonging have deeply shaped both the conservative and liberal branches of the Lutheran tradition.

The fracturing and bifurcation of the Lutheran tradition into “conservative” and “liberal” in the United States can be traced back to the tumultuous events in

8 the late 1960s and early 1970s. By examining events at Concordia Seminary, and by extension the LCMS and American Lutheran Church (hereafter referred to as the ALC), we can see how the emergence of Seminex pushed the two bodies, and those who would follow in their wake, in distinctly different directions. The

LCMS was becoming more and more polarized to the conservative side, waging an “insurgent war on the liberals (they called themselves moderates) that was unrelenting, fierce, and remorseless” (Benne 2011, 21). In that same time period, the ALC, the Lutheran Church of America (hereafter referred to as the LCA), and the American Evangelical Lutheran Church’s (hereafter referred to as the AELC) merged into the ELCA which resulted in a leadership of a “battle-hardened, coordinated contingent that saw no enemies to the left, only to the right” (Benne

2011, 21).

As one who has lived in the currents created by these events I had only a cursory awareness of their existence. I was aware of the cultural conflicts and the historical events, but did not see how they all connected to form a single narrative. In all honesty I would have seen the differing directions of the various

Lutheran bodies as disconnected and unrelated. But when seen in a broader context I found myself seeing two bodies, both pushing toward the same goal of remaining relevant, taking drastically different courses as a result of reacting against one another and in response to social pressure.

This leads to the question: is the solution to the failures on both sides to find a way to divorce from the inherent conflict by seeking a higher belonging in something transcendent? While the two diametrically opposed Lutheran forces,

9 both laying claim to Lutheran tradition, took drastically different paths to the same outcome of numerical collapse, this may be in part due to the difficult nature of even discussing the nature of discipleship building in the context of Lutheran theology.

Theological Foundation

When looking at the theological foundations of how belonging factors into the experience of Lutheran discipleship, careful attention needs to be paid to the concepts of justification and sanctification in light of the theology of the cross. In the Lutheran tradition, justification is established not by an act of the believer, but as a product of divine prerogative. Thielicke states, “at no stage in the event of justification do I ever become the subject instead of God” (Thielicke 1966, 222).

Looked at through the lens of the theology of the cross, salvation is enacted for the believer through the agonies of the cross absent the will or action of the believer. Faith is the medium by which the gift is presented to the believer, but even that faith is a gift. This salvation which justifies the believer leads to an engaged relationship with the Holy Spirit which, in turn, leads to sanctifications.

Sanctification cannot be seen in Lutheran terms as a mere progression from good to better to best, because “justification by faith alone rejects all ordinary schemes of progress and renders us simultaneously just and sinners, we have to look at growth and progress in quite a different light” (Forde 1988,

27). As such, a uniquely Lutheran notion of a continuous beginning again must be the foundation of sanctification, but in doing so we must acknowledge that the starting point is at the cross, leading once more to the theology of the cross.

The theology of the cross, which serves as a lens to both the Lutheran perspective on justification and sanctification, does not so much have the sinner grasp the cross in order to be saved, as the cross grasps the sinner in order that the sinner may be redeemed back to a right relationship with God. On the cross

“Jesus aims to free the man from bondage to himself in order that he may be bound to God” (Meilander 2013, 42). As a Lutheran with an interest in theology this is far from the first time I have engaged with the theology of the cross, but this time it had a deeply transformative effect on me. This decidedly Lutheran perspective informs the understanding of what it means to be a disciple in terms of those who have been claimed by the church, not in terms of those who are seeking the church. Again, I found myself rewriting many of my presumptions about the role of the church, and in particular, the role of leadership in a congregational setting. When filtered through the theology of the cross, both justification and sanctification, and indeed the whole of soteriology, shifts focus in such a way that belonging becomes a product gifted and not created. Much of this is mirrored or contradicted in contemporary literature.

Contemporary Literature

The dizzying array of literature written about and by millennials and postmodern Christianity in general is multi-faceted, contradictory, and often difficult to harmonize. When looking at contemporary literature the questions “what are the current models?” and “what are the current practices?” are the key to sorting through the literature. Certain words are frequently returned to by various

11 authors. Two words became the double heartbeat of contemporary literature: relevant and authentic.

Authenticity and relevance are the keystones to the current models of addressing belonging in millennial ministries. The importance of the word

“relevance” cannot be understated. With regard to the postmodern church and its literary focus Menezes states, “most books and conferences treat the idea of relevance as one of the church’s main goals in the world” (Menezes 2016, 124).

Millennials are not just looking for somewhere to belong, they are looking for somewhere to belong that has direct application to their day to day life. They are looking for belonging that is relevant to the world they live in.

In like fashion the word “authentic” fills in the second section of the postmodern discussion on church as it applies to literature dealing with millennials. When millennials consider what it means to belong in a church body, they are not just looking for something that seems to be relevant to their personal experience, they are also looking for something that speaks to them in an

“authentic” voice. According to a Barna report, 49% of millennials polled say that

“being able to ‘feel that I can be myself” (Barna, 2020) is essential to the experience of church. Millennials that are looking for an “authentic” experience that mirrors their individual experience in life. This however does not mean that they are not looking for a transformative experience that takes them outside of their context.

When looking at contemporary practices one begins to see a trend to invert the assumptions of relevance and authenticity. Although literature dealing

12 with the millennial population is saturated in relevant and authentic themes, increasingly authors have begun to build more deeply into this theme. The focus becomes increasingly on what is relevant less to the millennial believer and more on what is relevant to the church for the millennial believer. In Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians Armstrong posits that the authenticity and relevance of the incarnated God supersedes the shallower interpretations of relevance and authenticity in postmodern church life. Armstrong says, “we have forgotten the flabbergasting wonder of an incarnate God – a God who has taken on humanity in Jesus” (Armstrong 2016, 233). Moreover, authors like Armstrong point out that seeking to make the church relevant and authentic to the experience of the millennial believer instead of an authentic and relevant experience of church for the millennial believer runs the risk of introducing postmodern Gnosticism where the knowledge of self, not the knowledge of God, becomes the key to faith. In addressing the return to sacramental practices with millennials Armstrong states that “sacramentalism helped them value creation neither more nor less than it should be – a salutary lesson for our simultaneously gnostic and materialistic world” (Armstrong 2016, 157).

Chapter Three will look at issues belonging, with authenticity and relevance serving as lenses, in three categories: the broad field of study, focused study on Lutheran topics, and key voices in Lutheran millennial discussions.

There are three questions key to beginning the broad field of study of belonging. How do millennials understand belonging in general? What do millennials value in the church? And, how do millennials understand the role of

13 the church? Following the section on broad research, the chapter will take on a focused research into the specific field of Lutheran millennial ministry. Key issues include the role of catechetical work, the role of professional Lutheran clergy, and the difference between social engagement and social assimilation. The final section will focus on key voices speaking about millennial Lutherans and their sense of belonging. As such, Nadia Bolz-Weber’s role as a key voice will serve as a central pivot point to look at issues addressing millennial Lutheran ministry, with Gene Vieth serving as a conservative counterpoint.

Context

In previous generations the assumption was that when young people left the church they would come back when they matured, had children, and settled down. But “Gen-Xers broke this pattern by staying away. This seems to be setting the trend for millennials” (Wendland 2016, 211). Worse than merely losing interest in religion, much research has gone on to propose that “it is not so much that they are hostile to religion, they just don’t care” (Wendland 2016, 211). The rise in those who have no religious preference is not the rise in those who are confused about, or uncertain about their religious affiliation. They simply have no interest at all. Research done within the LCMS found that the worshiping population of their congregations contained between 6.1% and 6.9% millennials despite the fact that millennials make up a statistically much larger portion of the overall community (Kiessling 2018, 25). Globally Lutheranism is thriving, but only in the southern hemisphere. In the West, the traditional home of Lutheranism, the

Lutheran World Federation states that “membership in Western churches is

14 declining significantly. Some have described the state of world Lutheranism in the twentieth century as a tragedy” (Coliver 2018, 10). As the Lutheran tradition in the West shrinks in the light of millennial disinterest, this study has evaluated how churches might find a way back to effective outreach and ministry via belonging with this generation.

Project Goals

The purpose of this project was to discover the effective foundations of the sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church. To do this the project looked at the following goals.

1. To discover how millennials value the concept of belonging.

2. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward traditional congregational

membership.

3. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward informal congregational

membership.

4. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward belonging outside of

congregational membership.

5. To discover millennial’s attitude toward belonging as it pertains to

Lutheran identity.

6. To discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes

affected their long-term sense of belonging.

7. To discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship

training.

8. To discover what methods for building a sense of belonging the

participants would be most open to.

9. To discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in

deepening commitment to a congregation.

Design, Procedure, and Assessment

The research question was: “what are the effective foundations of a sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church?” A discovery project was created to survey millennials who self-identified as

Lutheran to be administered to individuals from the ELCA, LCMC, LCMS, and

NALC. The survey would address each of the nine goals by asking three quantitative questions using a Likert Scale on a one to five scale with one being

“strongly disagree”, two being “disagree”, three being “neutral”, four being

“agree”, and five being “strongly agree.” There would also be a single qualitative question attached to each of the nine project goals. These twenty-seven quantitative questions and nine qualitative questions were designed to assess the most effective means by which a sense of belonging could be fostered.

The means by which the survey would be administered was through in- person survey taking at local congregations, youth camps, young adult groups, youth convocations, and campus ministries. Additional surveys would be administered online via an online survey system like SurveyMonkey or Google

Forms with the goal of having fifty respondents who qualified as millennial

Lutherans. The survey was created and administered to fifty-eight individuals, four of whom disqualified themselves by identifying as “not Lutheran.” A few

16 procedural issues presented themselves over the six months of the planned surveying.

The first major issue that was encountered began during the six-month period of communicating with local congregations for the purpose of setting up times to administer the survey. Repeatedly congregations expressed their willingness to participate but stated that they had no members within the age radius. The prevalence in which congregations had no members within the millennial age range significantly affected the process. At one point, of the nearly forty congregations contacted, nearly twenty-five congregations in the state of

Ohio reported having no viable members in the research range. The focus was then shifted to campus ministries, youth convocations, camps, and youth assemblies.

In February 2020, several campus ministries and congregations with much larger populations like Upper Arlington Lutheran Church (population +5,000) had agreed to set dates in late March and early April for surveys to be administered.

Several Lutheran youth camps and youth events had also indicated a willingness to host me. The day after administering the first of these survey appointments at the Lutheran Campus Ministry at Kent State, the state of Ohio began shutting down social gatherings in response to COVID-19. Within two weeks every single appointment, camp, and youth event had canceled.

Considering the Stay-at-Home Order, the survey focus moved to using

Google Forms to disperse the survey. Congregations who had been willing to host survey events, like Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, agreed to email links

17 to the online survey to their membership. Other congregations agreed to present the link via their Facebook contacts. The Region Nine Campus Ministry director of the ELCA agreed to distribute the survey to college students via campus ministry clergy contacts. The Facebook page for the LCMC was a major source of contacts with clergy from New York to California bringing in completed surveys from within their congregations. Several LCMS Lutheran Campus Ministries also distributed links via email to their student population. Due to the anonymous nature of the survey itself there is no way to know exactly which groups contributed in what number to the total surveys received.

The tabulated and assessed results will be dealt with extensively in

Chapters Four and Five.

Personal Goals

My personal connection to this topic goes back to my earliest remembrances in church and connects deeply with the entire arc of my career as a professional clergyperson. I have searched for answers and correctives for over three decades. This project has brought assumptions I had out into the light and turned them upside down. This project has refined and focused ideas and visions I only could perceive dimly. This project has given direction and impetus to what I hope will be a new personal course for my career. I have deeply answered the personal goals I began the project with. The goals were:

1. I will satisfy my lifelong desire to better understand the exodus of post- moderns from the Lutheran tradition.

2. I will develop a deeper trust of the Holy Spirit as it re-orders the nature of the church.

3. I will order my life to better show the light of Christ to my community as it shifts around us.

As a direct result of the work and study in this project these goals have been achieved in ways that have affected me personally, my congregation, and my overall ministry.

Definition of Terms

Belonging - Nicholas Denysenko points out that the question of belonging has shifted in post-modern discussion in so far as “The Christian paradigm shift from denominational loyalty to generic identification as Christian” (Denysenko

2014, 544). As such belonging is individually defined as a matter of self- identification and not belonging in the traditional, adjudicatory sense.

Catechism – The multi-year process of faith indoctrination pioneered by

Martin Luther in his Small Catechism which Lutherans still use as the foundation for teaching classes to teens who are preparing to make a profession of faith.

Christian Identity – Hefner writes, “In our tradition, we most often emphasize the church as a community of persons. Luther's summary of the third article of the creed, from his Large Catechism, articulates this article of our faith:

‘I believe that there is on earth a little holy flock or community of pure saints under one head, Christ’” (Hefner 1999, 218). As such our Christian identity, in a

Lutheran context, has to do with how we see ourselves in Christian community under Christ.

Emergent Church – Is defined as having a “postmodern foundation and profound critique of established Protestant Christianity” (Burge and Djupe 2016,

5). This postmodern church movement’s critique includes “strong democratic norms, political engagement, liberalism, and antagonism for authority in the pulpit and textual interpretations” (Burge and Djupe 2016, 5).

Lutheran – Denominational bodies that trace their theology back to the

Lutheran reformation, specifically those that hold to the confessions of the Book of Concord including, but not limited to, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in

America (ELCA), The North American Lutheran Church (NALC), Lutheran

Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), and The Lutheran Church - Missouri

Synod (LCMC).

Millennial – According to Pew Research Center “the Millennials are the largest living generation by population size (79.8 million in 2016)” and includes

“those born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium” (Frye 2016, Pew Research: Millennial Household).

Postmodern – Postmodernism “owes its impetus to French philosophical influences” (Smith 2006 ,19) and is often “variously described as a kind of post-

(after) modern condition” (Smith 2006,19). This is typified by an “emerging from one place to another, from one construction of reality to another” (Smith 2006,

17) in which the new reality rejects Cartesian certainties in place of a new epistemology that denies objective truth (Smith 2006, 29).

Seminex- The name of the “Seminary in Exile” that formed as a result of the efforts of the students and faculty of Concordia Seminary walking out in 1974

20 in opposition to the mandate of biblical literalism, which ultimately created a new seminary known as Seminex (Benne 2011, 21).

Simul Justus et Peccator – “Martin Luther’s theological short formula (‘at one the same time saint and a sinner’)” (Kress 1984, 255). Kress suggests that this little statement contains the “whole of Lutheran theology” (Kress 1984. 255) insofar as it identifies the state of a believer as being wholly saved by grace, while yet wholly a sinner.

Theology of the Cross – The theology of the cross is based in the notion that the Gospel witness reveals God’s plan for humanity’s salvation. Preus states, “this revelation is recognized in the suffering and cross of Christ, not in man’s moral activity or the created order” (Preus 2018, 84-5). In this Lutheran theological concept salvation is defined not as a human action but “rather the mercy of God by which he justifies sinners” (Preus 2018, 84).

Plan of the Paper

This project is a discovery project looking deeply into the effective foundations of the sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church by means of a survey. The results of this survey will be assessed based on the foundations set forth in Chapters Two and Three. In

Chapter Two the foundations examined will be biblical, theological, and historical.

In Chapter Three the foundations that can be ascertained by looking at contemporary literature will be assessed. After establishing these foundational grounds Chapter Four will include a detailed description of the method, procedures, and assessment of the discovery project survey. In Chapter Five the

21 results of this project will be presented followed by a chapter in conclusion,

Chapter Six, which will summarize the findings specific to the ministry with

Lutheran Millennials.

CHAPTER TWO

BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS

Bowling may be a sign of the end of western civilization, at least when one bowls alone. In Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone, Putnam traces the cyclical collapse of communal activity by highlighting the puzzling phenomena of people choosing to eschew leagues in favor of simply coming to bowl alone. Putnam lays out a case for the drastic shifts in communal activities in American society from sport, to fraternal organizations, to the decimation of traditional church attendance. In Putnam’s opinion this is not so much a singular occurrence but a deeper connection to a cycle of connection and disconnection. As Putnam says,

“American history carefully examined is a story of ups and downs in civic engagement, not just downs—a story of collapse and of renewal" (Putnam 2001,

25). Putnam posits that our waning social engagement is part of a greater picture of American history in which the weight of social connection must be born not merely by the weak connectors of membership and identification but "What really matters from the point of view of social capital and civic engagement is not merely nominal membership, but active and involved membership" (Putnam

2001, 45). Putnam points strongly to the role that church has played in American political and social behavior saying, ““provide an important incubator for civic skills, civic norms, community interests and civic recruitment” (Putnam 2001, 66-

7). As active and involved membership wanes, so to do those willing to be affiliated with faith at all.

Despite the fact that we live in a society that has access to the most powerful communication technologies in human history, we have seen a shocking spike in the prevalence of social isolation and even more disturbing: isolation from the faith. In the research done by the Pew Report the findings indicate that “fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as ‘atheist’, ‘agnostic’ or ‘nothing in particular’” (Lugo

2012). As one looks back over previous generations the number of non-affiliated people drop generationally: “less than one-fifth of people in their 30s (19%), 15% of those in their 40s, 14% of those in their 50s and 10% or less among those 60 and older” (Lugo 2012).

The church is a very social organization by design, and social trends can help us understand how millennial participants in the Lutheran church develop a sense of belonging. Over the course of this dissertation, we will look at how the biblical witness informs our understanding of belonging in the church itself, consider the Lutheran theological implications of belonging, and investigate how the historical Lutheran approach to belonging has shaped the behavior of the current generation. As in all things the fountainhead of ecclesiastical understanding begins in the scriptures themselves.

Biblical Foundation

As we are increasingly living in a post-Christendom West, the question of how to call people from the non-believing populace to the life of the church is of ever-growing importance. In many senses we are back to the very beginning of the early church, calling uninitiated new believers with no experience in the faith.

Likewise, we must ask how the scriptures inform us as to how the called are introduced into the life of faith. A great failing of many evangelical efforts is the assumption that getting new people through the door is sufficient, when in fact, without a means of introducing, and in fact initiating the newly called to the faith, the door quickly becomes a revolving one, with those entering rapidly exiting.

Once the called are initiated into the faith, we turn to the scriptures to ask how then are they to be integrated into participation in life of the church.

Belonging must be rooted in participation if one is to see the church as a communal structure instead of a collection of individual agents. But, before an individual can do any of the above, they must first receive a call to come in the first place. In the biblical witness we are given keys to how the church engendered belonging among its early converts.

Any social group begins with an offer of invitation, either passively offered or actively offered. Likewise, all belonging in any social group is fostered and given continuity by engaging individuals in the function of the group. For example, an individual becomes a member of the Democratic party by virtue of receiving the passive invitation that the party is welcoming members who share in their progressive viewpoint. That individual participates in and continues their sense of belonging in the group by voting for, campaigning for, labeling themselves publicly, and associating with other Democrats. If at any time the welcome is removed due to incompatibility of perspective, or the participation in the group is removed, then the sense of belonging will wane and dissipate.

Calling and participating are the two key concepts in belonging. In the act of calling, an individual is inserted into a new social paradigm that shifts their sense of self identity. As Lucien Richard says, “Christian identity is the result of a process of socialization. Socialization involves the process of being inserted into a social-cultural environment” (Richard 1984, 9). Furthermore, when one is inserted into this new belonging it is the act of participating in the state of belonging that leads to the” internalization of the society’s self-understanding, self-image, and valuing” (Richard 1984, 9). Mark 1:16-18 and Mark 3:13-15 serve as guides to the process of calling, initiating, and participating. Mark 1 highlights the concepts of calling and responding and Mark 3 the concepts of initiation and participation.

The first text used in this section is Mark 1:16-18 and represents a seminal calling narrative in which individuals who are in the midst of day to day life are called to come and follow Christ. All biblical quotations will be from the New

International Version of the Bible (NIV) unless otherwise noted.

16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him (Mark 1:16-18 NIV).

The second text is Mark 3:13-15 in which Jesus moves the disciples from followers to active agents in the service of the ministry they now share.

13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve that they might be with him and

26 that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons. (Mark 3:13-15)

Between the two passages, Mark sets forth the foundational understanding of how belonging functioned in the early church. It is impossible to even begin to talk about belonging without talking first about entry, as we see in

Mark 1:16-18.

Mark 1:16-18

Unlike the other synoptic Gospels Mark begins with the calling of the disciples. Williamson notes that this encounter is “the first encounter. No prior contact serves to explain the immediacy of the fisherman’s response; no earlier failures cloud its spontaneity” (Williamson 1985, 45).

An argument could be made in the light of other biblical literature for a broader reading of the text in the historical context of Luke and Matthew but, as

Wall says, “Canonical text alone is the medium of divine revelation” (Wall 1992,

31). Mark needs to be allowed to stand on its own, as adding to, or subtracting from the content based on other sources will contradict the notion of allowing the text alone to be the medium of divine revelation. For the purposes of analyzing

Mark 1:16-18, it must be seen as the final form of the revelation intended by God in the Gospel of Mark, which is best seen through the lens of canonical analysis.

As Brevard Childs says, “Canonical analysis focuses its attention on the final form of the text itself. It seeks neither to use the text merely as a source for other information obtained by means of an oblique reading, nor to reconstruct a history of religious development” (Childs 1979, 73). For this reason, stories from the

27 other Gospels that would explain the seemingly sudden relationship with Jesus that the disciples leap into are not part of this discussion. Taking the hard and sharp nature of the Markan calling and softening with the easing into of the relationship found in the other Gospels would violate Mark’s express purpose of introducing immediacy into the relationship.

In Mark the calling of the disciples is more than just an introductory chapter. It is a paradigm for the rest of the book. Williamson points out that,

“Here the two basic foci of entire Gospel stand forth clearly: the presence and word of Jesus on the one hand and response to his call to discipleship on the other” (Williamson 1985, 45). As Jesus’ first act of ministry, the calling of the disciples in Mark 1:16-18 is a seminal event. Collins notes that there are striking similarities between the calling of the disciples and the calling of Elisha by the prophet Elijah with differences that underscore the more immediate and extreme nature of Jesus’ calling (Collins 2007, 157). Jesus encounters the disciples working for their fathers, Elijah encounters Elisha at work for his father. Both calling stories involve the caller, Jesus and Elijah, issuing an immediate summons to come and follow and in each instance the called do come and follow. However, as Collins points out, with regard to the parallels between the calling stories of Mark 1 and 1 Kings 19, “the Markan story is a deliberate intensification of it” (Collins 2007, 157). Where Elisha has to seek permission from his father to follow, the disciples immediately drop what they are doing to answer the calling.

There are three elements to this passage that frame the discussion of calling: real life context, redefinition of purpose, and response. Before evaluating the redefinition of purpose and response, it is essential to look at real life context, as that context gives both the original purpose the disciples were following as well as the nature of what their response was surrendering.

In Mark 1:16 Jesus encounters Simon and Andrew by the Sea of Galilee fishing with cast nets As Williamson says, “the remarkable number of sharp details in this brief story makes it easy to visualize” (Williamson 1985, 44). These details exist to set the calling in a particular context in order that the reader might be drawn into the narrative and “give the reader a sense of participation in the scene” (Williamson 1985, 45). It is in these details that the depth of meaning can be found, beginning with the location,

The phrase, “As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee” (Mark 1:16) is far from an unimportant detail. The economic and political realities of the Sea of

Galilee feature heavily in the gravity of what comes next. The Sea of Galilee, which is often also rendered variously as “‘the sea of Chinnereth’ from the

Hebrew kinnor (lyre-shaped)” (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 73) or the sea of

Tiberius, is an inland lake which Josephus described as sixteen miles long and four and a half miles wide (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 73). In historical documents of the time, Strabo, Pliny, and Josephus all document that the lake was a center for both a dense population as well as a thriving fishing industry

(Donahue and Harrington 2002, 74). Not only was the industry fiscally important to the area, it was also politically important to the ruling elites. The Tetrarchs

Herod Antipas and Phillip both relied on the industry for income (Collins 2007,

159) and special consideration was given to those who fished commercially there. The fact that Zebedee is being presented as an employer with hired hands indicates that he and his family have financially benefited from this position

(Collins 2007, 159).

The lake itself served as a political buffer between “the heavily Hellenized eastern side and the mainly Jewish western cities” (Donahue and Harrington

2002, 74), and as such the maintenance of a strong fishing fleet was both an economic and political necessity. Jesus’ willingness to frequently cross the lake and interact with both political entities signals Mark’s emphasis on the universality of the mission of the disciples as neither Greek nor Jewish but transcending political boundaries (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 74).

Robbins notes that as much as this matches the “itinerant prophetic activity characteristic of Elijah and Elisha” (Robbins 1982, 221) but it also matches the “teaching activity characteristic of wandering preacher-teachers during the Hellenistic period” (Robbins 1982, 221). This would imply that not only is the location driven by the intersection of the Jewish and Hellenistic cultures, but the calling itself represents an intersection of the two. As “the sequence occur in settings featuring Abraham, Moses, and Elijah, but none of the settings calls forth all the steps of the sequence. The closest parallel to Mark 1. 14-20 in

Graeco Roman literature appears to exist in Xenophon’s Memorabilia” (Robbins

1983, 223). This would make Jesus a Jewish Rabbi employing Jewish theology but Helenistic approaches in the bisectional setting of Galilee.

Given the political and economic realities of this setting, the calling of the disciples becomes both a theological event as well as a geo-political one. The beginning of Jesus’ ministry is far from a bucolic gentle beginning in a back- woods location; it is set in the center of the competing social, political, and economic forces of the era. One can hardly fail to draw parallels with the church’s struggle to appeal to older moderns while attempting to cross the lake to appeal to postmodern millennials. Those called in Mark are engaged in the one trade that literally encounters all of the diversity and conflict of the era by traveling around this lake which serves as a hub of shifting geo-political power. Jesus calls people, not outside of the social conflict of the day, but those who are deeply engaged in it.

Generativity is one of the central forces that shape human behavior.

Humans need a reason to be. Humanity seeks purpose. Instead of calling the disciples to discard their fishing purpose, Jesus seeks to redefine their purpose.

Steins says in Mark, “The call of Jesus was not to find fulfillment in what they were already doing, but to a radically new purpose in life” (Stein 2008, 78). Part of that radical call that differed from the historic call of the prophets of antiquity, or of contemporary rabbis was that Jesus was not calling them to come and follow God, God’s law, or the Word of God, but that Jesus was calling them to come and follow him personally (Stein 2008, 78). This is a striking redefinition of both the purpose of the early disciples’ lives, as well as a redefinition of what a religious calling looked like. Schweizer says, “the rabbis would have never conceived of a call so radical as to make clear that being with Jesus was more

31 important than all of God’s commandments” (Schweizer 1970, 49). As such,

Jesus’ call to “follow” was less the call of a prophet to follow and serve the word of God, and more akin to the meaning of “follow” as it might pertain to “declare that one must follow either Baal or Yahweh (1 Kings 18:21)” (Schweizer 1970,

49). This radical redefinition of purpose and methods sets the stage for a radical redefinition of the purpose of the lives of the disciples. Given the contextual forces at play and the radical redefinition of the purpose of the lives of the disciples, any response that did not match the radical nature of the event would have been insufficient. The men who would become disciples had to respond in an equally radical way.

Unlike in our world where switching jobs and choosing second careers are common, the response of the disciples who immediately drop their work and follow Jesus has to be read in the context of the time. James and John’s choice to leave all behind, without any form of planning or warning “would jeopardize their family’s livelihood and risk dissolution of the household: a basic social institution in which ancient Mediterranean economy was embedded” (Black 2011,

70). Their decision to follow was a decision to leave no path back to their old life.

This decision not only places their wellbeing in Jesus’ hands, it also places ultimate authority in Jesus’ hands. Jesus is the one whose authority overreaches the authority of family, industry, and culture.

However, underlying the harshness of the immediacy of the call, was the promise to a more intimate and compassionate experience with God. Jesus’ call came as the call of one who had supreme power, but it also came with an

32 invitation to walk with the God who was present. As McCruden says, “a more concise phrase illustrative of the concepts of "superior power" and "saving nearness" is compassionate presence” (McCruden 2007, 42). Jesus is at once asking them to sacrifice their immediate safety and security while holding out to them the comfort of his actual compassionate presence. The response to Jesus was more than an intellectual assent; it was a radical shift in perspective, but it was also not a singular event.

Certainly, the disciples’ response to Jesus was radical and life changing, but it was not a singular event in their lives so much as it was a continuing reality which was frequently revisited. Jesus’ call was to be with him, and the act of accompanying Jesus and walking after him was fraught with peril. The act of responding was a continuing action. Throughout the rest of the Gospel of Mark

“dramatic tension in the gospel will arise from whether disciples will ‘be with’

Jesus at all stages and whether they will take up their cross as Jesus did”

(Donahue and Harrington 2002, 72). This continuing call narrative will find its fulfillment in the disciples’ willingness to participate actively in Jesus’ ministry, but before they can participate, Jesus first must initiate them.

Mark 3:13-15

Although Mark 16 and Mark 3 both contain commissions to be initiated into and participate in Jesus’ ministry, Mark 3 represents the clearer example of the Markan commission to ministry of the Kingdom of God. Mark 16:9-20 contains the Markan version of the great commission; however, most contemporary scholarship agrees that this passage was a later addition and does

33 not represent the original canonical version of the end of the Gospel of Mark. The

“Longer Ending” of Mark, 16:9-20, was absent from Codex Sinaiticus and Codex

Vaticanus (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 462) and probably represents a later addition.

The third chapter of the Gospel of Mark sets the twelve disciples apart in purpose and authority. In this chapter, “Jesus ‘made’ (ἐποίησεν) twelve, a verb whose nuances range from simple formation to authoritative appointment”

(Donahue and Harrington 2002, 106). In doing so, Jesus initiates them into his ministry, quite literally “making” them into something new, up on a hill. The location also is not incidental, as “‘the hill country’ or ‘the mountain’ (ὄρος) typically designates a place of divine disclosure” (Donahue and Harrington 2002,

106). Jesus is very carefully, and ritually showing that these men who have been called are now more than they were when they answered that call. They are initiated into his ministry in a clear demonstration of a movement of the hand of

God. He initiates them into this ministry and in doing so, offers direct instructions as to how they will carry out this new responsibility in his name, specifically for the purpose of carrying out “two responsibilities that he himself has executed: preaching and authority (or ‘power’ ἐξουσία) to cast out demons” (Donahue and

Harrington 2002, 107).

Budesheim notes that prior to the commissioning of the disciples Jesus’ power “has revolved about the concept of Jesus’ εξουσία or power-full activity with regard to healing” (Budesheim 1971, 199). In fact, he goes on to say that the “miraculous activity serves to legitimize both deed and teaching as well as

34 the figure who is responsible for them” (Budesheim 1971, 202). All of this implying that Jesus’ commissioning of the disciples to be imbued with his power is the means by which their own ministry and preaching will be seen as legitimate. This isn’t a power that they come into by virtue of advanced learning or mystic enlightenment on their own part, but it is given directly to them to carry on the legitimate work being done by Jesus.

It is Jesus who initiates the disciples, as well as Jesus who initiates the action itself, not by choice of the disciples in question. As Schweizer points out,

“this emphasizes that fact that even a beginning of understanding can only be produced by Jesus’ sovereign choice and by his act of loving concern on behalf of his chosen ones” (Schweizer 1970, 81). Indeed, at this point in the narrative a large crowd has willingly begun following Jesus, and just as quickly abandoned him. Many churches see this same dynamic happen when reaching out to millennials who respond and attend but fail to put down lasting roots. In Mark, human logic and wisdom is proving inadequate to the task of comprehending

Jesus’ ministry. Likewise, even Jesus’ choice to take them up on the mountain, where divine revelations happen, and “make” them into the twelve in an act of clear initiation and inclusion, does not produce perfected apostles. Much of the rest of the narrative of Mark deals with their attempts at participating in Jesus’ ministry with varying levels of success.

Of course, more than twelve individuals participate in Jesus’ ministry. The twelve in Mark seem to be less of a core group or a specialized ministry and more emblematic of what Jesus is doing. Donahue and Harrington point out that

“their main function seems to be to symbolize the nature of discipleship”

(Donahue and Harrington 2002, 127). Discipleship in Mark is participation. This participation is for the whole of all believers and not just the twelve. Preaching, confronting evil, and healing “is to be the mission of the twelve and implicitly of all disciples who are with him” (Donahue and Harrington 2002, 127). As such, the implication is that within the church those who follow Jesus are likewise part of the same mission.

Strikingly, it is the choice of Jesus to call the disciples, initiate the disciples, and to integrate the disciples in participating in his ministry. But,this begs the question “God created beings are invited to participate in this divine life.

If this is the case, how do we participate in this aspect of the divine life?” (Peek

2017, 172). Peek would argue that it is the exercise of power itself that matters.

As God shares in God’s power human agents become enabled to share in a greater social critique. Now instead of a narrative where God alone wields power and those who worship God mostly are subject to that power without any of their own, we have a narrative by which humans are imbued with Godly power. In doing so they are also burdened with divine responsibility, and suffering. This is a new perspective on power that is in sharp contrast to the disciple’s expectations. In this exercise of power “Jesus offers his disciples a new ethic of power that stands in contrast to their own expectations concerning power derived both from their local context as well as their place in relation to Imperial Rome”

(Peek 2017, 174). From the point that the disciples begin to share in this power the power begins to shape and redirect them as agents of the Kingdom of God.

Only at the initial point of response to the call do the disciples act as independent agents. The rest is at Jesus’ initiative. In the first and third chapters of the Gospel of Mark Jesus has established his method of creating belonging in his ministry in a direct call, respond, initiate, and participate model that is based solely on the divine prerogative almost to the exclusion of human will. The model is one in which the divine force is acting on the mortal world to co-opt humans into a divine plan. Belonging is a function of responding to the pre-existing divine will, and not in the individual initiative of the respondents. In the Lutheran understanding of salvation, especially its understanding of justification and sanctification we see an echo of this divine primacy in which the will or choice of the individual is subordinate to that of God. In the theological foundations section, the concept of this divine primacy will be addressed.

Theological Foundation

According to Dwight Zscheile, the vice president of innovation and associate professor of congregational mission and leadership at Luther

Seminary, “the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) Office of

Research and Evaluation, the whole denomination will have fewer than 67,000 members in 2050, with fewer than 16,000 in worship on an average Sunday by

2041” (Zscheile 2019, ). As the ELCA is the largest of the Lutheran denomination in North America by a significant factor, the trends established in the denomination are often a macrocosm of the trends being experienced within the smaller Lutheran bodies. Specifically, this trend is most sharply reflected in the faith habits of millennials. Of the myriad of ways that this trend is being

37 addressed with regard to attempting to foster a sense of belonging among millennials, models include issues of social relevance, missional orientation, and worship style.

One aspect sorely neglected is theology, and rather specifically how our unique Lutheran theology both informs our solutions and conversely, how ignorance of it has factored into the difficulty with fostering a sense of belonging among millennials. In this section the Lutheran theologies addressed will be The

Theology of the Cross, Justification, and Sanctification.

In the pursuit of social relevance, many Lutheran have focused their efforts on meeting the social demands of our rapidly changing society, which is exactly the problem. According to Zscheile, “If the point of church is being a social, cultural, or community service organization, people have a lot of other ways of meeting those needs that are far more accessible” (Zscheile 2019).

Instead, Lutheran denominations have neglected what makes them unique, and in doing so “it isn’t clear in many local churches what the church’s theological identity or core story really is and how its practices make a distinct difference in people’s lives” leading to ever more rapid collapse (Zscheile 2019) .

It is worth noting that the model presented in Mark chapters one and three is in direct contradiction to the standard way most Lutheran churches handle their own disciple making traditions and methods. Most Lutherans rely on the initiative of their members and visitors to determine if they want to be a part of the congregation’s ministry absent any direct call. Little personal evangelism is done, and membership via birth and ethnicity is the norm. Most Lutherans rely on their

38 members to choose to volunteer to participate in particular ministries and little is done to initiate members into any level of response without the onus being on the members to make the choice. The Lutheran traditional perspective on belonging is deeply ingrained in the idea of membership as an internal state of being or, as

Mattes says, “The fundamental attitude with respect to religion in the modern world has been to make it a private, interior matter” (Mattes 2012, 143).

This internal state of being is not necessarily an external state of discipleship, indeed “Some historians contend that for Luther discipleship was a superfluous notion” (Mattes 2012, 144). This begs the question: how does the

Lutheran attitudes toward works righteousness make it difficult to address belonging via discipleship? Likewise, how does the Lutheran understanding of justification affect the behavior of adherents? Finally, how does the role of sanctification in the life of a believer, viewed in a Lutheran context, pertains to belonging? All of which lead to the theological foundations of the millennial

Lutheran’s understanding of belonging in the church. Of the three ingrained

Lutheran theological preconceptions, the avoidance of works righteousness certainly has a deep foothold.

Historically Lutheran theology has been averse to the proposition that human works are involved in salvation at all. An aversion to achieving righteousness through work is deeply ingrained in Luther’s works, and those of the Lutheran theologians who followed. Gritsch and Jensen go so far as to posit that the “whole point of the Reformation [which was] that the gospel promise is unconditional; ‘faith’ did not specify a special condition of human fulfillment, it

39 meant the possibility of a life freed from all conditionality of fulfillment” (Gritsch and Jensen 1976, 37). If the singular defining character of the Christian life in the

Lutheran tradition is faith absent of works as a means of fulfilling a salvific condition, the method of which one discusses works at all will be drastically altered.

This makes the progress of a millennial believer from newly introduced to the faith to one deeply integrated into the work of Christ difficult to properly speak of in Lutheran parlance, if one is detailing action, which implies at least fulfillment, if not conditionality. On the question of the role of works in the achievement of salvation, the Lutheran theologian Forde says, “Though such conditional promises are often burdensome and oppressive, they are never the less enticing and comforting in their own way as they give life its structure and seem to grant us a measure of control” (Forde 1988, 18). Forde’s willingness to disregard the idea of work entirely, or worse yet to castigate it as burdensome and oppressive, or at best a source of false control, is common to Lutheran theology.

Even when one inverts the understanding of causality from “works are proof of faith” to “faith must, if it is valid, produce works,” this is largely discounted in much Lutheran theology as leading to works righteousness. Indeed Gritsch and Jensen address this problem when they say that in the case of those who imply that faith, if it is valid, must produce works, “instead, thereby usually proclaim a works-righteousness that makes medieval Catholicism seem a fount of pure grace” (Gritsch and Jensen 1976, 37). If one takes a surface reading of influential Lutheran theologians like Forde, Gritsch, and Jensen, one might

40 misunderstand the aversion to works righteousness as an aversion to works of righteousness at all. If such were the case, it would be drastically difficult to talk about how the church might foster a deeper sense of belonging among millennials, but it would be truer to say that they are actually addressing the idea in a uniquely Lutheran modality.

Theology of the Cross

Lutheran theology that directly addresses the concept of works is not categorized under Pneumatology as many traditions would, but under

Christology. The theological concept of the Theology of the Cross is such that there is little differentiation between Pneumatology and Christology Indeed, there is little differentiation drawn between Christology and most other fields of study in the Lutheran tradition. Scaer points out that, “Not only is Christology the center of the Lutheran theology, but it permeates the substance of the other doctrines”

(Scaer 1989, 167). For Lutherans this results in a bifurcation of freedom and action. As Meilander presents it, “Christian freedom and Christian service are like the double helix of a Christian life, always distinct yet complementary” (Meilander

2013, 42).

To properly understand the Lutheran perspective on the Theology of the

Cross, one must note that the freedom achieved for Christians on the cross is absolute and requires no works beyond faith. This is freedom from fulfilling a set of prescribed works as a means of achieving salvation, however as a direct result of the cross achieving salvation for the believer, the believer is now bound to the cross and what it represents. While works do not merit salvation, salvation merits

41 work. One cannot claim to have salvation if there is no spiritual/ doctrinal and moral/behavioral fruit in their lives. Any view that denies either is skewed.

Otherwise the Parable of the Talents makes no sense. Those servants of the

King who received the talents were expected to do something with them. More than anything else the cross represents service and sacrifice. In this, “Jesus aims to free the man from bondage to himself in order that he may be bound to God”

(Meilander 2013, 42).

This shifts the focus of works from producing righteousness to producing humility, or as Iwand says, “Luther understands works of faith as essentially no different from works of law, except that they are missing the glory that one seeks for oneself in one's own works” (Iwand, 2007. 321). Therefore, the works of a believer are not a source of righteousness, and thus not righteousness based on works,; but the works are a product of imputed righteousness which first flows from the cross to the believer who while still sinner is credited as saint. In this way, Lutherans typically talk about the role of righteous acts in terms of the notion of simul justus et peccator or saint and sinner simultaneously. In Lutheran parlance this is often taken to “to mean that the believer is wholly and entirely saint and (simultaneously) wholly and entirely sinner” (Meilander 2013, 42). As such it is impossible to address the topic of belonging within the church to righteous acts, even in the progress of deepening one’s sense of belonging; however, one can talk about righteous acts as response to the freedom of salvation, and in particular the two sides of salvation: Justification and

Sanctification.

Justification

Lutheran soteriology is dominated by the understanding of the Theology of the Cross which allows for both the freedom expressed in justification as an act committed for humanity absent action, and the bondage that this imposes on the believer by which sanctification progresses in the life of the saved. In the

Lutheran concept of justification, the principal actor is not the saved, but the

Savior. The purpose is not for the saved but is for the sole pleasure of the savior.

God the Son saves humanity to reconcile it to God the Father because it is God the Father’s desire to have humanity reconciled to Him.

As Theilicke says, “at no stage in the event of justification do I ever become the subject instead of God” (Thielicke 1966, 222). Luther intends this understanding of justification, according to Thielicke, as a means of providing an antithesis to the Roman Catholic understanding in which righteousness is a product of moral behavior; instead it is solely a gift and not a result of an action, other than God’s specific actions (Thielicke1966, 222). Part of the reasoning for this is that, as Wicks points out, in Lutheran theology, “a human being does not have a natural endowment for forming a good intention at will” (Wicks 1983, 8).

In our inability to form good intentions at will, humans fall into the category of sinners, or in the dichotomy of simul justus et or “saint and sinner simultaneously”, we are peccator due to our inability to produce virtue at will. As such, we produce sin, which in turn produces separation from God the Father. If we could produce good at will and did so without fail we would be at peace with

God. Human nature does not seek good, so much as it seeks good enough, as

43 temporary good, or marginal good is the best our nature can produce. However,

“our existence, then is characterized by the fact that either we are right with God or we are not. There is no third possibility” (Thielicke 1966, 225), meaning that human capacity is insufficient to produce the righteousness necessary to reconcile us to God. “In the original Lutheran movement, the language of

‘justification’ was the locus of an epochal radicalization of the problematic character of human life” (Gritch and Jensen 1976, 36). That problematic character was born of the fallen nature of humanity, and its unfitness for participating in salvation.

By what means then is a person justified? By grace, through faith we are made justus: saints by no action or act of our own, but we are acted on. But what then is the role of faith, and how is faith not an act? If faith is central to Lutheran soteriology what is its role?

Faith is not an act of relying on one’s own force of will so much as it is a surrender of the same. “Thus, faith in Christ’s promise is the essential pivot of

Christian experience, by which one swings away from reliance on one’s own religious achievement and begins building a new existence” (Wicks 1983, 12). In this new existence we cease denying the will of God expressed on the Cross and allow it to do the work that we cannot. In this we are made right with God, even absent our own perfection. Through this faith we are embraced by a new righteousness, but yet it is not our righteousness, but Christ’s. Our righteousness was flawed and confused, this new righteousness is not ours, but has been gifted to us. In this, the righteousness that we are given is “an alien or foreign

44 righteousness because it is not ours by nature but belongs to another, it is the righteousness that Jesus won for all mankind by his suffering and death on the cross” (Koelpin 2017, 42). This foreign righteousness is not inherent to our nature and requires that the nature and image of God impose itself on us in order for us to practice righteousness. This is the other side to the Lutheran soteriological coin: sanctification.

Sanctification

There can be great difficulty even in the act of talking about sanctification and the role of the work of the believer. Even in this the believer is being worked on, not doing the work. The Lutheran theologian Gerhard Forde says,

“sanctification, if it is even to be spoken of…” (Forde 1988, 13) indicating an ill ease with the idea, and later, “talk about sanctification is dangerous” (Forde

1988, 15). The danger Forde warns of is nothing less than works righteousness, or the idea that by participating in sanctification, a human earns part or all of their salvation by means of righteous behavior.

Discussing how a human participates in the act of sanctification, even in something as mundane as fostering a sense of belonging in the church for millennials, can be problematic. Often the prevailing non-Lutheran perspectives, like those of David Scaer, fail to take the nuances of Lutheran soteriology in account when addressing themes and perspectives on salvation. Scaer points out in his critique of Zondervan’s Five Views on Sanctification that the Lutheran perspective is omitted perhaps because this book on protestant views of sanctification could not properly identify Lutherans as protestant. He goes on to

45 state, “Or perhaps, even better, Lutherans do not have a distinctive contribution to make to the understanding of sanctification so far as other Christians are concerned” (Scaer 1989, 172). Unquestionably this attitude is born of the

Lutheran aversion to the concept of work as it pertains to sanctification in relation to other protestant bodies. Given the history of the Lutheran church, the very notion of participation in the act of salvation by an individual is viewed with skepticism from within Lutheranism and thus often misunderstood or misrepresented from without.

Again, the Lutheran understanding of sanctification and the role that it plays in salvation falls not in terms of ecclesiology, pneumatology, or even principally in soteriology, but in Christology, which then informs and forms soteriology. Forde says, “defining sanctification apart from Christology as goal and content will inevitably lead to a moralizing understanding of justification”

(Forde 1988. 20). If sanctification and justification are to be seen as two sides to the coin of salvation, then both are intrinsically connected to the Theology of the

Cross. As such neither side has its genesis in the action or choices of the one being acted upon, so much as they are acting upon the subject.

There is a fundamental flaw in thinking of justification as something done for us on the cross and sanctification as a work we complete on our own, even with the renewal of mind that comes with justification. Ultimately, thinking in these terms leads to moralizing about sanctification which then becomes a series of actions and expectations. “As soon as sanctification becomes either the goal or the means to attain the goal, it can be qualitatively or quantitatively measured.

This can be nothing other than the reintroduction of the doctrine of works” (Scaer

1989, 166). If we are not to look at sanctification as a series of moralistic expectations what then is the proper lens?

Luther used the word “progression” repeatedly when discussing sanctification (Lindberg 1999, 16). When Lutherans use the word “progression,” it is not in terms of morality, but in terms of faith and grace. As Lindberg writes, “the

Christian life is not a progress from vice to virtue but a continual starting anew by grace” (Lindberg 1999, 16). Indeed one of the things that characterizes the

Lutheran understanding of sanctification is that it is not a linear progression from one state of being to another so much as it is a radial progression that is less about the active choice of the believer being sanctified and more about how God the Holy Spirit is actively renewing the individual who still suffers from the effects of sin. That is to say that “If justification by faith alone rejects all ordinary schemes of progress and renders us simultaneously just and sinners, we have to look at growth and progress in quite a different light” (Forde 1988, 27).

The sinner is not the starting point, and saint is not the conclusion. Both exist simultaneously and the believer lives in both realities. As such there is no set beginning point, and no perceivable end point. The life of a believer is lived in the perpetual state of re-beginning. Progression, or going forward, takes on a different light in so far as “to go forward is nothing other than constantly to begin again” (Theilicke 1966. 226). This perpetual state of beginning is not intended as a discouragement that the believer has had to start over again, as new

47 beginnings have new starting points, so much as to underscore the already accomplished sainthood of the believer.

In this way sanctification is “best defined as the art of getting used to the unconditional justification wrought by the grace of God for Jesus’ sake” (Forde

1988, 13). Ultimately by removing moralism and the expectation of fulfilment from the shoulders of the believer the intent is to restore a right relationship with

God the Father, enabled by God the Holy Spirit, achieved by God the Son. In this way salvation is a complete gift and “under the pressure of the total gift, we might actually begin to love God as God, our God, and to hate sin” (Forde 1988, 29)

If the church is to speak seriously into the twenty-first century, especially in the act of addressing how to foster a sense of church belonging among millennials, we will need to lean heavily on a sound theological understanding.

Fostering a sense of belonging has to extend beyond a call to certain works, and in particular a rejection of those works as central to an individual’s righteousness, lest the Lutheran tradition fall into a post-modern state of works righteousness.

We must be able to foster a sense of belonging rooted in the gifts of justification and sanctification and rightly express both in terms that are both comprehensible and rooted in sound theology. Justification and sanctification both exist without the benefit of human works, but human works are inspired by the gifts. How the

Lutheran tradition expresses the theory of simul justus et peccator, and the particular Lutheran interpretation of the Theology of the Cross will be key to the future. The church may be struggling with this now, but we have a long history of seeking to foster a deeper faith and a greater sense of belonging. Luther and the

48 early Lutheran theologians dealt extensively with these questions which will be addressed in the Historical Foundation.

Historical Foundation

There is an old Lutheran ministry joke that goes a bit like this: Once there was a church that had developed a problem of bats in the bell tower. The property committee tried to kill the bats with poison, but they just came back one week later. A pest control company was hired to trap them, but they just came back one week later. The pastor offered his services and was successful where everyone else had failed. When asked how he accomplished the feat he responded that he merely taught the bats the Small Catechism and confirmed them, and they never returned. The joke is funny, because it is true.

The historical ways of helping young people deepen in their faith and establish a sense of belonging in the church have drastically begun to fail. At no point in Lutheran history has the church been less successful at fostering a sense of belonging among its younger members, even though the Lutheran tradition has a rich history of doing exactly that. The process which the Lutheran tradition currently uses, catechism classes and the service of confirmation, had its origin at the outset of the church. What formed that process and what parallels to today’s troubles can be seen? How have we addressed the changes in society during the late twentieth century and what impact has that had in our ability to engender belonging, in particular in light of our historical approaches?

There are two seminal events in the history of Lutheranism form bookends to the problem of understanding how to engender a sense of belonging among

Millennial Lutherans: catechism and Seminex. In this section we will look at how the cultural shifts bound up in both the creation of the historic Lutheran

Catechism and the creation of Seminex in the modern United States affected the development of contemporary American Lutheranism.

The complex solutions and problems of addressing the involvement of youth in the Lutheran Church which has ultimately led to the problem of how a congregation helps a Millennial feel more connected to church begins with a simple journey as Martin Luther, fresh from his emancipation from the Roman

Catholic Church, takes a tour of Saxony to discover the state of the church which he finds himself leading.

To be fair, the popular image of Luther’s “Church Visitation” of the 1520s being the sole source of the Small Catechism is a simplification of a more complex period in history. The pamphlet and placard that came to be known as

Luther’s Small Catechism was the result of a confluence of three events:

“persistent request for a catechism to cement the teachings of the Reformation” in nearby Saxony, the “Church Visitations undertaken by the reformers in the

1520s,” and finally a raging controversy between Philip Melanchthon and

Johannes Agricola, “two of Luther’s closest co-workers” (Nordling 2007, 5).

Among Lutheran communities, there is a nearly mythic telling of Luther’s

“Church Visitation” where Luther, pilgrim-like, made a tour of Saxony and the surrounding territories to meet the rank and file members of the local congregations only to find them deeply theologically impoverished. The historical truth is more complex and nuanced. Most notably, the visitations were more than

50 just Luther, but also his leadership contemporaries. They were less a pilgrimage on his part, more the reaction to political pressures to address issues raised by local pastors who felt they lacked the resources to help the younger populations of the congregations deepen in their faith and develop a sense of belonging.

Principal among these pastors agitating for assistance was a man named

Nicholas Hausmann. “Hausmann had become the real creator of the visitations.

He strongly recommended them because of the catastrophic conditions in the communities before the Reformation was introduced” (Kandler 2006, 111). Most notably Hausmann felt that the youth lacked a sense of belonging to the newly formed “evangelical church,” the name of the church before it became popularly called “Lutheran.” (Blezard 2018). The previous idea that belonging was cultural and assumed had crumbled as churches ceased to be “Roman Catholic,” and now Hausmann feared that if a suitable means of establishing a new sense of belonging in the new church was not generated, that the youth would simply wander away, or worse, turn to Rome or the Schwarmers. Schwarmer was

Luther’s name for the “fanatics” of his day which included “Evangelical

Spiritualizers, revolutionary Spiritualists, Baptists, and Commemorationalists”

(Williams 1968, 8)

In 1523, Hausmann requested that the “Elector of Saxony initiate a visitation of the churches” (Nordling 2007, 5). His intent was to demonstrate the uneducated nature of the populous and highlight the need for a catechism for the youth as a means of grounding them in the Lutheran theological point of view.

Unfortunately, Frederick the Elector failed to respond to Hausmann’s requests

51 prompting Hausmann to send his request directly to Luther in Wittenberg. For his part, Luther was amenable to the idea but found himself “in the midst of a tumult, indeed a struggle with Satan. That he soon had his hands full, that in fact he was virtually overwhelmed” (Brecht 1990, 61).

As soon as the confines of the Roman Catholic church were released from

Germany, splinter factions of Protestantism, and those falsely claiming to be allied with Luther, threatened to overwhelm the new evangelical church. From within Wittenberg Luther struggled with reforming the practice of the sacraments, both meeting with strong resistance to the distribution of communion as well as equally strong insistence on the part of those siding with the Reformation that the laity must be compelled to receive communion in their hands. “Luther reacted most strongly to the practice of compelling people to take the host in their hands when receiving the Lord’s supper” (Brecht 1990, 60). Likewise, he struggled with the collapse of the monastic orders in Wittenberg, feeling that many of the monks were leaving the order and their community duties for “frivolous reasons” (Brecht

1990, 60). From without, Luther was called on to address the problems of the

Schwarmers: Carlstadt who was an Evangelical Spiritualist, no space the

Anabaptists, and Muntzer a revolutionary Spiritualist who supported the Peasant

Revolt, as well as to address unrest in Bohemia (Brecht 1990, 61).

As Luther proposed some changes to the regulations and practices of the church “there was bound to be someone who believed that all the normal restraints had been abolished” (Nestingen, 2003, 51). For Luther that person was

Andreas Carlstadt. Among the radical reformers, or as Luther would call them,

Schwarmers, Carlstadt’s influence would be of particular difficulty. Unlike the

Anabaptists who held theological differences with Luther, and Muntzer who held political differences with Luther, Carlstadt claimed his perspective was uniquely

Lutheran (Nestingen 2003, 52). While Luther was in hidden exile in Wartburg avoiding execution as a result of a papal bull, Carlstadt was free to co-opt the reformation movement. Although Melanchthon, one of Luther’s co-reformers in

Wittenberg, eventually opposed Carlstadt’s efforts to obliterate any sign of the former Roman Catholic presence, the effort came too late and Melanchthon had already lost ground to the more charismatic Carlstadt. It was, in part, to deliver a series of sermons aimed at discrediting Carlstadt that Luther left the safety of his exile to return to Wittenberg. Eventually Luther’s claim to authority eroded support for Carlstadt who fell from favor, but Luther’s divided time and efforts came at the expense of attention to requests for a teaching resource for the youth.

In response to Hausmann and other’s persistent requests for educational material for young believers, Luther delegated the task to “Justice Jonas and

Johann Agricola to prepare a catechism for children (catechismus puerorum)”

(Nordling 2007, 6). The previous use of the word catechism had dealt almost exclusively with an oral teaching style of question and answer, but here Luther uses it in a novel fashion with regard to a written text. Unfortunately, both Jonas and Agricola would be distracted by other, more pressing matters and never create the catechism. Agricola would later go on to print a conflicting and

53 competing catechism once Luther had been pressed to write his own (Brecht

1990, 270).

As important as the visitations would be, and the resulting small catechism, Luther was reticent to participate. Up to this point, participation in the reformation was voluntary, unregulated, and organic. The visitations were seen as an opportunity to standardize the character of the congregations. Following the Peasant Revolt of 1524-5, the local churches were untrusting of the role of the local princes and the leadership of the evangelical church, resulting in even greater division and unrest (Nordling 2007, 6). Ordinances were proposed by

Philip of Hesse in order to standardize the faith and bring the unruly peasant churches in line with both the orthodox Lutheran view of theology and the legislation of the local princes.

Luther rejected these ordinances believing that “structures should grow organically, and only then should they be made permanent” (Brecht 1990, 259).

Eventually in 1526, Luther joined Hausmann in making the required visitations to the churches, but not for the purpose of imposing a certain order, so much as to ascertain the nature of the state of the church (Nordling 2007, 7). As a direct result of this, Luther assisted in the creation of “The Instructions for Visitation” in which the university in Wittenberg would send out regular visitors with a set of prescribed lessons on church administration, worship, and the instruction of youth (Brecht 1990, 263). These instructions would form the prototype that would eventually become the Small Catechism.

Unfortunately, as a direct result of this, August John Agricola, a former associate of Luther and Luther’s original choice to write the small catechism, came into immediate conflict with one of the university “visitors”, Philip

Melanchton (Brecht 1990, 264). Melanchton and Agricola sharply disagreed on the role of repentance in the life of a believer. Melanlchton argued that Agricola’s view on justification made repentance moot and over emphasized the role of grace, and Agricola felt that Melanchton’s view on repentance as necessary for the salvation of a believer bordered closely on the doctrine of works that they had left the Roman Catholic church over.

As the feud intensified, Frederick the Elector, Prince of Saxony, feared that the divide would threaten the delicate balance of power and lead to further revolts and riots (Brecht 1990, 265). As such, “a consultation about visitation was held in Torgau on 26 to 29 November; it was supposed to put an end to the controversy” (Brecht 1990, 265). However, neither side capitulated even when

Luther proposed a compromise asserting that both theologians had diverged from his position. Eventually Luther would publish “Instructions for the Visitors of

Parish Pastors in Electoral Saxony” on January 3, 1528 as a means of codifying for the local churches the belief system he was proposing in opposition to

Agricola’s continued criticism (Brecht 1990, 266).

At Hausmann’s request Luther also codified a simplistic version of his teachings called “The Small Catechism for Ordinary Pastors and Preachers” which would be printed on a single placard (Brecht 1990, 275). A principal reason for creating this was to counter a similar document contemporarily printed for the

55 same purpose by Agricola. Luther’s Small Catechism would go on to be the foundation of a system of catechetical teaching and to be the central focus of theological training and indoctrination for Lutheran youth which is still in use today. “In language, understandability, and brief format, Luther produced a masterpiece of religious pedagogy, one not matched in his own, nor in any later age” (Brecht 1990, 277).

Ultimately the history of the creation of the Small Catechism is a history of the church trying to define itself in the midst of a cataclysmic set of societal changes with endless competing interpretations of truth. This tool was created for the purpose of establishing an identity and belief system to teach to young adults for the purpose of developing an understanding of belonging in the new, and confusing, Christian body that was at the time called the evangelical church.

Although Luther did not invent the concept of the catechism, he did revolutionize its function. “In Luther’s hands the catechism underscores both individual faith and relationship with God, on the one hand, and the responsibility of life as a member of faith, on the other” (Harran 1997. 204). Throughout the five hundred years of Lutheran tradition that follows, Lutherans have taken those basic teachings as a means of establishing a sense of belonging. As those teachings were forged in the midst of great social, religious, and cultural change they have functioned well as a guide through other tumultuous times . . . until recently.

As we move into the mid-twentieth century social changes and deep cultural shifts begin to not only define the nature of the church, but deeply divide

Lutherans on the way forward. In the midst of this the means by which Lutherans

56 understand their sense of belonging and establish the same begins to crumble.

The prevailing question becomes: “Why in the last two hundred years, and particularly in the last fifty years, have Lutherans not done a better job at the task of the cultural translation of our understanding of the pious Christian life into the world of today” (Kolb 2012)?

One of my most visceral memories of my seminary career has to do with an Old Testament class I took my first year at school. The final project for the class comprised fifty percent of the grade and I received a zero percent on the project causing me to fail the class. My mistake? I openly blamed Seminex for the poor state of biblical criticism in the ELCA, unwittingly to a professor who was a Seminex graduate. My punishment was a failing grade. The message was clear: in the ELCA, Seminex was inviolate. The story of the Lutheran tradition in the mid to late twentieth century can be largely summed up in a single word:

Seminex. Robert Benne sadly describes the outcome of the Seminex event thusly, “so we are left with one Lutheran communion mired in unending conflict over biblical interpretation, and another merged fully into a declining, desiccated

Protestant mainline” (Benne 2011. 21).

How did the Seminex event create the twentieth century dualistic nature of the American Lutheran tradition as either mired in unending conflict or declining and desiccated? What was Seminex supposed to address? How were these two states of the twentieth century Lutheran tradition an attempt to address the fundamental question of transmitting the faith, and thus a sense of belonging in

57 the church to future generations? What did this single event set in motion in the era that preceded the contemporary one?

In the early 1970s the three major Lutheran traditions seemed on course to merge, or at least converge theologically. The American Lutheran Church, the

Lutheran Church in America, and the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod represented an overwhelming majority of all Lutherans in the United States.

Under the leadership of Oliver Harms the slightly more conservative leaning

LCMS was on the brink of joining in pulpit and altar fellowship with the ALC, which was already in fellowship with the LCA (Tietjen, 1990. 5).

In a surprising move at the 1969 biennial convention of the LCMS in

Denver, a convention that then President Oliver Harms had announced the final vote on full fellowship with the ALC (Burkee 2011, 91), Harms found himself ousted by the arch conservative Jacob Preus in a surprise vote. The vote, which

Preus won by a narrow margin of eighty votes (Burkee 2011, 92), was marred by an uncharacteristic political campaign in support of Preus. “Political campaigns for church office were contrary to the tradition of the Synod, yet all the trappings of a political campaign were present in Denver” (Tietjen 1990, 3). The political conflict of the era had found its way into the political life of the LCMS and a groundswell reaction against the increasingly progressive leadership that mirrored the political landscape of America had led to coup. Complaints that the

Seminaries of the LCMS were allowing overly progressive ideas to overshadow orthodox theology led to “hurling heresy charges against the faculty members” of

Concordia Seminary (Tietjen 1990, 4).

Even Preus himself was under fire for not pushing conservative initiatives fast enough. Fred Rutz, an arch conservative firebrand, had been agitating among congregations to withhold contributions to the LCMS until Preus pushed forward with a series of conservative changes. “Contributions to the synodical budget from the local congregations and districts continued to drop between

1969 and 1970” (Burkee 2011, 107). Rutz argued that until Preus pushed forward with his initiatives, God would only “bless [congregations] for withholding funds from the synod budget” (Burkee 2011, 107). Rutz’s argument was at the heart of what was really shaping the narrative of this conflict, namely the belief that as the society around them shifted, the church was increasingly feeling the need to address the rapidly deviating youth culture that no longer aligned with traditional church perspectives. Until the LCMS acted to counteract the growing cultural drift, God would withhold his blessings from the church. As such, the only way to assure that future generations of Lutherans would find a way to experience a sense of belonging in the church would be if the church could chart a radically alternative path. In response, over a short span of four years Preus had moved conservative leaders into nearly all positions of leadership in the LCMS, including the Board of Control of Concordia Seminary, leaving Preus firmly in control

(Tietjen 1990, 161).

The Board of Control of Concordia Seminary attempted to force the

Seminary president Tietjen to accept the biblical principles laid forth by Preus, that the Bible was to be interpreted literally and all historical critical methodology was to be removed, or Tietjen would be suspended. Tietjen refused, saying “I

59 consider it my obligation to continue as president and to continue to exercise my responsibilities. To do otherwise would be to risk a malfeasance in office” (Tiejen,

1990. 166). Tietjen very much represented the other side of the ongoing cultural conflict, feeling that it was his duty as President to be responsive to cultural shifts in order to establish a means by which incoming students could connect to their faith and calling, while still staying connected to their larger cultural context.

Fearing legal action on Tietjen’s part, the Board of Control voted to delay his suspension. The restrictions on theological education, with special regard to the banning of the use of historical critical methodology in exegesis, led to repeated probationary statuses from the Association of Theological Schools

(ATS) (Aleshire 2011, 85). The ATS saw its role as establishing academic standards, not theological ones, and measures to curtail academic investigation into historical-critical exegesis were seen as principally academic. After considerable legal discussions and bylaw reviews, on January 20, 1974, Tietjen writes “the BoC voted 6-to-5 to suspend me. I gathered up my papers and left the room. Shortly before 9:00PM on Sunday, January 20, 1974 the bells in the CS tower began to toll” (Tietjen 1990, 185). The suspension would never be implemented as Tietjen would broker a deal to step down but remain a pastor in the LCMS (Tietjen 1990, 195).

In response, the students of Concordia Seminary, on Monday January 21,

1974 demanded a moratorium on all classes until their grievances could be heard and addressed (Rast 2016, 202). The student body saw Tietjen’s threatened suspension as a direct assault on the younger generation’s

60 participation in the church. The resulting student walkout and cessation of classes shook the LCMS. The following Tuesday the faculty would follow the students into the moratorium, walking out of the classrooms (Rast 2016, 213). As

Benne says, “the insurgent war on the liberals (they called themselves moderates) was unrelenting, fierce, and remorseless” (Benne 2011, 21) resulting in a sharp division between the conservative perspective in the LCMS and the rest of the American Lutheran tradition. In the interim all actions that were seen as “liberal,” including the union with the ALC, were likewise ended. The LCMS had fully embraced the idea that the only way to create a safe environment where Christians, and future Christians could find a sense of belonging in the church was to establish a church that was culturally walled off and separated from the dangers of popular culture.

But, the “liberals” of the student walk-out on the other side were likewise unrelenting in their assumptions that their cause was the only just cause. Neither side was willing to bend or sacrifice any of their principles and there was a certain arrogance to the student stance. “They were arrogant in the sense that they thought they could get away with their biblical, theological, and cultural liberalism without offending a much more conservative constituency” (Benne

2011, 22). The students were convinced that the uneducated rabble of the constituting congregations did not deserve to have an opinion in the course of theological education at Concordia. The purpose of the walkout and the resulting

“seminary in exile” had been to agitate for freedom of theological thought, but the outcome would prove deeply otherwise.

The result was that in the summer of 1974 “the Lutheran Church—

Missouri Synod (LCMS) Convention passed a resolution requiring every pastor to be a biblical literalist” (Bauermeister 2011, 128). The students and faculty in turn considered themselves permanent exiles from the LCMS and formed their own seminary: Seminex. In 1976, Seminex would be granted accreditation by the

Association of Theological Schools (Alshire 2011, 85) where radical theological concepts and hermeneutical methods would become the norm and conservative opinions would be deconstructed as sexist, patriarchal, and racist. The Seminex graduates were a “battle-hardened, coordinated contingent that saw no enemies to the left, only to the right. They had had enough of authoritarian conservatism”

(Benne 2011, 21). These graduates saw the only path for the church in the twentieth century to be one that aligned with the culture in such a way that the two were cooperative, not competitive. In this way the youth generation of the era would have a church that matched their world-view, and thus could foster a sense of belonging with them. The graduates would begin placing in congregations in the ALC and the LCA as clergy, while congregations that supported Seminex would leave the LCMS and form the American Evangelical

Lutheran Church (AELC) (Benne 2011, 22).

During the period between Preus’ election and the 1974 resolution,

Concordia Seminary had become a battleground between moderating forces and conservative forces in direct response to social and cultural pressures as the

American social context shifted. All of this was designed to foster a better church in which the faith could be nurtured, new Christians could be called, and

62 discipleship could be encouraged. The result was Lutheran Church-Missouri

Synod effectively charting a course away from the ALC and the LCA while creating a hotbed of progressive ideas that would eventually lead to deep shifts in the other Lutheran bodies, while the LCMS would deepen into ever more complex biblical interpretive battles isolating it from other denominations, and society itself.

The Seminex graduates and the AELC churches, though few, would have a disproportionate impact on the non-LCMS churches. Even in the absence of the liberal element, the LCMS continued to spiral in a series of unending controversies leading to Benne’s assertion that they were mired in division of biblical interpretation. Benne’s description of the other half of the equation is directly linked to the impact of Seminex.

Over the next few decades, the impact would be felt as the AELC was instrumental in driving the merger between the ALC and the LCA to form the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Benne states that “In addition to the

Seminex faculty, the ex-Missourians provided several revisionist pastors and bishops, one of whom, Stephen Bouman who seems to be set up to become the next presiding bishop” (Benne 2011, 22). Benne was wrong in that Bouman narrowly lost the election but would go on to lead a the EOCM (Evangelical

Outreach, and Congregational Missions Division) a body that oversees all new church plants ensuring that all future ELCA congregations would be built in

Seminex’s image.

During the merger, Seminex leadership was inordinately represented among those who would have a vote in the proceedings, as was their increasingly strident liberal theology. “As one observer put it, inclusiveness was the ‘god term’ of the proceedings, the expression about which all other expressions are ranked as subordinate” (Benne 2011, 22). For their part, the

AELC saw themselves as a small denomination that was at the helm of these two other larger denominations guiding them together. Tietjen himself says, that “the

AELC has served as a yeast for union in the bushel of flour” (Tietjen 1990, 315).

The foundation for the ELCA was firmly built on political and social foundations, in particular liberal ones. As Benne says, “They and the others who created the new church did all they needed to do to insure (sic) that liberal Protestantism was the ELCA's destination” (Benne 2011, 23).

Sadly, that foundation has failed to support a strong and growing church.

“By now we know that the fastest growing religious category in the United States is "none." Where previously Protestants (including Lutherans) comprised a majority of Americans, today we are a culture of religious minorities” (Rast 2016,

215). In conflicting with liberal western society and culture, and turning in on themselves, the LCMS, and those who have since followed it, have left themselves hermit denominations, cut off and isolated from American culture, shrinking and aging out of existence. In embracing liberal western society and culture, and turning to political solutions, the ELCA has become irrelevant in the face of an ever more rapidly shifting popular culture. They also find themselves shrinking and aging out of existence. It is simplistic to blame Seminex for putting

64 all of American Lutheranism on the path to collapse; it is truer to say that

Seminex became the emblem for the social chaos that has led to this point.

Regardless, the history of this event has led us now to the present and what that will bring remains unclear.

In a grander sense the question of what one needs to do as the church to engender a sense of belonging is actually the foundation for the entirety of human and divine interaction. The battles that the Missouri Synod fought, and continue to fight, to establish and maintain biblical and theological orthodoxy is nothing more than the attempt to build a foundation upon which churches can call and enable disciples. The travails of Seminex, and the ripples that have proceeded from it, were nothing more than the attempt to make sense of the calling to follow and belong in contemporary terms. Luther and the whole of the

Reformation was an attempt to rediscover the lost footing on which the people of that day might stand in faith within the Kingdom of God. Luther’s introduction of the catechism and confirmation were aimed at building Christian identity and belonging for a new generation that was growing up in the wake of the split from the Roman Catholic church.

What is justification if not assurance of our belonging in the Kingdom of

God, and what is sanctification but our progress though the Kingdom to a deeper and deeper relationship with God the Father? Theologically some of our deepest thoughts are tied directly to the idea of belonging. These foundational concepts define who we are as Christians, as Protestants, as members of the Lutheran

65 tradition, as believers in the Lutheran Church in America, and as Millennial

Christians. All tie back to the seminal call of Christ.

In Mark, the author opts to skip the birth narrative and move directly to the calling of the disciples. The birth narrative tells us about how God has come to us, but the calling narrative tells us about how God brings us to Him. In calling and enabling the disciples Jesus sets the whole stage for the drama of faith.

Ultimately, our faith is about how we are called, how we are enabled, and how we are sent. In this we find the foundation for our understanding of belonging in

Jesus’ ministry, and in the Kingdom of God entirely.

If belonging in the church is the foundational concept upon which discipleship and faith are built, we live in a world that is rapidly redefining its understanding of that key foundational concept. In the next chapter the literature of our contemporary writers will give an insight into how millennial leaders and thinkers are interpreting, and reinterpreting, belonging along with, and in opposition to society.

CHAPTER THREE

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Karen Ward, a postmodern Lutheran pastoral icon and Abbess of Church of the Apostles in Seattle, comments, “Part of the reason the culture does not find spirituality in the Church is probably because the Church does not find spirituality in the Church, much less spirituality in the culture” (Ashley et al. 2004,

84). The millennial church’s literature is steeped in the key concepts found within that single statement. The hallmarks of the postmodern church include authenticity of spiritual experience, engagement with culture, the fading of the relevance of traditional church, and the rise of the relevance of the emergent church. In short, Ward is saying that the church does not take its role in engaging spiritually seriously enough either with itself or with the culture of the world, and for that reason it is becoming irrelevant. If the Karen Wards of the world are correct, then what has been the historic presence of the church for centuries is about to die, and something new will either rise in its place or the church in the

West will face extinction.

The purpose of this work was to answer the research question, “What are the effective foundations of a sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church?” The foundational core conviction of this project is that the church has a role to play in fostering a sense of belonging among millennial Lutherans, but that this role has not been effectively played.

The rationale is that discovering the effective foundations of that role will be key

67 to the continued health and efficacy of the Lutheran tradition into the twentieth- first century.

Chapter Three will address the broad field of study as it pertains to the place of belonging in postmodern ministry in general. A survey of literature is presented dealing with postmodern ecclesiology and millennial sociology as it pertains to belonging. This initial section focuses on the following questions: How do millennials understand belonging in general? What do millennials value in the church that produces a sense of belonging? And how do millennials understand the function of the church? The key issues addressed will include the historical and social underpinning of the dissolution of an overall experience of belonging among millennials, different way millennials value the idea of Christ apart from scripture as opposed to as a function of scripture itself, and how the church treats sexuality.

This chapter recognizes that postmoderns in general, and millennials in particular, process belonging many different ways from the preceding generations. Deeply seated anxiety about belonging pervades the millennial experience as a result of generations of social change that have disconnected them from historic sources of stability. But the church may take on the burden of providing that stability if we are willing to meet them where they need to be met.

This chapter is based upon Brian McLaren’s assertion that millennials find value in the idea that the salvation of individuals absent a moralistic metanarrative is a shared value with the Lutheran tradition. McLaren’s emphasis on the centrality of Jesus’s role in the gospel and the importance of pointing first to

Christ (McLaren 2010, 2767), then to scripture (McLaren 2010, 3821), also agrees with the Lutheran application, in particular the theology of the cross.

Following the section on broad research, the chapter will take on a focused research into the specific field of Lutheran millennial ministry. Key issues include the role of catechetical work, the role of professional Lutheran clergy, and the difference between social engagement and social assimilation.

The final section will focus on key voices speaking about millennial

Lutherans and their sense of belonging. As such, Nadia Bolz-Weber’s role as a key voice will serve as a central pivot point to look at issues addressing millennial

Lutheran ministry, with Gene Vieth serving as a conservative counterpoint. The two authors will be used to create a dialog between conservative and liberal

Lutheran views. Key issues will include the role of personal relationship-based disciple making as an element to intentional catechesis, the radical inclusion of the human faults as keystone of church leadership in Lutheran millennial ministry, and the ways the church proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ and the witness of the scriptures in a Lutheran voice.

This chapter will also demonstrate how owning our adherence to the gospel spoken in a uniquely Lutheran voice will be a keystone to creating an environment which millennials can thrive in. Finally, the chapter will conclude with looking at applications of the observations from the literature at hand.

Belonging in the Church

There are three questions key to beginning the broad field of study of belonging. How do millennials understand belonging in general? What do

69 millennials value in the church? And, how do millennials understand the role of the church?

Belonging Explored

No topic can be more germane to this paper than the concept of belonging. In Joseph Myer’s books The Search to Belong and Organic

Community: Creating a Place Where People Naturally Connect, the author investigates the sociological underpinnings of belonging (Myers 2003, 1), and in particular the means by which America’s current understanding of belonging was achieved as it pertains to Emergent church life, as Myers specifically “is writing for the Emergent church” (Morton 2009, 191).

Myers states, “belonging happens when you identify with another entity, a person, or organization, or perhaps a species, culture, or ethnic group. Belonging need not be reciprocal” (Myers 2003, 25). Myers looks at how the natural patterns of community and belonging historically grounded in ethnicity and proximity which has degraded into isolation and introversion. Looking at Myers, questions arise: is the historical foundation of belonging connected to the current lack of a sense of belonging in the church, and more importantly, is this a trend that can be fought, or must it be adapted to?

The Historical Context of the Dissolution of Belonging

Myers proposes that as Western culture entered the mid-twentieth century, social and economic factors drove a general sense of belonging out of the common experience of American life. Myers states, “Somewhere along the

70 way we lost our extended families, and our public and social connections could not sustain the community conversation” (Myers 2003, 124).

To begin with, the creation of increasingly controlled and planned communities disconnected individuals from communities. What had been an organic arrangement of housing and settlement became increasingly planned and engineered. Other authors certainly concur with Myers’ assertion. Ford says,

“The profession of city planning emerged out of landscape architecture during the first two decades of the twentieth century and by the 1930s most American cities had a planning department” (Ford 2000, 202). As city planning focused on efficiency and safety, the organic nature of communal living space divided into semi-autonomous homes changed, so that, “gradually, the typical house became more isolated, introverted, and fortress like . . . these trends often resulted in the demise of the gregarious house” (Ford 2000, 204).

A decisive reason for this is that as America left the Great Depression, and later World War Two, economic freedoms led to both a boom of marriages, and a rush to marry earlier. Looking at sociological trends in courtship and marriage, Baily points out that “most strikingly, the average age at marriage plummeted. In 1939, the average age of marriage for women was 23.3. By 1959, fully 47 percent of brides married before they turned nineteen” (Baily 1988, 13).

America had to rush to accommodate the sudden boom in marriages and births, and the subsequent desire for private space for each of these new families.

But, according to Myers, those family units behaved differently than any in history. This was directly tied to a wave of economic freedoms that interrupted

71 the traditional community bonds including fraternal organizations, church participation, and even familial connection. Myers posits that, “we experienced a pervasive disconnect from our traditional family relationships and turned inward to find the answer. We searched for the significance that was once experienced through the family tree” (Myers 2003, 122). This is in direct contradiction to the behavior of previous generation of Lutherans. Looking back at Chapter Two

Luther conceived of his small catechism to be used in a family setting, which he would have considered the most stable of all social

The Role of Space in the Understanding of Belonging

Myers proposes that there are four definable “spaces” that make up the emotional environment which individuals live in: public, social, personal, and intimate (Myers 2003, 20). These are based on the theory of proxemics developed by Edward Hall “for the interrelated observation and theories of man’s use of space” (Hall 1990, 1). Each of these four spaces defines our physical state of being in relation to our proximity to others. Myers proposes that these also apply to our sense of belonging on an emotional spectrum (Myers 2003, 20).

As the century progressed, the erosion of marital structures increased within the context of the fragmentation of organic communities and the disconnection of familial bonds. The stability of the family is built on the stability of the marital bonds, but with soaring divorce rates, and an ever-growing trend to committed but non-marital relationships and non-permanent family structures, that stability faltered. This is a sociological stressor Myers calls “Spatial Phase

Transitioning” (Myers 2003, 104).

Within each of the four spaces there exists a continuum that defines the way one individual belongs to another. When relationships transition, the stressors disturb the individual’s sense of belonging and overall stability. The dissolution of familial structures is a spatial phase transition from “intimate” to

“personal,” “social,” or even “public” and these transitions “can be very confusing; often are tense” (Myers 2003, 104).

These spatial transitions, from public transitions in our shift in community building and planning, social transitions in the loss of community connection, personal transitions in the inward turning focus of daily life, and intimate transitions in the erosion of familial bonds, have exposed a series of generations to unprecedented stresses to belonging overall. The outcome is a society that

“searched for anything to do that would numb the pain, or at least be a distraction from it” (Schieber and Olson 1999, 26). Moreover, Schieber and Olson point out that the indifference to social belonging “is a way for us to mask our anger and frustration about the world we live in. The very institutions and leaders that helped our parents and generations before them are the things we don’t trust”

(Schieber and Olson 1999, 27). Robert Bly compares this rejection of previous institutional structures to society rejecting the vertical relationship of parent to child. He proposes instead that Western culture is structuring society as a flat

“sibling society” in which all share equal portions of authority (Bly 1996, 8). He describes this structure as a “society of half-adults built on technology and affluence” (Bly 1996, 9). The events at Seminex, and later in the formation of the

ELCA certainly reflect this assertion.

Unquestionably, the historical foundation of belonging and the radical transitions it is facing are directly connected to the dissolution of millennial’s sense of belonging in the Lutheran church. But is this a trend that can be fought, or must it be adapted to?

How Spatial Arrangement of Belonging Affects the Church

Myers argues that previous spatial states, especially ones that no longer match the current context, cannot be repristinated, but they can be reconfigured.

In doing so, the church must eschew having grand “Master Plans” and in place of that, “help nurture environments where spontaneous community can emerge”

(Myers 2007, 19). The front porch of a home may never again be the center of social space, but re-creating the experience of social space is key to re- establishing belonging with millennials in the church. Myers states, “It is essential for churches to provide a space that develops front porch experiences” (Myers

2003, 132).

Key to the creation of “front porch spaces” is leaving any assumption of relational content out of consideration. This is a social space that does not carry an expectation of anything more than being social space. There is no master plan; instead, “the contributions of all participants generate ‘energy, ideas and power’” (Myers 2007, 123) to create collaborative schemas. Myers writes, “there cannot be any expectation that the group would, should, or could move from social space into a different relational space” (Myers 2003, 132). Spatial phase transitioning is inherently stressful, and the primary source of environmental stress for a millennial; thus, the church should allow individuals to choose for

74 themselves to move to a higher relational sense of belonging. If millennials are to see themselves in the church it must be on their emotional terms. This points to the question; how do millennials see themselves in the church?

What Millennials Value in the Church

Brian McLaren “is a prominent, controversial voice in the Emerging church movement. He was recognized as one of Time magazine’s ‘25 Most Influential

Evangelicals in America’” (Enacademia 2020). Unquestionably, a discussion on emergent millennial perspectives cannot be had without significant contributions from McLaren. In 2008, Christianity Today pointed to his works, Everything Must

Change and The Secret Message of Jesus, as presenting an ever-clearer perspective on McLaren’s overall theological vision (McKnight 2008, 58). If this is true, then McLaren’s 2010 opus, A New Kind of Christianity, is the fully formed vision. Much of what McLaren has to say is both controversial and debatable, and this paper will address the applicable and theologically inapplicable sections in the final segment of the survey of McLaren.

The Millennial Value of the Love of God

In the book A New Kind of Christianity, McLaren addresses issues key to understanding how millennials find value in the church. First of all, McLaren states emphatically that, “the church exists to form Christlike people, people of

Christlike love” (McLaren 2010, 2767). Certainly, the opinion of Forde from

Chapter Two, as it pertains to sanctification, would concur with the understanding that the formation process is a process that is constantly beginning again into the form of Christ. McLaren however, points out that the church is not successfully

75 fulfilling this task in the lives of millennials, saying that, “our churches are divided, immature, confused about our purpose and identity, in danger of fragmenting into nonexistence, all at once bending over backwards and straddling fences, stiff of neck and soft of spine” (McLaren 2010, 2789). In McLaren’s point of view, the ability of the church to adequately express its message, not only with authenticity but also with gentle confidence and conviction is key, but that message must say something millennials find valuable.

In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren defines this correct point of view as

“orthodoxy,” which in his view is principally a state of pointing to Christ. He states

“The Church has little idea how unorthodox it is at any given moment. If a church can’t yet be perfectly orthodox, it can, with the Holy Spirit’s help and by the grace of God, be perpetually reformable” (McLaren 2005, 34). Millennials value

McLaren’s orthodoxy because in pointing to Christ it points away from human institutions, like knowledge. As one example, the split between the more conservative branches of Lutheranism and the more liberal ones in the early

1970s can be seen as driven principally by both sides holding on to the certainty that their knowledge of the right way to be the kingdom was inherently superior to the other side’s.

For McLaren, one of the principal roadblocks to achieving the state of orthodoxy is the church’s emphasis on knowledge over love. Knowledge takes the forms of doctrine, dogma, and church growth formulas. As churches focus on knowledge over love, McLaren’s experience testifies to the difficulty: “Though I have files full of testimonials from people saved, healed, delivered and blessed

76 through my ministry, without love I’m just a two-bit purveyor of goods and services in the religious-industrial-complex” (McLaren 2010, 2835). McLaren does not entirely dismiss the notion of knowledge and of knowing, but states that it is hierarchically inferior to love.

In earlier works, McLaren had begun to flesh out the idea that there is a message within the message of Christ, a secret message. McLaren states, “What if Jesus’ secret message reveals a secret plan? What if he didn’t come to start a new religion – but rather came to start a political, social, religious, artistic, economic, intellectual, and spiritual revolution that would give birth to a new world?” (McLaren 2007, 4). With regard to St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians

McLaren states, “love and knowledge are not opposed in Paul’s mind: love and so-called knowledge or pseudo-knowledge may be, but for Paul, love seems to be the truest form of knowledge” (McLaren 2010, 2857).

The problem with focusing on knowing more than loving is that in doing so the believer runs the risk of losing track of the true value of the church in the first place. As McLaren says, “You’ve been so focused on sorting and purging your theological theories that you’ve lost track of the spiritual practices that sustain an actual relationship with God” (McLaren 2011, 2). However, if one defines orthodoxy in terms of love over knowledge how does one proceed when the church is called on to offer guidance and correction in matters of controversy and division? In chapter 17 of A New Kind of Christianity, McLaren tackles one issue that seems to stand between millennials finding value in the church or not: sex.

The Millennial Value of Sexual Identity

McLaren coined the term “fundasexuality” to describe the conservative evangelical point of view on sex (McLaren 2010, 2931). This word is a

“neologism that describes a reactive, combative brand of religious fundamentalism that preoccupies itself with sex” (McLaren 2010, 2931). McLaren views this excessively conflict-driven version of Christian moralism as having chosen a certain class of sinful individuals as an earthly stand-in for Satan. He says, “groups can exist without God, but no group can exist without a devil”

(McLaren 2010, 2939). In demonizing non-straight sexual orientation, McLaren believes that the fault lies in several places, but that until the church can overcome its “fundasexuality” it will perpetually stand in the way of millennials finding value in the church.

McLaren posits that the dualistic nature of male and female is a result of embracing a Greco-Roman worldview that makes the wrong assumptions about gender and orientation. Based on psychology, sociology, and genetics, McLaren argues that sexual orientation and gender identity form a complex interplay between interconnected elements that “undermine the platonic dualisms in which maleness and femaleness are two absolute, eternal categories of being”

(McLaren 2010, 2953). He further states, “It becomes clear that whatever we human beings are, we aren’t simply metaphysical male or female souls riding around as passengers in male or female body-vehicles” (McLaren 2010, 2961).

McLaren’s new understanding of sexuality naturally leads to the final key idea in

McLaren’s theology: re-imagining the role of the scriptures.

Next, McLaren critiques the “constitutional reading of the Bible” (McLaren

2010, 2968) as running contrary to observed, subjective experience. He states,

“if a Christian today experiences gay friends, neighbors, colleagues, or relatives as healthy, sincere, and morally equal, she or he must similarly marginalize and discredit this experience” (McLaren 2010, 2976). As such, the believer must contradict the observations of their own lives to stay in synch with the biblical witness. Yet, McLaren notes the church has reversed its opinion in several places including astronomy and biology, eschewing a constitutional reading of the Bible in those instances, and he believes that as the church begins to do so with regard to sexuality, our value with millennials will increase. He sees this already happening today, saying, “some have begun to reduce the vehemence or frequency of their pontifications on the subject, and many have gone silent altogether” (McLaren 2010, 2998). This is all tied to McLaren’s assumption that instead of a static and singular text, the Bible is a dynamic progression that ends with a Gospel within the Gospel.

The Millennial Value of the Gospel Within the Gospel

McLaren says that this is tied to shifting our image of God from an angry and wrathful God to a view of God as is ultimately found in the orthodoxy of pointing to Christ. McLaren states that “Jesus’ identity as the ultimate word of

God” trumps the witness of scripture and that “Jesus represents the zenith of

God’s self-revelation and the climax of a dynamic biblical narrative, rather than

79 simply one article in a flat and static constitution” (McLaren 2010, 3019). These considerations, McLaren says, “have a radical bearing on what the church will be and do” (McLaren 2010, 2037). This is not to say that the scripture and the agency of God in their creation have no place in the millennial church but that it must have a new function.

McLaren does not reject the notion of the agency of God as it pertains to the scriptures themselves. Indeed, McLaren says, “we can back so far away from the ditch of overstating God’s support for our work that we fall into the opposite ditch of minimizing the agency of God altogether” (McLaren 2010, 3821).

McLaren makes an argument for divinity in the creation of the scriptures but asserts that the focus and purpose of the whole of the scriptural witness is to deliver Christ to the believer as an internal gospel to the gospel. The relationship that the millennials value is what really matters for the future of the church, or as he says, “stopping the dropout and declining rates among young people in the church has instrumental value, but our quest must aim higher” (McLaren 2010,

3830).

Critique of McLaren

Although some would agree with much of what McLaren has to say about the radical nature of change that the church is facing, there are several critiques that must be offered in response to his point of view. McLaren’s fixation on understanding salvation in moralistic terms, his emphasis on the secret gospel within the Gospel, and his rejection of biblical law present a series of theological issues.

First, the notion that the ethics and moral character of an individual has anything to do with the nature of a person’s salvation is problematic, It may be a native understanding for McLaren, but as a Lutheran, as stated in the theological foundations in Chapter Two, ethics and morality have nothing to do with salvation. Salvation is by grace through faith, and a person who is gay, lesbian, transgender, etc… may be just as saved by grace as any.

The issue of morality is not an issue of salvation. No moral state can justify a human as “a human being does not have a natural endowment for forming a good intention at will” (Wicks 1983, 8). In the Lutheran perspective faith and faith alone matter, or as Wicks says, “Thus, faith in Christ’s promise is the essential pivot of Christian experience, by which one swings away from reliance on one’s own religious achievement and begins building a new existence” (Wicks

1983, 12). In a later work, McLaren both correctly and incorrectly focusses on the problem of the church addressing sin as an issue with regard to the church’s overemphasis on sin and original sin: “Instead of being God’s big message of saving love for the whole world, the gospel became a little bit of secret information on how to solve the pesky legal problem of original sin” (McLaren

2012, 186). McLaren’s criticism of Evangelicalism’s fixation on moralistic conditions with regard to salvation certainly agrees with the traditional Lutheran perspective on salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. But his complete rejection of the authority of scripture to speak morally is a step too far.

This is partially due to the fact that McLaren seems to be rejecting the meta-narrative of scripture as hostile to millennial values based on his perception

81 that the biblical metanarrative is the source of secular abuses like racism, sexism, and homophobia. In contrast, Baukham points out “the Christian metanarrative, the story the Bible tells, with (among other characteristics) its special understanding of the relationship between the particular and the universal could be seen as an alternative to various secular metanarratives” (Bauckham

2005, 88).

The issue of morality is an issue of discipleship. If, as Lutherans understand, salvation and morality are divorced, then there is still a call to proclaim a certain moral truth, not despite a person’s status as saved, but because of it. Indeed, what more loving an action can the church take but to call a saved brother or sister back from the precipice of sin’s deadly nature?

Finally, Lutheran theology would agree with McLaren’s point that one cannot read scripture constitutionally, but that Jesus has to be seen as the defining norm in scripture. The notion that societal norms should be allowed to redefine biblical norms is not in line with Lutheran theology. In his critique of

McLaren, Burk writes, “If Scripture is the norm that is not normed by any other norm, then we cannot set homosexuality aside as an issue of moral indifference”

(Burk 2010, 219).

McLaren’s stance that truth is conditional, and that biblical law cannot be applied to contemporary settings seems to imply an anti-biblical law. Within the

Lutheran theological context, Lutherans are “opposed to the abolition of the law in the Church – anti-nomos being Luther’s derogatory appellation for this neo-

Marcionism” (Lazareth 2002, 19). Antinomianism is heresy that rejects that the

“post-Easter ‘command of grace’ (Gerbot) both precedes and succeeds the interim soteriological dialectic of God’s judging and preserving law (Gusetz)”

(Lazareth 2002, 20). By this the author means that while the post-Easter

‘command of grace’ allows for the salvation of those of faith absent action, it does not excuse the believer from moral obligation based on scripture.

Within the context of Lutheran theology, McLaren’s need to divorce morality from both salvation and discipleship seems to be laden with works righteousness. His rejection of moral teaching for the saved sinner after salvation dances perilously close to antinomian heresy. Finally, his assertion that there is a hidden gospel within the gospel, accessible to those who understand the secret, crosses the line fully into Gnosticism.

With all of that said, the unique Lutheran perspective on salvation places us firmly in McLaren’s understanding that millennials find value in the church when the church presents salvation absent a moralistic meta-narrative, which matches with the Lutheran theological values. McLaren’s emphasis on the centrality of Jesus’s role in the gospel and the importance to pointing first to

Christ and then to scripture, also agrees with the Lutheran application. If millennials value the church based on a grace-based salvation, a rejection of moralism, and an emphasis on pointing to Christ, then the points of difference with the specifics of McLaren’s theology do not invalidate his insights. If our

Lutheran underpinning of value match with millennial understanding of value, then the source of the current problems may be practice, not theory. To further

83 investigate the broad research questions, the issue of “how do millennials understand the function of the church?” must be addressed.

How Millennials Understand the Function of the Church

As Christians in the year 2020 shelter in place and avoid the COVID-19 virus, churches are embracing the notion that they are more than merely a building or even a geographically centered group of people. The question of what function does the church serve has been sharply brought into focus. Millennials perceive the role of the church in three specific ways: realized eschatological presence, authentic voice, and engine of change.

Realized Eschatology

Writing about McLaren’s book Everything Must Change Fitch and

Holsclaw ask: “should the title of the book be Everything Must Change! (a command) or should it be Everything Has Already Changed (a description)”

(Fitch and Holsclaw 2013, 1123)? The authors are alluding to the idea that

McLaren assumes that the church is a static thing that can be perceived on a material plane, whereas Fitch and Holsclaw posit that the church must be understood as a realized eschatological presence doing God’s work. As they authors say, “We must swing radically from a distant God who isn’t doing much in the world, to the mission of God that we must do” (Fitch and Holsclaw 2013,

1130). To be fair, McLaren also points likewise to a reinterpretation of eschatology as he says, “This is why I believe that many of our current eschatologies, intoxicated by dubious interpretations of John’s Apocalypse are not only ignorant and wrong, but dangerous and immoral” (McLaren 2009, 144).

Fitch and Holsclaw point to a two-sided perception of the role of the church in previous generations as swinging from God as either a distant figure to be attained only in death, or a deeply dispersed presence active in all aspects of the world, but none specifically. They state, “we must realize that this pendulum shares the same pivot point, attached to the ceiling of Christendom, all of which hinders a deep understanding” (Fitch and Holsclaw 2013, 1132). Instead, they argue that the mission of Jesus was to incarnate the kingdom of God into the world via the church, not to point to God in a fixed place off in the future, not to point to God as a non-specific presence in the world” (Fitch and Holsclaw 2013,

1130). The church is both the incarnated kingdom, and it is the pathway to the fullness of the kingdom to come: realized eschatology.

In his popular book, Love Wins, Rob Bell explores this realized eschatology: “The dominant cultural assumption and misunderstandings about heaven have been at work for so long. It’s almost automatic for many to think of heaven as ethereal, intangible, esoteric, and immaterial” (Bell 2011, 56). Bell points out that not only does this message fail to resonate with the biblical witness, it also completely fails to resonate with millennials with regard to their perception of the function of the church. Bell goes on to say that, “heaven is more than what we experience now. This is true for the future, when earth and heaven become one, but also for today” (Bell 2011, 57). It is the emphasis on the now- ness of the church that matters. This realized eschatological perception agrees with the idea that Jesus calls disciples to be active participants in the ministry of today, not to be waiting for a final reward one day off in the future. In Bell’s

85 words, “here is the new there” (Bell 2011, 21). As the church is the incarnation of

Jesus and the kingdom that has come, it must authentically speak for the

Kingdom of God to the people of God.

Authentic Voice

Karen Ward states, “if postmodern generations don’t relate to modern churches, it is probably for a good reason. In the modern era, church had become removed from real life and distant from real culture” (Ashley et al. 2004,

86). In losing connection to the authentic experience of living, Ward proposes that the church lost its voice as an authentic pronouncement of God’s word. If the church is to understand how millennials perceive the purpose of the church, it must accept that authentically speaking for God means authentically engaging in the real life culture of the world around us, not just parroting it.

Social engagement is the key to understanding both the concept of the church speaking authentically for God and authentically as itself. We have to know and understand the people in order to explain God’s vision for their lives. In

The Relevant Church the author of this chapter says, “in other words, the church belongs to God, and He has eternal designs for His people that are relevant and meaningful today in our lives, families, employment, neighborhoods, and networks” (Ashley, Bickel, Driscoll, and Howerton 2004, 111). There is no compartmentalization of experience where God is in one place but not in other places. God is omnipresent in earthly and relevant ways. This authenticity is directly tied to the millennial understanding of the function of the church to be the realized eschatological kingdom of God. The notion is that “Jesus climaxes God’s

86 story by inaugurating God’s future kingdom in the present” (Ashley et al. 2004,

113). As a result, for God’s voice to be heard as authentic by millennials it has to be both centered in the realized eschatology of the kingdom which has come and, by extension, this transformational, realized eschatology must be enacting change in the present.

An Engine for Change

In many traditional churches the assumption is that there is social and political line of delineation with the faith life of congregants. The exact opposite is true of the millennial understanding of the church. As an eschatological representation of the kingdom of God, speaking God’s word authentically, the church has a relevant role to play in all aspects of day to day life. Where life is not as it should be, the church ought to be an engine for changing that.

Speaking of the church’s role in representing the “underdogs” of life Matt

Keller says, “You are no longer allowed to let your circumstances keep you from doing something great for God” (Keller 2013, 121). If one takes seriously the millennial understanding of the function of the church, agitating for change must be part of the church’s function. Briner’s point is that it is no longer acceptable for a church to withdraw from social action because the modernist church, the church that had a distinct line between preaching and meddling, has “created a phenomenal subculture with our own media, entertainment, education system, and political hierarchy so that we have a sense that we are doing a lot. But what we have really done is create a ghetto” (Briner 1993, 31). Isolated in that ghetto, we have failed to address social issues in order to be an engine for change, and

87 in doing so have lost the attention of millennial Christians who are looking for the church to do so. Briner proposes that the modernist church has failed the postmodern generations in two ways. First, by failing to engage culture we have sacrificed the authenticity of our voice, Second, in having done so we leave future generations who innately engage culture without the witness of the historic church. With regard to this, Briner says, “very few of us ever considered ways we could engage our culture with views that have been shaped by the transforming message of the Gospel. And because of that, Christian thought and values are missing from American culture” (Briner 1993, 73-74).

It is worth noting that this engine for change is apolitical. While many assume that social change is the bailiwick of progressivism, Briner is advocating for a gentle conservativism. In this, it cannot be a repristination of modernist values, but an actual progression of social good divorced from political agenda, which could lean either left or right…but always toward the cross.

Each of these three elements fit squarely within the Lutheran foundations of theology and history. The key figures in the generation of the realized eschatological perspective embraced by the postmodern church were Lutherans like Moltmann (Grenz 2000, 339) who first brought the idea forward in modern literature. Luther’s creation of the Small Catechism points to the Lutheran church being engaged authentically in the real life of its membership. Likewise, the historic left and right political shifts of the Lutheran traditions in the United States in the late sixties and early seventies point to our early efforts to engage with social change. The Lutheran church has been engaged in all aspects of this

88 movement, but somehow has failed to connect with millennials. The question then must be taken to a more focused look at this phenomenon.

A Lutheran Response

In her book, Reclaiming the “L” Word, Kelly Fryer addresses the failure of the Lutheran tradition to reach the millennial population by saying “there are all kinds of experts out there who really do know this stuff and to whom we should be listening. But they are NOT the place to start. We need to begin by remembering who we are” (Fryer 2003, 12). To “remember who we are” with regard to millennial Lutheran ministry, this section will address the role of catechetical work, the role of professional Lutheran clergy, and the difference between social engagement and social assimilation. The creation of catechetical literature and programming was at the genesis of the Lutheran experience. What role does it have now?

The Role of Catechetical Work

Fryer points out that “most of the things many of us associate with being

‘Lutheran’ are, when you come right down to it, nothing but adiaphora” (Fryer

2003, 27). In this context Fryer is using the word adiaphora to mean “various ceremonies and practices that were not commanded or forbidden by God’s word in scripture” (Fryer 2003, 27). Lutheran identity, Fryer asserts, is more informed by cultural, ethnic, and incidental practices than dogma and doctrine. As catechism has come to be seen as a one-time rite of passage, its power to convey deep theological truths has been dulled.

The Failure of Catechetical Practices

It is a failure of catechetical practices to have an authentic voice in the life of young Lutheran millennial believers. Fryer asserts that it is the focus on cultural identity in the Lutheran catechetical practice and not on dogma and doctrine that is hampering its effectiveness (Fryer 2003, 27). Confirmands, which is to say those going through the formal Lutheran catechetical process, are participating in the system to satisfy a social expectation that has a defined period of time after which all allegiance to future education is in question.

Instead, Fryer asserts the focus needs to be directed to imparting the knowledge that “before Jesus is anything else, for those of us who are Lutheran, Jesus is the

One who meets us at the cross” (Fryer 2003, 27).

Fryer’s assertion is that there is a role for catechetical practices, but one that needs to be divided from cultural rites of passage and refocused on doctrine and dogma without the element of achieving a one-time goal. In doing this, the authority to share catechism becomes decentralized. In the traditional model a pastor, a word that means shepherd (Anderson 2019, 50), meets with a class of confirmands to teach catechism for a defined period of time and then they are confirmed, which, depending on congregations, tends to be mid-teens end.

Anderson suggests that catechism among millennials is a matter of the pastor ceasing to be the shepherd who provides information at certain periods of time, instead becoming the shepherd who equips others to virally share information over a lifetime. Catechism functions, in Anderson’s view like Jesus with his disciples, pointing out that “for three years our good shepherd, Jesus of

Nazareth, shepherded his inner circle of followers. Can we imagine how the

90 church would have begun its ministry without that kind of personal care?”

(Anderson 2019, 50-51).

Reimagining the Role of Catechism

Anderson is pointing out that Jesus called his disciples for the purpose of enabling them to take on for themselves a measure of his ministry. Anderson connects this concept to catechism as a lifelong enabling and sharing of ministry beginning with parents. He states, “as apostle, bishop, and priest, a father or mother provides the spiritual care – the shepherding – needed by the youngest generation” (Anderson 2019, 52). The use of Luther’s small catechism as a classroom tool to be used for a brief period of time in adolescent education fails to speak authentically to millennial Lutherans because it fails to relevantly engage them in a daily social structure. Instead it creates yet another ecclesial ghetto, briefly inhabited in their teens, to apply a temporary teaching which, contextless, is quickly disregarded.

Speaking about Luther’s Small Catechism, Anderson notes that it, “was not written to harass teenagers in a classroom. Luther wrote it to give people the gems of biblical witness so that they may meditate on it, pray it and speak it in households and other settings” (Anderson 2019, 53). If the question is “why is the catechism not working with millennials?” the answer may be that not only are we failing to apply it in a contextually millennial way, we may be failing to apply in a theologically appropriate Lutheran way. Responsibility for the failure and the future both fall to the leadership of the Lutheran church, and by all means, the professional clergy.

The Role of Professional Lutheran Clergy

Few things received as much attention and examination in the genesis of the Lutheran tradition as the role and responsibilities of the professional clergy.

Luther wrote on it in 1529 and Melanchthon later expanded on it in 1539.

Rasmussen points out that “where Luther has a main focus on the function of ministry, the ordinance from 1539 has an additional focus on the minister as person” (Rasmussen 2013, 200). In a progression from focusing on the practical function of the professional Lutheran clergy person, to the function of the personal life of a professional Lutheran clergy person, we now proceed to the function of the professional Lutheran clergy person in authentically engaging with society in a relevant fashion.

From Directive to Empowering

Lutheran Pastor Dana O’Brien relates how an encounter with Lutheran millennial expert Kelly Fryer changed her perspective on the role of Lutheran clergy: “I now see my role as one called to empower others to look for how God works through us and with us” (O’Brien 2019, 23). Fryer pointed out that we do not lead churches, nor do we pastor churches, we “are” the church, incarnationally representing the body of Christ as we engage the culture around us. There is not a question that as clergy we are incarnating the church in society, as all believers do that, but much of what the world, and millennials in particular, understand about the church is based on whether in reflecting Christ we are doing so accurately (Fryer 2006, 34-36). In doing so, Fryer is quick to point out that the pastor incarnates the church in an authentic way and as such

92 not in a moralistic way. Struggles are real, people are faulted, mistakes are made, but our righteousness is not a product of our morality; it is a product of the holy community we represent. Fryer say, “the community of God’s people is a holy mess. But beyond that, for God’s people, community is just a given” (Fryer

1999, 72).

Authentically embodying the community is a job for all believers, but the pastor’s role is to lead that by means of modeling and inviting without boundaries because “that is how it has been from the beginning. Jesus never had to tell his friends to go to church. They were the church” (Fryer 1999, 72). But, when inviting people without boundaries and engaging society openly, the question must be asked: at what point does the church go from engaging to assimilation?

And if that happens, does the church have a relevant witness or an authentic voice any longer?

Social Engagement and Social Assimilation

Wanda Deifelt points out that it is “Martin Luther’s ethics that Christians live not in themselves but in Christ and in their neighbors” (Deifelt 2010, 110). As such, social engagement is not an option, it is a mandate. But the question is, at what point does one draw a line between engaging positively and social assimilation?

The Dangers

Some within the Lutheran traditions fear that when that line is crossed, one enters “into a New Gnosticism” (Scaer 2017, 299). McLaren has spent much time addressing the question of sex and decrying “fundasexuality,” but Scaer

93 fears that in “the tenets of this new religion, the body is incidental to our true identity we are subjects of desire and consent, who use bodily equipment for spiritual and emotional expression” (Scaer 2017, 299). Scaer points out that the true danger of social assimilation into the New Gnosticism is that it is “both individualistic and, according to an internal logic, totalitarian. Push away the ten commandments and you end up with 613 rules in their place” (Scaer 2017, 301).

If the Christian church stands on one side of a thin line championing grace and mercy through the theology of the cross, and society stands on the other side of that same line championing a New Gnosticism that is legalistically laden with totalitarian zeal, how careful we must be to not step a toe over that line.

This may be one of the most important considerations of all in understanding how the Lutheran church is to foster a sense of belonging in millennial Lutherans. After all, if we succumb to the New Gnosticism we cannot foster a sense of belonging in the church…we will no longer be the church. This will be the question that is dealt with in detail in the Key Voices section.

Key Voices

No voice speaks more loudly on the topic of millennial Lutheranism than

Nadia Bolz-Weber, albeit frequently with excessively foul language. Pastor Bolz-

Weber has published several books targeted at millennial Lutherans: Pastrix,

Shameless, Salvation on the Small Screen, and Accidental Saints (Amazon

2020) include three New York Times bestsellers. She was the keynote speaker at the 2012 and 2018 ELCA Churchwide Youth Event (Skogen 2017). Bolz-

Weber has a popular podcast called “The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber”

94 and is a frequent contributor to the popular convention series and YouTube series “Makers.”

Bolz-Weber, the “self-described public theologian, and often invited speaker at mainline Christian events, including ELCA youth gatherings” (Di

Mauro 2019, 38), shares the public stage with individuals like Karen Ward and

Kelly Fryer, who cannot be ignored, but in the context of modern millennial

Lutheran ministry, Nadia is center stage. Those writing about Bolz-Weber in the liberal branches of the Lutheran tradition are in the extreme majority. Former

Presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson, of the ELCA says, “Nadia Bolz-Weber speaks the truth of our humanity that we too often want to deny. She declares the radical power of God’s grace for Jesus’ sake that we so often water down rather than daily be drowned in it” (Bolz-Weber 2015, Loc 34).

Those in the conservative branches of the Lutheran tradition have taken to writing extensively about Bolz-Weber in opposition. As Eliza Griswold of the New

Yorker states, “one reason that Bolz-Weber’s popularity is so threatening to conservatives: her fervor appeals to a younger generation of Bible-believing

Christians looking for a model of authentic faith outside of conservative American culture” (Griswold 2019). A key voice in the Lutheran tradition speaking about millennial ministry in a conservative but proactive way is Gene Veith. Dr. Veith is the “provost and professor of literature emeritus at Patrick Henry College and director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort

Wayne” (Ligonier 2020). Dr Veith is the author of many articles and books on millennial ministry and is of the LCMS tradition. Although his books do not come

95 anywhere near Bolz-Weber’s for sheer influence or popularity, his forty-nine books (Goodreads 2020) all touch on the topic of postmodern ministry with an eye to conservative Lutheran theology making him one of the lead voices in conservative Lutheran millennial ministry.

This section of Chapter Three will engage these two key voices in dialog to look at how does the role of personal relationship-based disciple-making work in intentional catechesis, what is the outcome of radical inclusion of the human faults as keystone of church leadership in Lutheran millennial ministry, and how does the church proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ and the witness of the scriptures in a uniquely Lutheran voice?

The Role of Personal Relationship-Based Discipleship Making

When bringing change to a situation one can make incremental change, that is to say small changes in practice and application, or paradigmatic changes, changing the underlying foundation of applications and practices. Frost and

Hirsch point out that “The church is in decline in almost every context in the First

World. In this situation, naïve applications of traditionalist paradigms create problems…they don’t solve them” (Frost and Hirsch 2013, Loc 401Frost and

Hirsch also state that “Incarnation is an absolute fundamental doctrine, not just an irreducible part of the Christian confession, but also as a theological prism through which we view our entire missional task” (Frost and Hirsch 2013, Loc

797). For better and worse, Nadia Bolz-Weber and the Emergent Lutheran movement she represents is a paradigmatic change. But Veith on the other hand suggests the same outcome, incarnational ministry, while calling for a paradigm

96 reverse. He states, “But the Lutheran tradition does so not by being ‘emergent,’ or making up some new approach to church or to the Christian life. Rather, it does so in an unexpected way: by being confessional, sacramental, and vocational” (Veith and Sutton 2017,12). Both are suggesting an incarnational relationship as the foundation of millennial ministry, one sees it as moving forward, the other as a return to a previous state. Veith says, “If anything,

Lutheranism would seem to be the opposite of postmodernism” (Veith and

Sutton, 2017, 14).

Truth as a Function of Relationship

In the chapter “I Didn’t Call You for this Truth” Bolz-Weber explores the idea that only in the light of authentic relationship can actual truth be spoken from one believer to another (Bolz-Weber 2013, loc 743). Veith certainly agrees with

Bolz-Weber pointing out that “It is difficult to be a Christian by oneself, Especially in a hostile environment” (Veith 1987, 42). Truth is the light that a loving relationship can shine on our broken state, in order that grace might transform our brokenness into wholeness, but humans rebel against that light. Bolz-Weber states, “Jesus goes on and on about how we actually like darkness more than light because, let’s face it, the darkness hides our” sin (Bolz-Weber 2013, Loc

783). Veith would agree. He says, “Unrighteousness suppresses the truth…Christians never have to fear anything that is true, but they do need to fear sin” (Vieth 1987, 80).

The problem, as Bolz-Weber sees it, is a paradigmatic problem. God’s truth has been presented in such a way to millennials that the paradigm has

97 undone the light that could have been shone into their lives. The light of God’s truth has been presented in legal terms, not relational terms. In Bolz-Weber’s words “God was watching with a head shake. Like a controlling” jerk ”with a killer surveillance system” (Bolz-Weber 2019, Loc 701). This constant emphasis on moralism is a theological paradigm that needs to be shifted in Bolz-Weber’s opinion. At the Mid-Winter Convocation of the ELCA in 2015, Bolz-Weber was one of the keynote speakers on "Religious But Not Spiritual,” where she stated that good theologies, “are those that assist people to see the reality of their brokenness and the blessing of grace in Christ” (Boehme 2015, 168).

Veith on the other hand sees objective truth as a centering foundation on which stable relationships can happen. He says, “Today in our post-Christian times, the sense of being a lone consciousness, alienated not only from God, but reality itself has only intensified” (Veith 2020, 40) and in this floating disconnection we cannot form actual relationships. Worse yet, when the

Christian focuses first on the relationship from peer to peer before the relationship from divine to disciple we place ourselves in the place of God. In doing so, “when we take the place of God, we do not emulate the Christian God”

(Veith 2020, 75) instead he says, “rather we try to make ourselves into the god of deism. The impersonal, detached deity of enlightenment” (Veith 2020, 75). For

Veith, any relational ministry that begins centered on human relations will always fail for human reasons.

Paradigmatically, Bolz-Weber and Veith are both calling for the church to present the Gospel in non-moralistic, relational, Lutheran terms but again from

98 opposite ends of the spectrum: Bolz-Weber - human to divine, Veith - divine to human.

Beyond Propositional Truth

Bolz-Weber poses that the church has taken the easy path by focusing on propositional truth before relationship. In the pre-existing paradigm programs, theologies, and doctrine are a beginning point for faith, but for Bolz-Weber they are an ending point.

Bolz-Weber describes one of her epiphany moments on this topic as it applies to a member named Larry whom she simply did not like, “not even for any interesting reasons, just age, gender, zip code, breath, waistband. You know, the” things ”horrible people judge regular nice people for because they are miserable” (Bolz-Weber 2015, Loc 273). Bolz-Weber goes on to describe that when Larry died suddenly, she had a crisis of pastoral identity, “and now he was dead and I had to comfort his widow and I knew I couldn’t be present to her grief if all I could think of was the stupid thing I had done to him recently” (Bolz-Weber

2015, Loc 288). She had intentionally left him off a group email about a retreat for fear that he would come, then when he asked to get married to his girlfriend after finding out he had brain cancer she had made excuses to get out of doing the service (Bolz-Weber 2015, 312). Facing the reality of her situation, Bolz-Weber stated that no amount of propositional truth could undo the grief she felt in failing at the relationship (Bolz-Weber 2015, 312). The paradigmatic change that ministry needed to make was found in a relational awareness of discipleship making.

Veith would certainly agree that as a Lutheran we understand that, “The suffering of others can move us to compassion. Our own suffering can force us into greater faith in God” (Veith and Sutton 2017,114). But, he would argue that we can’t lose track of our role in it all insofar as, “God’s suffering—in the cross of

Jesus Christ—gives us salvation” (Veith and Sutton 2017,114). For Veith the propositional truth that Bolz-Weber dismisses as problematic is in fact the foundation on which authentically stable relationships can be built.

Blessed Exchange

Bolz-Weber and Veith both describe the foundation of relationship-based discipleship making in terms of a “blessed exchange” (Bolz-Weber 2015, 342).

This notion is roughly based on the theology of the cross insofar as “God gathers up all our sins, all our broken”-“junk, into God’s own self and transforms all that death into life. Jesus takes our crap and exchanges it for blessedness” (Bolz-

Weber 2015, 342). Then, in the intentional relationships we share as disciples together, we share the transformative blessing we have received by engaging in relationships with one another that mirror this exchange as a function not of moralistic direction, but as a function of shared grace. Veith is less inclined to take responsibility for “discovering” this state of grace, pointing out that, “The Son of God takes our sin and we receive His righteousness. Luther calls this the

‘wonderful exchange’” (Veith and Sutton 2017, 89). In this, Veith underscores the fundamentally Lutheran nature of what both he and Bolz-Weber are calling out.

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Relationships based on the blessed exchange move the hearts of believers further than classes, books, dogma, or doctrine. As Bolz-Weber says,

“Threats don’t change my heart and they don’t move me from” being angry at you

“to something less” offensive ”in short order” (Bolz-Weber 2013, 1965), but grace shared in relationships as an intentional act of community creation does. All of this, Bolz-Weber says, moves through the filter of an honestly flawed leadership.

Both that the leadership is flawed, and that the leaders are flawed.

Radical Inclusion of Human Faults in Church Leadership

Bolz-Weber proposes that ego is one of the principle hurdles to moving millennials into the church. If clergy want millennials to move into the relational space of the blessed exchange of relational disciple building, they must first set their egos aside and engage people with honesty. From that honesty, relational ministry can begin to build authentic communities that have relevant voices. For her part, Bolz-Weber states, “It is my practice to welcome new people to the church by making sure they know that House for All Sinners and Saints will, at some point let them down. That I will say or do something stupid” (Bolz-Weber

2015, 2361).

The ability to engage with honesty that our ministry is flawed begins with admitting that we are unwilling to engage in relational ministry with certain groups based on our own flaws. Bolz-Weber states, “I will always encounter people - intersex people, Republicans, criminals, Ann Coulter, etc. – whom I don’t want in the tent with me” (Bolz-Weber 2013, 988). In relationships, our faults and flaws are pulled into sharp relief as we have to be uniquely ourselves for the

101 relationship to be authentic. If we allow our ego to divorce us from our faults, we will be constantly attempting, albeit unconsciously, to rationalize and justify our faults which will ultimately undoes our relational contacts.

Veith, on the other hand argues that the focus on the brokenness of leadership underscores that “Postmodernism is also a theology of glory. Human beings construct their own realities” (Veith and Sutton 2017, 137) and in this need to be the center of the story…for good or ill. While Veith certainly agrees that human brokenness cannot be avoided when thinking of church leadership, a proper Lutheran millennial understanding sees the power structure of the church as flat to vertical, with all of humanity called on to vocations withing the church horizontally, while answering to God, vertically (Veith 2011, 119). Veith believes that, “the church today desperately needs to rediscover the doctrine of vocation”

(Veith 2011, 120). Vocation being, as Veith says, “God’s calling people to his service and then giving them specific gifts that enable them to carry out that service” (Veith 2011, 120). Focusing on the faults of leadership looks at what

God is doing despite our lives, vocation “encourages reflection on what God is doing ‘through’ our lives” (Veith 2011, 122).

On the one hand by owning our faults, church leadership allows for the faults of others, perceived or real. In radically including the faults of church leadership into ministry, we can then radically include millennials into our ministry and “to desire life and life abundant is to desire it for all. Insist on it for all. Work for it for all” (Bolz-Weber 2020). The “tent” needs to be wider because, “it’s not my tent. It’s Gods tent. The wideness of the tent of the Lord is my concern only

102 insofar as it points to the gracious nature of a loving God who became flesh”

(Bolz-Weber 2013, 1023). As radically progressive as Bolz-Weber frequently sounds, there is a fundamentally Lutheran core to her message, mirrored in

Veith’s radical conservative call to a dogmatic understanding of vocation as an invitation for the broken to contain God because, “Lutherans insist that the finite can contain the infinite” (Veith and Sutton 2017, 152). .

Proclamation of the Gospel in a Lutheran Voice

In 2013 Rod Dreher said of Bolz-Weber, “She is a foul-mouthed hot mess, for sure, but there’s something so authentic and broken and great about her”

(Dreher 2013). By 2019 Dreher had much changed his opinion, describing her theology as having the “juvenile enthusiasm of a potty-mouthed pulpit-pounder” and “This is not Christianity, not remotely” (Dreher 2019). Certainly, it is difficult to see Veith and Weber sitting down at the same table to share a meal let alone at the same altar to share communion as fellow Lutherans, but their messages are not so disparate. Both stress the Theology of the Cross as a central millennial understanding of the gospel, both see sharing leadership as keys to millennial engagement, both understand Christian fellowship as essential to millennial ministry, and both understand the role of the church is to shine the light of Christ into the darkness of this world. Yes, is arch liberal Bolz-Weber saying things like, “Whatever sexual flourishing looks like for you, that is what I would love to see happen in your life” (Bolz-Weber 2019, 767) and “Now, there are issues of justice and exploitation within the porn industry, no question, but it doesn’t mean consumption of pornography should be shamed. There is ethically

103 sourced porn” (Walsh 2018). And yes, Veith is exceptionally conservative saying things like, “Like a noisy gong and clanging cymbals, modernity and postmodernity increasingly fill our world with distracting decibels” (Veith and

Sutton 2017, 220). The reason to look at them both in dialog is if you strip away the places they disagree, their path for millennial Lutheran ministry is surprisingly similar, and dogmatically Lutheran

Application

The works of the Emerging church have far-reaching applications within the for creating a foundation for creating a sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church. Perhaps most comforting is the realization that the theological underpinnings of the Lutheran understanding of theology and the Gospel not only still resonate but have power within the

Millennial community. Certainly, many other issues need to be addressed within the life of Lutheran congregations, but the fact that our theological stances will work for us, not against us, is heartening.

The idea that many of our previously assumed perspectives on how those practices of the church are lived out is unsettling but understandable. Catechism, pastoral identity, and interpersonal relationships will have to be re-structured.

Historically the Lutheran tradition has used formal catechetical processes to establish Lutheran identity. Those practices need to leave the formal structure of a two to three-year academic program with teens and find a new purpose.

Lifetime catechism for millennials is built on the interpersonal relations within a congregation. In this way catechism ceases to be singular event and becomes a

104 wholistic action that encompasses everything from how the church establishes safe space for these relationships to happen, to proactively addressing social issues using the core teachings of the church. As the church is the embodiment of the present kingdom of God, in the form of a realized eschatological body, this is not a one-time catechism, it is an approach to learning that has one foot in the culture of the day and one foot in the eternal kingdom. Not only does this radically change the function of catechetical work, it also changes the function of the professional clergy.

The established pastoral identity of community leader and ecclesial authority then begins to more fully resemble the Markan biblical foundations with the role of the pastor being one who calls people out of the world, but into a relationship, not an institution. In rejecting the role of formal ecclesial leader clergy take on the role of faulted fellow disciple, called by Christ to call others to

Christ. In doing so clergy are pointing them to the perfection of the cross. By owning our own imperfection as leaders, and in doing so humbling the position, the role of clergy loses authority by shifting authority from the office to the gospel.

But in this, the church takes on a more authentic, and in equal parts more relevant voice by pointing with humility to the present kingdom of God and the vocations people are called to fulfil in them. This will require clergy to sacrifice personal status for the greater good of the church.

Embracing the universality of human brokenness within both the congregation and the leadership the Emerging Church voices make a space for deeper, and more honest, interpersonal relationships. Despite the popularity of

105 each of the Emerging voices covered in this chapter it is worth noting that each leader pastors small communities, not mega-churches. The millennial church is not a mega-church, it is a small gathering of individuals with deeply grown interpersonal relationships, much like Jesus with his twelve disciples, based on the rock-solid foundations of scripture and established theology.

Of course, some of the paths laid out by the Emergent writers do not seem to have valid application in fostering a sense of belonging among Lutheran millennials. Specifically, the antinomianism and universalism of McLaren and

Bolz-Weber. There is no utility to creating a church that welcomes millennials but excludes the biblical witness. None the less, their voices point to deeper applications of relational ministry, incarnational ministry, and actively socially engaging ministries that can give witness to a new and valid way of being church.

In Chapter Four we will begin to see how these voices are reflected in the responses of the Millennial respondents to the discovery project.

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CHAPTER FOUR

DESIGN, PROCEDURE, AND ASSESSMENT

The following were the goals for this project.

1. To discover how millennials value the concept of belonging.

2. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward traditional congregational

membership.

3. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward informal congregational

membership.

4. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward belonging outside of

congregational membership.

5. To discover millennial’s attitude toward belonging as it pertains to

Lutheran identity.

6. To discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes

affected their long term long-term sense of belonging.

7. To discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship

training.

8. To discover what methods for building a sense of belonging the

participants would be most open to.

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9. To discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in

deepening commitment to a congregation.

This project was a discovery project for the purpose of discovering how strongly millennial Lutherans felt a sense of belonging in the church, specifically in a congregational setting, based on the nine goals. Each goal was assigned three quantitative questions with Likert Scale responses. These three quantitative

Likert Scale based questions, in each of the nine goals, were separated from one another evenly and randomly throughout the entire survey so as to not influence answers by repeating themes in adjacent questions. At the conclusion of the survey participants were invited to share open ended open-ended, qualitative responses to nine questions.

In planning for this project, the survey was to be administered in a variety of settings to gain access to a broad population of younger and older millennials in a variety of Lutheran contexts and denominational bodies. This included administering it in person to youth groups after receiving parental waivers, college campus ministries, young adult small groups, camps, youth events, and online. All results were to be gathered anonymously. See copy of survey in

Appendix 2.

In accomplishing this, emails were sent out using synodical email lists to church leaders in and around Ohio requesting the opportunity to offer the survey in person, on paper, to youth groups. A copy of the letter is in appendix Three.

The youth groups were to be provided copies of the parental waiver form in advance to allow parents to sign ahead of the scheduled meeting time. Copies of

108 the waiver form would be on hand for parents the night of the meeting to allow for parents who had not received the form, or who had lost the form to sign at that time. A copy of the waiver form is in Appendix Three.

Three Lutheran summer camps were identified to also be locations for giving the survey in person, but this time focused on the millennial staff members. The summer camps were to be Camp Luther in Cowen, West Virginia,

Camp Luther in Conneaut, Ohio, and Lutheran Memorial Camp in Marengo,

Ohio. When camp staff directors were doing their staff development planning in

April, requests would be made to meet with staff during their training week.

Contact was made with Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, a church of over a thousand members, in Upper Arlington, Ohio and arrangements were made with Pastor David White to distribute the survey in person at a series of young adult small groups in April of 2020 giving access to nearly a hundred millennial Lutherans.

College campus ministries were contacted including the Lutheran campus ministries at Kent State university (LCMS), the Ohio University campus ministry called Jacob’s Porch (ELCA), and Capital University (ELCA). Capital University’s campus ministry required that all research done with students be approved by the university and documents were collected to begin that process. Likewise, the survey was generated as a Google Forms survey form for used online via social media. A copy is in Appendix Two.

On March 22, 2020 the State of Ohio declared a “Stay at Home Order”

(Ohio Gannet 2020) effective March 23, 2020. By the end of the week all of the

109 congregations whose youth groups I had scheduled with, the other two campus ministries, and the Young Adult ministries of Upper Arlington Lutheran church had cancelled. By the end of the April, all of the Lutheran camps had declared that they would not open in 2020. The national youth events in the ELCA and the

LCMC both were cancelled. My own congregation cancelled its VBS. No in person accesses were left.

The focus of the project was then shifted to the online version of the survey. New emails were sent to local congregations (see Appendix Three) asking for millennials 18 and over to be given links to the survey. Contact was made with campus ministries via the ELCA Region Nine Campus Ministry

Coordinator to distribute links via social ministry and email to all of the campus ministries in the ELCA. Facebook pages networking the LCMC, LCMS, and

Camp Luther of Cowen, WV were engaged in disseminating the links to congregations for the purpose of gathering millennial responses also using the verbiage of Appendix Three.

Context

According to the Pew Report “the Millennials are the largest living generation by population size (79.8 million in 2016)” and includes “those born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium” (Frye

2016). They are also the least likely generation in American history to attend church (Kiessling 2018, 25). As a pastor of a small, rural Lutheran church originally in the ELCA, now in the LCMC, the role of the church in helping millennials discover a sense of belonging is exceedingly important. The decision

110 was made to not focus on a specific local demographic so much as an overall demographical grouping of Lutheran millennials in the United States. The idea being was to assess a general set of traits and characteristics a church might embody or develop for the purpose of doing more excellent minister with millennials by better understanding how they process belonging. Then, on a context by context basis individual interpretations of this data could be applied in localities.

Participants

The participants in this project included millennials who self-identify as

Lutherans from age 12 to age 39. These participants included members of various denominational bodies such as, but not limited to, the ELCA, LCMC,

LCMS, and the NALC. As self-identification was the only identifying factor, overall participation in, and level of allegiance to a Lutheran body was not factored into this study. An effort was made to gather a diverse collection of millennial ages, genders, and denominational allegiance. However, as members were both self- selected and anonymous it was not possible to screen for equivalent sample populations.

Fifty-eight respondents, eight over the pre-designated baseline, answered the survey. Four respondents eliminated themselves from the study by responding that they did not self-identify as Lutheran for a total of 54 valid responses, four over the baseline. Of the total respondents 25 were between the ages of 23 and 39, 11 were between the ages of 18 and 22, twelve were between the ages of 12 to 14, and six were between the ages of 15-17. Among

111 the total 58 respondents 34 were female and 24 were male. Of the 58 surveyed, four responded that they did not self-identify as Lutheran invalidating their responses as they were outside the parameters of the sample group. Fifty-four valid participants responded that they did self-identify as Lutheran. Of the 54 who were surveyed who self-identified as Lutheran 31, had finished catechism, 13 had begun but not yet finished, five had not, and did not plan on, participating in catechism, and five had not begun catechism, though planned on doing so in the future. Of those surveyed 13 had been in their congregation three to five years, ten had been in their congregation more than fifteen years, ten had been in their congregation one to two years, ten had been in their congregation less than one year, six had been in their congregation 10-15 years, and five had been in their congregation 6-10 years.

Some, like the youth group at First Lutheran in Shelby, Ohio included individuals that I have extensive contact with, in pre-existing groups. I had limited personal contact with a few whom I was able to share the survey with in-person at the pre-existing Kent State campus ministry. All others were entirely unknown to me and dispersed around the USA as a result of self-selecting to fill out a form online as disseminated by national, regional, and local denominational bodies.

The ability to have done this study in person would have allowed for greater control over variables like denominational affiliation and age. As the study was envisioned the anonymity of the survey would have been offset by the ability to select diverse sample populations that represented evenly distributed populations based on age, denomination, and participation level. The outcome,

112 however, did allow for a much broader dispersion of the survey across the nation using resources on a national level via the national organizations’ social media in the LCMC, NALC, and LCMS, as well as the regional resources of the ELCA

Region Nine Campus Ministry Coordinator that allowed for nationwide dispersal of the survey via the network of all ELCA Lutheran Campus ministries.

Procedure

When offering the survey in person first the age of the respondents had to be assessed. If members were under the age of 18, but over the age of 12, then parental waiver forms had to be provided in advance (see Appendix Three). One week in advance of the administering the survey, parental waivers were provided to minors via the moderators of the pre-existing groupings: i.e. youth groups, youth ministries, camps, VBS, etc. Waivers would also be made available the day of the survey for parents who were unable to fill one out in advance.

Respondents were given adequate space for sufficient privacy (six to eight feet) and given a brief explanation of the survey process. Survey takers were instructed to provide a single answer for each in a series of questions designed to establish certain criteria. These questions included age, gender, Lutheran identification, prior catechetical experience, and duration of affiliation with a

Lutheran congregation.

Then the survey takers were instructed to answer each of the 27 multiple choice, Likert scale questions. Respondents could answer from one for “Strongly

Disagree” to five for “Strongly Agree” or any whole number in between. The survey takers were instructed to answer the questions as best they understood

113 them. Survey takers were instructed that if they needed clarification on the definition of words in the questions, they could ask for clarification on that but could not ask for the proper way to interpret their answers. Frequently younger survey takers did not understand the phrase “social settings” in question one.

The floor was then opened to general questions about the survey. Frequently the question asked were “can you change an answer after you have chosen,” “can I erase,” “should I put my name on it,” and “can I circle more than one number if I am not sure if it is a three or a four.”

Each survey taker was provided a pencil and a copy of the survey. The participants were instructed to raise their hand when they were done, and I took their survey and filed it immediately. Time was not limited but no respondent took more than twenty-five minutes.

In February 2020, the survey was given to eighteen youth group members at First Lutheran in Shelby, Ohio with parental waivers on file. On March 20,

2020, the survey was administered on campus at the Luther House Campus

Ministry at Kent State University to four students. After 30 minutes all copies of the survey were collected, filed, and locked in a safe location.

When offering the survey online the link was sent to church leaders via email, Facebook Messenger, closed and open Facebook groups, and text messages. Leaders were instructed to forward the link to individuals ages eighteen to thirty-nine. Minors were excluded from this sample population as no reliable means of assuring parental consent could be established and a proportionate population of minors had already been obtained.

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Leaders who were invited to forward the survey were given the instructions to solicit only adults who self-identified as Lutheran for the purposes of filling out a survey to help better understand how millennial Lutherans experience a sense of belonging in a congregational environment. Certain parameters were established that would include or eliminate respondents from the survey group. No participants were eliminated for being minors without consent. Four survey takers were eliminated for responding that they did not self- identify as Lutheran. Two of the four added in the comments that they only filled it out because their mother, who is still Lutheran, insisted that they do so, even though both of them have left the Lutheran church.

Once a survey was filled out in person the paper copy was then taken to my office and locked in a filing cabinet. Once a total of more than 50 responses,

58 in all, had been accumulated the online form was suspended and all links closed allowing for no further additions. Data from the four invalid surveys was removed. Online data automatically collated into a spreadsheet and paper forms were input through the online form. The paper copies of the survey were then returned to the locked filing cabinet in the offices of First Lutheran Church .

Assessment

Following the guidelines provided by Ashland Theological Seminary the project was created with the following steps. First, it was decided that this would be a discovery project as the information I was seeking to accrue was not something I already was in possession of. Because I lacked the expertise to

115 create a resource project or a method in mind to create an impact project, the project would be a discovery project.

Then a purpose statement proposal was submitted and approved in the proposal process. From that purpose, a working version of the research question was created that would be a guide for the research project. A proposal including the purpose statement, research question, and nine goals was presented to the faculty of Ashland Theological Seminary and approved. Using the nine goals, a series of three questions was then generated to address each of the nine goals.

These twenty-seven questions would be the questions that would serve as the twenty-seven survey questions each answered on a one to five Likert Scale.

These twenty-seven survey questions would generate the quantitative data. The nine project goals would then be restated as questions which would serve as the nine open-ended questions which would create qualitative data. All of which became part of the final proposal which was also submitted and approved.

Each goal was addressed quantitatively by three Likert scale questions.

Each of the three questions were spaced randomly among the entire assessment tool. The breakdown was as follows:

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Goals and Corresponding Questions:

Goal #1- To discover how millennials value the concept of belonging. ______Question 1.) It is important to me to experience belonging in social settings.

10.) I work hard to develop a sense of belonging in social settings.

19.) My own need for a sense of belonging is a motivator in social settings.

Goal #2- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward traditional congregational membership. ______Question 2.) Traditional church membership is important to me.

20.) Maintaining membership in a Church is valuable to a Christian.

11.) I believe that entry into congregational membership through the confirmation program is important.

Goal #3- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward informal congregational membership. ______Question 3.) Participating informally in the life of a congregation matters more than being a member.

12.) It is more important to participate. informally in the ministry of a church than actually become a member.

3.) Just attending a church informally without officially joining is enough.

Goal #4- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward belonging outside of congregational membership.

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______Question 22.) Belonging is an important part of family life.

13.) It is important to experience belonging in school settings.

4.) A person should look for belonging in social organizations like clubs.

Goal #5- To discover millennials’ attitude toward belonging as it pertains to Lutheran identity. ______Question 5.) Being a member of a Lutheran congregation is important to my experience of belonging in my faith.

14.) Being Lutheran gives me a sense of belonging in church.

23.) My Lutheran identity is a significant part of how I belong in the kingdom of God.

Goal #6- To discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes affected individual’s long-term sense of belonging. ______Question 15.) When a person takes catechism classes they are more likely to stay connected to their Christian faith over their life.

6.) An experience in Lutheran catechism classes gives a lifelong sense of belonging in a congregation. . 24.) Taking catechism classes will help individuals stay connected to their faith over the long term.

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Goal #7- To discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship training. ______Question 7.) I would be willing to take classes after confirmation to continue to grow in my faith.

25.) When asked to participate in activities designed to make me a better Christian at my church I am open to participating

17.) When discipleship training is available in my congregation I am open to attending the training.

Goal #8- To discover what methods for building a sense of belonging the participants would be most open to. ______Question 8.) I would be most open to social events as a method in my congregation to build my sense of belonging.

26.) The method I would be most open to for building a sense of belonging in my congregation is participation in service projects.

16.) Classes are the best method for building my sense of belonging in my congregation.

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Goal #9- To discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in deepening commitment to a congregation. ______Question 9.) When my congregation offers opportunities to participate in leadership it motivates me to deepen my commitment.

18.) I am motivated to deepen my commitment to my congregation when I am given opportunities to learn.

27.) The most motivational thing my congregation can do to help me deepen my commitment is to provide social activities targeted at my generation.

Please note the irregularity of question 17 being in goal seven and question 16 being in goal eight. This was due to an initial numbering error and did not affect the outcome as it was universally applied and accounted for. Each goal was then also assessed using an open-ended qualitative question at the end of the survey.

The answers to the quantitative questions were then rendered as three averages, one for each question, per each goal. Then a composite average was created from all three averaged scores per goal. The terms used in the qualitative answers were assigned a numerical value achieved by measuring the number of times words or phrases were repeated. This then created a quantitative analysis of the written, open-ended answers.

The final tabulations of these outcomes will be reported in Chapter Five.

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CHAPTER FIVE

REPORTING THE RESULTS

The purpose of this project was to discover the effective foundations of the sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church. The research question was: “what are the effective foundations of a sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church?” In addressing this question nine goals with three questions each were given to millennial respondents to be responded to using a five-point Likert Scale, with one open-ended qualitative question per goal.

The goals for this project are as follows, in order of highest total composite to lowest. Goal Four is to discover millennial’s attitudes toward belonging outside of congregational membership. Goal Seven is to discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship training. Goal Five is discover millennial’s attitude toward belonging as it pertains to Lutheran identity. Goal Nine is to discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in deepening commitment to a congregation. Goal One is discover how millennials value the concept of belonging. Goal Two is to discover millennial’s attitudes toward traditional congregational membership. Goal Eight is to discover what methods for building as sense of belonging the participants would be most open to. Goal

Six is to discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes affected their long-term sense of belonging. Goal Three is to discover millennial’s attitudes toward informal congregational membership.

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The results, in order from highest total composite score to lowest are as follows.

Goal Four: Belonging in Other Social Settings

Goal Four is to discover millennials’ attitudes toward belonging outside of congregational membership which has a composite score of 3.91. In assessing

Goal Four the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “21) Belonging is an important part of family life”, “13) It is important to experience belonging in school settings”, and “4) A person should look for belonging in social organizations like clubs.” For these questions the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”.

Table 1. Goal #4- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward belonging outside of congregational membership. ______Question Average Responses 21.) Belonging is an important part of 4.24 54 family life.

13.) It is important to experience belonging 4.06 54 in school settings.

4.) A person should look for belonging in 3.44 54 social organizations like clubs. ______Composite 3.91 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

This goal resulted in the single most positive response of all the nine goals, and the single most positive individual score on question 22 with a 4.24.

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Participants have scored family engagement as the highest of all the presented means of establishing belonging.

School was frequently cited as a high priority among most of the younger members of survey takers. Question 13 resulted in another of the higher overall

Likert Scale scores with a 4.04. Each of the three questions in Goal Four scored high indicating a general desire to belong.

In response to question four respondents posted the lowest Likert Scale score of all three Goal Four questions. Responding with an average 3.44 for the importance of belonging in clubs and social organizations this response represented an outlier in the overall responses indicating that while belonging is important social organizations and clubs may not be a significant source of social belonging.

For Goal Four the open-ended question was “name a few ways people experience belonging in their life other than at church” the responses corroborate with the responses in Goal One.

Table 1a. Goal #4 Belonging Outside of Church Question Responses Name a few ways Friends 23 people experience Family 22 belonging in their life Work 18 other than at church. School 18 Volunteer Groups 5 Social Media 3 Gangs 2 Gym 2 Total Responses 93 Of 54 respondents 37 responded to this question.

Family is mentioned by 22 of the respondents, friends by 23, and work and school each at 18 forming the majority of all responses. There are unrelated

123 outliers like gangs and gyms at two and volunteer groups at five. Tellingly, social media comes in exceptionally low at three total mentions.

Discipleship Training

Goal Seven is to discover how open respondents are to discipleship training. In assessing Goal Seven the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “7) I would be willing to take classes after confirmation to continue to grow in my faith”, “25) When asked to participate in activities designed to make me a better Christian at my church I am open to participating”, and “170 When discipleship training is available in my congregation I am open to attending the training.” For these statements, the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”.

Table 2. Goal #7- To discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship training. ______Question Average Responses 7.) I would be willing to take classes 3.98 54 after confirmation to continue to grow in my faith.

25.) When asked to participate in activities 3.96 54 designed to make me a better Christian at my church I am open to participating.

17.) When discipleship training is available 3.54 54 in my congregation I am open to attending the training. ______Composite 3.83 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

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Questions related to Goal Seven produced the second highest composite score of all nine goals. These questions also generated the second least number of aggregate ones and twos of any of the other goal question clusters receiving only 10 total ones over all three questions and only 14 total twos. This was the lowest aggregate number of ones and twos of all the goal clusters of questions.

There appears to be a moderately strong interest in ongoing discipleship training among millennials.

There was little variation between responses for each of the questions which dealt with classes and activities in questions seven and twenty-five. They were separated by a margin of .02 which places both in the “Slightly Agree” category. This would indicate that there is equal interest in both classes and activities.

People showed less interest in attending discipleship training in Question

17. This resulted in a score of 3.54 which is midway between “slightly agree” and

“neutral” and one of the lower scores in the top three Goals. This would seem to indicate a difference in the way “classes” and “activities” are perceived as opposed to “discipleship training”.

For Goal Seven the open-ended qualitative question was, “Name one way you would be open to opportunities like classes, retreats, or trainings to help you grow in your faith walk.”

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Table 2a. Goal #7 Classes, Retreats, and Trainings Question Responses Name one way you Retreats/Mission Trips 24 would be open to Doctrine Classes 16 opportunities like Happy 12 classes, retreats, or Fun 10 trainings to help you grow in your faith walk. Total Responses 62 Of 54 respondents 31 responded to this question.

Unlike any of the other goals, the qualitative responses to this goal received no negative or critical remarks. Instead, there was a large cohort of 24 respondents who wanted more retreat/mission experiences. Likewise, there was a large cohort of 16 who asked for more doctrinal classes, which seems to correspond with the same population that responded positively to Lutheran

Identity in Goal Five. Of the open-ended responses given there was more detail, more enthusiasm, and more use of words like “excited”, “happy”, and “fun”.

There also seems to be a general degree of support for continuing discipleship training opportunities with an emphasis on taking time away from daily life to focus on faith life in community.

Belonging and Lutheran Identity

Goal Five is to discover millennials’ attitudes toward belonging as it pertains to Lutheran identity. In assessing Goal Five the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “5) Being a member of a

Lutheran congregation is important to my experience of belonging in my faith”,

“14) Being Lutheran gives me a sense of belonging in church” and “23) My

Lutheran identity is a significant part of how I belong in the kingdom of God.” For

126 these questions the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point

Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”.

Table 3. Goal #5- To discover millennials’ attitude toward belonging as it pertains to Lutheran identity. ______Question Average Responses 5.) Being a member of a Lutheran 4.00 54 congregation is important to my experience of belonging in my faith.

14.) Being Lutheran gives me a 3.78 54 sense of belonging in the church.

23.) My Lutheran identity is a 3.61 54 significant part of how I belong in the kingdom of God. ______Composite 3.80 N=54 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

Each of these three questions showed rising trends from low to high with either a slope toward the five score as in question five, or a bell curve weighted toward the four and five answer as in 14 and 23. With a composite score of 3.80 this question has the third highest score trending largely toward a positive response falling behind the strongest positive response given which related to belonging in general outside of church related structures and only slightly behind the 3.83 of Goal Seven which had to do with openness to discipleship training.

Question five was in the top tier of responses overall. It had an average score of 4.00, which while not as high as responses in Goal Four is still higher than the responses in Goal Seven.

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Question 14 fell near the upper middle of the space between “slightly agree” and “neutral”. This question had a score of 3.78 indicating interest, but not a strong interest.

The responses to question 23 trended further downward representative of mixed points of view found in the qualitative responses. This question was scored at an average of 3.61. Based on the qualitative answers the upper- middle of “slightly agree” may not be properly representative of overall opinions, merely an artifact of neutral responses to the wording.

In the qualitative question, “describe how self-identifying as Lutheran affects your life in the church”, the overall positive response to questions in Goal

Five seems to be blunted by the strongly held opinions at either end of the spectrum.

Table 3a. Goal #5 Lutheran Self-Identification Question Responses Describe how self- Theology and Doctrine 16 identifying as Lutheran Detrimental 8 affects your life in the No Opinion 7 church. Feeling Closer to God 6 Sense of Belonging 4 Total Responses 41 Of 54 respondents 33 responded to this question.

Eight stated that self-identifying as Lutheran was a deterrent to feeling a sense of belonging and seven stated that they had no opinion on this issue.

However, sixteen said that theology and doctrine that were uniquely Lutheran were key to their faith development. Very few other opinions produced clusters of responses, with “feeling closer to God” mentioned by six respondents and a sense of belonging and solidarity mentioned by four. For most who had an

128 opinion, being doctrinally Lutheran was either unacceptable or essential, with little middle ground.

Deepening Commitment

Goal Nine is to discover what millennials would motivate millennial

Lutherans to engage in deepening commitment to a congregation. In assessing

Goal Nine the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “9) When my congregation offers opportunities to participate in leadership it motivates me to deepen my commitment.”, “18) I am motivated to deepen my commitment to my congregation when I am given opportunities to learn.”, and

“27) The most motivational thing my congregation can do to help me deepen my commitment is to provide social activities targeted at my generation.” For these statements, the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point

Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”.

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Table 4. Goal #9- To discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in deepening commitment to a congregation. ______Question Average Responses 9.) When my congregation offers 3.98 54 opportunities to participate in leadership it motivates me to deepen my commitment.

18.) I am motivated to deepen my 3.80 54 commitment to my congregation when I am given opportunities to learn.

27.) The most motivational thing my 3.59 54 congregation can do to help me deepen my commitment is to provide social activities targeted at my generation. ______Composite 3.79 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

Unlike previous goals, Goal Nine responses displayed none of the division that other goals had produced. Much like Goal Seven, the total aggregate number of ones and twos were low. Only ten ones were reported and six twos making it the lowest aggregate two and one of all goals. While the overall composite score fell near the upper middle of that pack this is not entirely indicative a mediocre response. The reason for this is that majority of answers were fours, with question nine receiving 43.1% of the responses as fours, question eighteen receiving 39.7% as fours, and question seven having 31% of scores being a four. Unlike Goal Two which demonstrated a divided response, this goal produced a strong central response at a consistent four as a response from a plurality of respondents which then divided the remaining answers in a descending slope from four to one with few fives offered. This generated a lower

130 than representative composite score. Given the number of spontaneous responses about the value of being invited to leadership from the open-ended question in Goal Eight, it is easy to see how the respondents in Goal Nine, which deals specifically with leadership, would produce a positive score.

For Goal Nine “The most motivational things my congregation does to help me deepen my commitment to my congregation are” is the open-ended qualitative question.

Table 4a. Goal #9 Motivation Question Responses The most motivational Making Personal Connections 15 things my congregation Nothing 8 does to help me deepen Bible 5 my commitment to my Worship Services 5 congregation are: Worship Leadership 5 Small Groups 5 Youth Group 5

Total Responses 48 Of 54 respondents 42 responded to this question.

With seven unique clusters of answers Goal Nine had one of the most diverse set of answers to this open-ended question. With five mentions each

Bible, worship services, worship leadership opportunities, small groups, youth group, and classes tied for third most comments. “Nothing”, indicating in many circumstances that their church was not doing anything to motivate them was the second most common response with nine total mentions. With fifteen total mentions, comments centered around “making personal connections” was by far the strongest response.

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Valuing Belonging in Social Settings

Goal One is to discover how millennials value the concept of belonging. In assessing Goal One the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “1) It is important to me to experience belonging in social settings”, “10) I work hard to develop a sense of belonging in social settings”, and “19) My own need for a sense of belonging is a motivator in social settings.” For these questions the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being

“Strongly Agree”.

Table 5. Goal #1- To discover how millennials value the concept of belonging. ______Question Average Responses 4.) It is important to me to experience 4.04 54 belonging in social settings.

10.) I work hard to develop a sense of 3.57 54 belonging in social settings.

19.) My own need for a sense of belonging 3.57 54 is a motivator in social settings. ______Composite 3.73 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

Question number one in Goal One had the third strongest response of all the survey questions with an average of 4.04, which was tied with question eight:

“I would be most open to social events as a method in my congregation to build my sense of belonging”. Of the responses given to all 27 questions the prominent placement of this answer seems to indicate that the concept of belonging is exceptionally valuable in regard to belonging in social settings.

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However, the composite score for Goal One overall ranks fifth of nine indicating a disconnect between the first question which gauges importance and questions ten and nineteen in Goal One which skew toward actions millennials are willing to take on to experience belonging.

While respondents strongly agreed with the idea that belonging was important their motivation to work hard, and choices to work hard to belong were much weaker. In questions ten and nineteen the individuals responding both averaged a 3.57 response to the questions of whether they are motivated to belong and whether they work hard to belong. This response falls near the overall middle of responses indicating that while hard work and motivation to belong are not undesirable they are also not top priorities.

The open-ended question for Goal One was, ““where is it important to belong?”. Like the previous question this is a diverse grouping of answers with a large overall number of cohorts and all respondents giving at least one response.

Table 5a. Goal #1 Motivation Question Responses Where is it important to Worship 25 belong? School 23 Family 15 Work 13 Peers/friends 10 Sports 7 Struggling to Belong 7 Youth Group 6 Youth Events 6 No Interest in Belonging 3 Social Media 1 Total Responses 116 Of 54 respondents 54 responded to this question.

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Interestingly, of the categories of open-ended responses to the question

“where is it important to belong?” the top five were church/worship with 25 mentions, school with 23, family with 15, work with 13, and peers/friends with 10.

Of the middle-represented categories youth group only received six mentions, sports and “struggling to belong” at seven, and youth events at six. This would indicate that the time and attention spent in church programming aimed at these categories may be better allocated to improving worship, supporting families, and engaging in schools. The millennials interviewed overwhelmingly responded independently that they value the concept of belonging most strongly in church, family and work and placed the least value, based on responses, in community activities at four, “no interest in belonging” at three mentions, and social media in dead last at a single mention.

Traditional Membership

Goal Two is to discover millennials’ attitudes toward traditional congregational membership. In assessing Goal Two the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “2) Traditional church membership is important to me”, “20) Maintaining membership in a Church is valuable to a Christian”, and “11) I believe that entry into congregational membership through the confirmation program is important.” For these questions the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”. The composite for the question ranked fifth most positive of nine goals indicating a less positive attitude toward traditional congregational membership.

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Table 6. Goal #2- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward traditional congregational membership. ______Question Average Responses 5.) Traditional church membership is 3.70 54 important to me.

20.) Maintaining membership in a Church is 3.52 54 valuable to a Christian.

11.) I believe that entry into congregational 3.50 54 membership through the confirmation program is important. ______Composite 3.57 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

Questions number two averages a 3.70 response, which compared to the composites of the overall nine goals places it near the lower middle of the scores.

This would seem to indicate less important response.

However, questions two, eleven, and twenty diverge from the pattern of all the other 27 responses with the exception of 21 which also addresses membership. Where all of the other responses either form a bell curve or a consistent slope, questions two, eleven, and twenty have spikes at either end of the Likert Scale.

In question two, seven respondents indicated a one, or a “strongly disagree” which then troughs and rises to 18 responding with a four and 16 with a five. The average answer of 3.70 on the Likert Scale indicates a closer to

“slightly agree” than “neutral” but the participants clustered at either end of the spectrum indicating a division in perspective.

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Twenty-one, which also addresses membership has a similar double peak. This would seem to indicate that there is a divided perspective that lacks middle ground with certain millennials rejecting traditional membership while other embracing it. There was a strong connection between those who indicated that traditional membership was a key element in their faith life and those who have had long term relationships with a congregation.

Questions 20 and 11 follow this pattern, although with less pronounced peaks. All three questions had a majority of responses three and above.

Question two had 46 at three or above, question 20 had 47, and 11 had 42. Each had few responses at two but all the rest at responded with a one.

Among the qualitative answers the same dichotomy happened. With these answers only five major categories emerged as pertains to “In what way does having a traditional membership in a Lutheran congregation help you feel more connected to your Christian faith?”

Table 6a. Goal #2 Traditional Membership Question Responses In what way does having Connected to Community. 14 a traditional membership Does Nothing 14 in a Lutheran Connected to God 12 congregation help you Sense of History 3 feel more connected to Voting 3 your Christian faith? Total Responses 43 Of 54 respondents 37 responded to this question.

The categories were: connection to God, tradition, community, comfort, and does not matter. Of the five categories 12 responded that traditional membership makes them feel connected to God, 14 said that it made them feel connected to a community, and 14 indicated that traditional membership did

136 absolutely nothing for their faith. The cohorts of “sense of history” and “voting privileges” were much smaller at three each.

Methods of Building Belonging

Goal Eight is to discover what methods millennials would be open to for building a sense of belonging. In assessing Goal the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “8) I would be most open to social events as a method in my congregation to build my sense of belonging”, “26)

The method I would be most open to for building a sense of belonging in my congregation is participation in service projects”, and “16) Classes are the best method for building my sense of belonging in my congregation.” For these statements, the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point

Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”.

Table 7. Goal #8- To discover what methods for building a sense of belonging the participants would be most open to. ______Question Average Responses 8.) I would be most open to social 4.04 54 events as a method in my congregation to build my sense of belonging.

26.) The method I would be most open 3.70 54 to for building a sense of belonging in my congregation is participation in service projects.

16.) Classes are the best method for 2.80 54 building my sense of belonging in my congregation. ______Composite 3.51 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

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As much as the questions of Goal Six produced the lowest interval between scores the questions in Goal Eight produced the largest interval of 1.24 between the highest and lowest scores. This seemed to correspond with the division between the two cohorts of those who rejected doctrinal focus and those who required doctrinal focus.

Question eight resulted in a 4.04 average Likert Scale score indicating an interest in social events and question 26 resulted in a 3.70 indicating a higher than neutral response.

Those who required doctrinal focus responded with high scores to question 16 and those who rejected doctrinal focus in Goal Five also scored question 16 exceptionally low. Twenty-five percent of those surveyed scored question 16 as a one, whereas 29.3% of respondents gave it a three with other responses evenly distributed between the other potential responses seeming to indicate a clear division between the two cohorts. The division over doctrinal focus, or confessional Lutheranism, versus a more universal and non-doctrinal approach among these two groups is a constant line of demarcation in all nine goals.

In answering the open-ended, qualitative question “name the top three methods you would be open to that your Lutheran congregation could use to help you build a sense of belonging” overall, 14 different clusters of responses could be distinguished including: be more welcoming, have better worship, be relatable, do online events, and youth group. Most of which garnered less than

138 three mentions each, however three sets of related responses overshadowed a diverse set overall responses with one set of criticisms emerging as dominant.

Table 7a. Goal #2 Congregations Building Belonging Question Responses Name the top three Utilized in Leadership 20 methods you would be Social Functions Outside Church 17 open to that your Lutheran Representational Leadership 11 congregation could use to Frustration with Lazy Membership 6 help you build a sense of belonging. Total Responses 54 Of 54 respondents 29 responded to this question.

Unsurprisingly the second highest qualitative response in the open-ended questions was “social activities” with many respondents looking for social opportunities with fellow Christians. Dining-out events, triangle dinners with arranged three person/couple dinner parties, social outings, small in-home groups, and meet-ups in social spaces were all mentioned as opportunities.

However, none of the respondents who commented on social functions were looking for social interactions that happened within the church’s physical space.

The top mentioned methods “you would be open to that your Lutheran congregation could use to help you build a sense of belonging”, by a wide margin of 20 mentions, was to be utilized in leadership. Phrases like “utilize my gifts”,

“have someone invite me to do something”, and “have a role to play” were repeated in conjunction with this grouping. Millennials responding to this open- ended question not only expressed a desire to be a part of leadership but also expressed frustration that churches failed to recruit leadership that “looked like them”, a phrase used three different times. Likewise, there were repeated mentions of frustration with passive church members who were unwilling to

139 participate in leadership or events. Words like “lazy”, “lack of personal investment”, and “don’t be like the world” were part of this grouping

Traditional Catechism and Sense of Belonging

Goal Six is to discover how catechism classes have affected a long-term sense of Lutheran identity. In assessing Goal Six the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “15) When a person takes catechism classes they are more likely to stay connected to their Christian faith over their life”, “6) An experience in Lutheran catechism classes gives a lifelong sense of belonging in a congregation” and “24) Taking catechism classes will help individuals stay connected to their faith over the long term.” For these statements the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point Likert

Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”.

Table 8. Goal #6- To discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes affected individual’s long-term sense of belonging. ______Question Average Responses 15.) When a person takes catechism 3.35 54 classes they are more likely to stay connected to their Christian faith over their life.

6.) An experience in Lutheran catechism 3.30 54 classes gives a lifelong sense of belonging in a congregation. . 24.) Taking catechism classes will help 3.28 54 individuals stay connected to their faith over the long term. ______Composite 3.31 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

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This goal had the second lowest outcome with a composite score of 3.31, which is only behind the role of informal membership with a composite score of

3.17. Of all the goals this one produced the lowest interval of difference between answers with a total .07 differentiation between the lowest and highest scores.

Most answers also fell in the bell curve center on all three questions with little responses in either the five or one range. Each of the three questions, fifteen, six, and twenty-four, resulted in a high “neutral” score. This would seem to indicate that there was a generally neutral attitude toward the entire concept of

Goal Six.

The open-ended, qualitative question for Goal Six was “How can a person use what they learn in a catechism classes to stay connected to a sense of belonging in their faith”.

Table 8a. Goal #2 Catechism Question Responses How can a person use Understand God and Faith 25 what they learn in a Did Not Understand Purpose 15 catechism classes to stay Learning Life Applications 6 connected to a sense of Christian Witness 3 belonging in their faith Making You a Member 1

Total Responses 50 Of 54 respondents 41 responded to this question.

Contrary to the scoring of the quantitative questions, the qualitative questions were again very bifurcated and contrary. Twenty-five respondents stated that, in some way, catechism helped them understand God and their faith.

Conversely, 15 stated that they did not at all understand the function of catechism. Only three other categories of responses were made at all, with

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“Christian witness” getting three mentions, “learning life applications” getting six, and “makes you a member” getting a single mention.

The issue appears to be that for some it is clear that Christianity is something you can learn and understand in catechism class, and the other plurality failing to understand the function of catechism at all.

Informal Membership

Goal Three is to discover millennials’ attitudes toward informal congregational membership. In assessing Goal the following survey questions, listed in order of prominence, were asked: “22) Participating informally in the life of a congregation matters more than being a member”, “12) It is more important to participate informally in the ministry of a church than actually become a member”, and “3) Just attending a church informally without officially joining is enough.” For this question, and all the following the respondents were asked to rate their answer on a five-point Likert Scale with one being “Strongly Disagree” and five being “Strongly Agree”.

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Table 9. Goal #3- To discover millennials’ attitudes toward informal congregational membership. ______Question Average Responses 22.) Participating informally in the life of 3.37 54 a congregation matters more than being a member.

12.) It is more important to participate. 3.15 54 informally in the ministry of a church than actually become a member.

3.) Just attending a church informally 2.83 54 without officially joining is enough. ______Composite 3.17 N=54 Likert Scale: 1 Strongly Disagree, 2 Slightly Disagree, 3 Neutral, 4 Slightly Agree, 5 Strongly Agree.

At a 3.17 composite score this goal has the single most negative response of any of the nine goal groupings which would seem to indicate that informal membership does not appeal to millennials. Only question 16, a question about taking classes, had a lower Likert Score than question three which had 38 responses at three or less for a composite of 2.83.

Question 12 had a Likert Scale score of 3.15 which is a nearly completely neutral response.

Even the highest responding question, question 21, only had a score of

3.37. However, the overall composite scores only tell part of the story. Each of the three questions produced a reliable bell curve with a majority of answers for each of the three questions pertaining to Goal Three with responses at the three level on the Likert Scale. This would seem to indicate a neutral stance overall.

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Where the idea traditional membership produced polarized responses, the notion of informal membership seemed to produce mostly neutral ones.

When looking at the open-ended question of “How is informally taking part in the daily activities of a congregation more important than having your name on a church membership list” those who’s individual responses indicated that membership is important was identical to those who indicated that membership was unimportant.

Table 9a. Informal Membership

Question Responses How is informally taking Participation Matters Most 30 part in the daily activities Desire To Do More 17 of a congregation more Frustration With Others 13 important than having your Membership Matters 9 name on a church Membership Does Not Matter 9 membership list? Total Responses 78 Of 54 respondents 53 responded to this question.

There were exactly nine mentions of either position among the fifty-four valid respondents. Other than those who asserted that membership mattered verses those who asserted that it did not only one other major category of responses emerged. Thirty different survey takers mentioned that participation mattered more than anything else including membership or non-membership.

Many of the 30 respondents who mentioned participation, expressed both their desire to do more (17) and their frustration with individuals who used membership as an excuse to do less (13).

Issues pertaining to belonging as a general concept seems to have strongly held, higher responses with Goal Four holding a commanding lead over

144 all the other goals. Formal membership seems to be more important than belonging in an informal way. After this the way that respondents understand the function of church in creating a sense of belonging among their members seems to become clearly divided. Both factions though seem to agree on social activities outside the church, either in recreational activities or retreat and mission trips, as a means of building belonging. Equally both sides are looking for greater inclusion, both in leadership and in interpersonal relations.

Chapter Six will include an analysis of the insights found in each Goal as well as addressing the possible applications based on the findings, topics for future study based on these insights, and how the total findings of chapter two through five inform the personal goals.

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CHAPTER SIX

SUMMARY AND REFLECTIONS

When I was twenty-five years old, I did my internship in a medium sized

Lutheran church in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. We had already begun to see the signs of erosion with the younger members, who, at the time, would have been in the later stages of Gen-X. I remember my intern supervisor, Bob Free, telling me one day that among the many pitfalls and sacrifices the job would require, my own family life would certainly suffer, as his had. He told me, with a strange sense of sacrificial pride, that his own children, who were on the cusp between

Gen-X and Millennials, wanted nothing to do with church because of the toll it had taken on his family. I went home that evening even more determined not to let the same happen to my own children, and more importantly, to not assume that it was just the “price of doing business.”

Over the years of watching my own millennial children find their place in the faith, it has been both my professional and parental duty to do all that I can to help them find a sense of belonging, which thankfully they have. Their sense of belonging is not identical to my own in its shape and structure, but it is just as powerful, and it is built on the same foundation: belonging to and with Christ. In his article on how the church cannot afford to resign itself to leave behind a generation, Matt Brian points out that “In the context of this divinely ordered mission, Jesus binds his disciples to himself, so that they may share his relationship with the Father who sent him” (Brian 2011, 35). Brian points out that the fundamental mission of the church has remained unchanged for two

146 thousand years. We are those who are bound to Christ, just as the disciples were bound to Christ in the Markan account of the calling of the disciples. Belonging is found in calling and binding. We simply have to better understand how to call the millennials of this world out of the world, into belonging with Christ, and then

Christ “also sends them as his witnesses to the world” (Brian 2011, 35).

Millennials may not be looking for the same institutional and cultural connection to their faith that previous generations have, and there is a sharp division within the millennial generation as to how authenticity is expressed within the church. However, millennials are looking for connection to their faith and to each other in which they are open to developing a sense of belonging in a way that authentically resonates with them. This generation is not a singular body with a singular perspective; instead, it is a bifurcated body with extremely strongly held perspectives on truth, objective and subjective. Although both factions are each looking for connection on a familial, interpersonal, and social level, what they are wanting to connect to, and in turn found their sense of belonging on, is not identical or compatible.

If the church wants to reach out to millennials it will have to adopt a strong position of either cultural inclusivity or cultural exclusivity and stand firm with the population they have chosen to appeal to. Within the Roman Catholic church the current leadership has attempted to straddle the fence with the current Pope apparently attempting to adopt a double-truth in which there is objective truth for the believers and subjective truth for the secular world, throwing the whole of the

Roman Catholic religion into disarray. Critics point out that

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While Pope Francis’ popularity grows with the media, disenfranchised Roman Catholics, and groups usually unfriendly toward Catholicism, he arouses concern among Christian traditionalists. Much unease comes from mixed messages utilizing a kind of duplicity different from heretical double-truth teachings of the Latin Middle Ages” (Foltz and Schweitzer 2015, 89)

The choice is a perilous one. Those who chose cultural inclusivity risk assimilation into the universalist perspective of the current subjectivist culture.

Those who choose cultural exclusivity risk becoming insular and losing their ability to process fresh perspectives. Those who refuse to choose face the same conundrum as the Roman Catholic world as they lose acceptance among the objectivists and rouse suspicion from the subjectivists.

Project Goals

1. To discover how millennials value the concept of belonging.

2. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward traditional congregational membership.

3. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward informal congregational membership.

4. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward belonging outside of congregational membership.

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5. To discover millennial’s attitude toward belonging as it pertains to

Lutheran identity.

6. To discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes affected their long term long-term sense of belonging.

7. To discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship training.

8.To discover what methods for building a sense of belonging the participants would be most open to.

9. To discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in deepening commitment to a congregation.

Each goal will be analyzed, beginning with the goal that had the most significant findings, followed by the remainder of the goals in descending order of highest score.

Goal Four: Belonging in Social Settings

Goal number four was to discover millennials’ attitudes toward belonging outside of congregational membership. Although the social groupings of “school” and “clubs” both garnered responses in the upper half of responses, “belonging with family” was clearly the strongest response not only in this goal, but of all nine goals with a Likert-scale score of 4.25. Likewise, family was repeatedly mentioned as important in the open-ended questions for this goal as well as several other goals that did not directly reference “family” at all. Interestingly, while school, friends, and work are frequently referenced in open-ended questions as well, the lower scoring question dealing with “clubs” is rarely

149 referenced in most contexts. Little interest seems paid to clubs, teams, sports, or organizations.

This would seem to indicate that while millennials are looking for belonging in social settings, they are not looking for formal, institutional settings.

Even when referencing a desire to have small groups in later goals the discussion centered around socially organized small groups, not formal task- oriented small groups. All of this points to the principal concept of interpersonal relationships. Of course, McLaren certainly emphasized this in his books and

Myers’ concept of spatially oriented belonging both pointed extensively to this

(Myers 2003, 20).

Scoring at 4.24 the response to family life being important was the highest of all responses in all twenty-seven quantitative questions. This would indicate that family connection and family participation are paramount to millennials, which is odd considering that intergenerational ministry, especially in the fields of faith development and education, have largely been overshadowed by developmentally specific ministry. In addressing the prevalence of developmental psychological perspectives Glassford and Barger-Elliot point out that “The teaching ministry, which is the principle concern of Christian education as a discipline, is overly reliant on the social sciences philosophically and pedagogically” (Glassford and Barger-Elliot 2011, 364). Based on the data here it might be argued that re-integrating family units in developmental faith programming may be more useful.

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Goal Seven: Discipleship Training

Goal seven was to discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship training. This particular goal scored the second lowest aggregate number of ones and twos, with answers clustered around a score of four, with outliers in the threes and fives. Likewise, the three questions addressing goal seven also had a low degree of variation between the three scores with a margin of .02 difference between the top and second scores producing a composite score of 3.83, implying a general positive response.

This set of questions began to point to the possibility that instead of one population, millennials actually represent two very different populations that share certain social modalities. While the overall response to the questions was positive, the interpretation of what “classes” and “discipleship training” meant seemed to have different meanings when looking at the qualitative answers.

Sixteen respondents indicated that they were looking for focused doctrinal education opportunities indicating that their interpretation of the goal was motivated by objective truth. In later goals, this population re-emerged repeatedly in direct opposition to a second population that seemed hostile to doctrinal and dogmatic focusses.

Another clear interpretation of what “discipleship training” meant, had to do with individuals who were looking for retreat-based experiences focusing on personal spirituality and social interaction. This represented twenty-four different respondents who mentioned “retreats” or “trips,” which is one of the largest blocks of qualitative answers among all nine goals. Attention Restoration Theory

151 poses that one of the challenges facing millennials in our current age is “the problem of directed attention fatigue” (Viviers 2016, 3), wherein the constant focused attention produced by the ubiquitous technological and social stressors results in a “depleted mental state” (Viviers 2016, 3). Through the experience of retreats, “Cognitive depletion becomes substituted with cognitive restoration and leads to a replenished state of mind so as to function effectively” (Viviers 2016,

3). As such, millennial Christians may be looking for such experiences in their spiritual development.

Goal Five: Belonging and Lutheran Identity

Goal five was to discover millennials’ attitude toward belonging as it pertains to Lutheran identity. While this question had the third highest composite score of 3.80 and one of the questions scoring in the upper quartile with a 4.00, the real division between the two groups began to emerge here. The overall high score was a direct result of a disproportionate number of five responses and an upward sloping distribution of ones, twos, and threes. Those who held a positive perspective on being Lutheran seemed to hold to it absolutely, while those who either strongly disagreed or disagreed with Lutheran identity having a role balanced the overall score.

This bifurcation was evident in the qualitative answers with some of the highest number of negative and critical responses of any of the nine goals as well as a high number of positive responses worded in absolute terms. Sixteen respondents used terms like “key” and “essential” when describing their sense of

Lutheran identity. Likewise, eight individuals stated that a sense of Lutheran

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Identity was “detrimental” or “hurtful” and another seven stated that it in no way was useful at all. As this adds to the overall picture, it seems are not just two opinions here, but two unique ways of looking at Christianity entirely.

This seems to indicate that churches seeking to reach out to millennials to build belonging may have to likewise choose a side. Churches frequently take the position that they welcome everyone equally, but what if two groups are mutually incompatible? What if a church cannot reach millennials who want dogmatic Lutheranism and those who completely reject doctrinally oriented churches? This seems to indicate that a conscience choice must be made: objective (doctrinal) Christianity, or subjective (universalist) Christianity. Much like Vieth and Bolz-Weber presenting drastically diverging perspectives on ministry with millennial Lutherans, it may be that neither were inaccurately describing successful ministry, but that both are describing successful ministry with their population.

Goal Number Nine: Deepening Commitment

Goal nine was to discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in deepening commitment to a congregation. Even more so than goal seven, the responses for this goal trend extensively toward fours with the lowest aggregate number of ones and twos producing a composite score of 3.79.

Unlike the previous goal there is no obvious division between the respondents either in the scoring or the qualitative answers. This would seem to indicate that if there is two populations that both respond equally to leadership opportunities, learning opportunities, and social occasions. This would be

153 supported by the diverse responses to the qualitative question, with seventeen unique groupings of answers indicating a broad appeal of the purposes of goal nine.

Unsurprisingly, “making social connections” was by far the most common way that the church can encourage deepening connections. Myers’ work on the collapse of social structures and the vacuum that left certainly is borne out in the responses (Myers 2003, 124). However, the sort of social connection that millennials mention tends to include activities that are not part of the normal life of traditional congregations, focusing on activities that happen outside of the physical environs of the church. Millennials seem to see “church” less as a function of building, location, or “religious activities” and more a function of fellowship mediated thought faith. As such, millennial respondents were looking for things like dinner-out clubs, small groups in homes focused on social activities, and Bible study in public spaces like coffee shops and bars.

Goal One: Valuing Belonging in Social Settings

Goal number one was to discover how millennials value the concept of belonging. The composite score of goal number one was 3.73 although one question in the set of three garnered a 4.04 response, which would be in the top quartile, while the other two tied at 3.57 which puts them close to the overall median of scores. One interpretation of this might include that the first question asked about the importance of belonging without mention of any action taken to acquire it, while the other two questions used value-added action words like

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“work” and “motivated” indicating that while belonging in social settings is considered very valuable, taking independent action poses some form of barrier.

While elaborating on where it is important to belong in the open-ended questions, “church and worship” outscored “school,” “work,” “family,” and

“friends” in that order. Combine the idea that belonging is very important, but taking the independent action to accomplish this is not with the idea that, for the purposes of this survey at least, belonging in a body of worship is paramount and we see that there is an unmet need among millennials to be called to participate in the life of the church. Much as Jesus in the Markan account actively recruits the apostles absent any action on their part, the church will have to go and retrieve millennial members directly. Millennials want to belong in a worshiping body, but they want the church to make the first move.

Conversely there seems to be a misapprehension that millennials want a particular mode of worship. When Schattauer did his analysis of the various modalities of millennial worship looking at “liturgical movement, the contemporary worship movement, liberation perspectives, Pentecostalism, and postmodern approaches” (Schattauer 2011, 144), he seemed to discover that it was quality of worship in a contextual setting, not style that mattered. He says, “What I am suggesting is this: the contemporary search for an alternative practice of worship, in the variety of its impulses, is finally about re-imagining the Christian assembly in relation to God’s mission” (Schattauer 2011, 151). The mission matters, the worship matters, the modality is irrelevant, but worship is paramount.

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Goal Number Two: Traditional Membership

Goal two was to discover millennials’ attitudes toward traditional congregational membership. The composite score for goal number two was 3.57, the fifth lowest. I had expected this goal to score low based on anecdotal experience within the post-modern community. What was surprising was that while the composite score was low, this was not the result of consensus, rather the result of averaging. There was a pronounced peak at either end of the scoring with a trough in the middle at the “neutral” answer. Once again, the answers were clearly divided into two camps: pro-membership and anti- membership.

Those who indicated a four or five seemed to pose that formal means of entry into membership like baptism, new member classes, catechism, and confirmation were paramount to their experience of the Christian faith. Twelve respondents gave a response in the open-ended questions that traditional membership makes them feel connected to God, and fourteen indicated that it made them feel connected to their community. On the one and two side of the equation, fourteen respondents indicated that traditional membership did nothing for their faith, using words like “meaningless” and “pointless” in their open-ended responses.

Once more it seems we are looking at two unique populations that have diametrically opposed points of view while still fitting into the same demographic.

The answer to this puzzle may be in how individuals perceive the purpose of a congregational body. Those who see it as institution may be the same individuals

156 who see membership as “pointless” and “meaningless,” whereas those who see it as a movement may be the ones who consider it “essential.” Stewardship expert Ann Fritschel points out that “Millennials want to be a part of a movement not an institution. They will not support institutions in the same way that previous generations have” (Fritschel 2018, 17). This all seems to track back to the

Seminex event mentioned in Chapter Two when the LCMS underwent the split that polarized Lutheranism between those looking for a less institutional Lutheran church on the left and those looking for a more dogmatic Lutheran church on the right. Both were looking for movement, not institution.

By looking at giving trends among millennials you can see indicators.

Financial value can be easily translated into social value as where your treasure is, there your heart will be (Matt. 6:21). Of the living generations today, the

Greatest Generation is still the most generous in that 88% of Greatest

Generation regularly donate to charities, 72% of Boomers, 59% of Gen-Xers, and surprisingly 84% of Millennials (Fritschel 2018, 17). But millennials are looking to give to movements and action-oriented causes, not institutions. Fritschel says,

“The more institutional a congregation looks, the less welcoming it will be to

Millennials, especially if the institution seems to exist primarily for its own sake”

(Fritschel 2018, 17).

Goal Number Eight: Methods of Building Belonging

Goal eight was to discover what methods millennials would be open to for building a sense of belonging. Goal eight produced the largest interval between responses to the three questions. Although the composite was a 3.51, the lowest

157 score was on question sixteen with a 2.80 and the highest was on question eight with a 4.04, producing an interval of 1.24. This seems to be less a matter of disagreement among differing groups and more a sharply divided preference among the options presented. While question sixteen focused on conventional classes, question eight focused on informal social activities. As pointed out in goal two, activities that seem institutional may be much less popular than activities that seem more organic and social. With question sixteen scoring in the bottom quartile and eight scoring in the top there is a clear line of demarcation.

In the qualitative answers, two sets of responses emerged that seemed to be two sides to the same problem. Many respondents used phrases like “utilize my gifts,” “have someone invite me to do something,” and “have a role to play,” while others used phrases like “lazy,” “lack of personal investment,” and “don’t be like the world” in their responses. Both of these grouping would seem to indicated that millennials are frustrated with not being called to come and participate in the work of the Kingdom, while likewise feeling frustration with those in the church who are content to be idle.

Millennials seem to be desiring a deeper investment in the mission of the church in terms of the church’s purpose as a movement of the Kingdom of God in this world. Calling them to come and follow, then equipping them to go and minister, as in the Markan narrative, seems to be something they are longing for but with a social emphasis.

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Goal Number Six: Traditional Catechism and Sense of Belonging

Goal six was to discover how catechism classes have affected a long-term sense of Lutheran identity. This goal scored a composite 3.31, the second lowest with the lowest interval of difference between answers with a total .07 differentiation between the lowest and highest scores on all three questions.

Anecdotally it is commonly held among Lutheran pastors that there is a disconnect between catechism classes and the attitudes of those going through confirmation. These scores would support the lack of interest that millennials have in traditional catechetical classes. The question must be asked, why is this suddenly an issue after five hundred years of successful application? The answer seems to be found in the qualitative responses. Fifteen respondents stated that something to the affect that they did not understand the function of catechism at all, whereas twenty-five indicated clear understandings of catechism in terms of

“Christian witness,” “doctrine,” and “life applications.”

The issue appears to be that for some Christianity is something you can learn and understand in catechism class, and the other plurality failing to understand the function of catechism at all. This seems to point to a missed opportunity. If the twenty-five respondents, in the largest plurality, benefited because they understood the function of catechism, and the fifteen who received less benefit from catechism did not understand the function of catechism, then it may be less a systemic failure and more of a pedagogical failure. Perhaps by leveraging the power of belonging in families and friend groups there could be a way to better convey the purpose behind catechism, making it more successful at

159 fostering a sense of belonging in millennials. Interestingly, this is exactly what

Luther did, which was examined in Chapter Two, when he introduced the Small

Catechism. Its express function was to help individuals who did not understand the Christian faith form a clear understanding of what it means to be Christian. Of course, some of the issue may stem from the fact that of the two factions the data seems to be pointing to, one seems to reject objective truth, which is the foundation of the catechetical teachings.

Goal Three: Informal Membership

Goal three was to discover millennials’ attitudes toward informal congregational membership. Given that millennials tend to lack interest in institutional organizations, I anticipated a much higher composite score for this goal. In a sense having an exceptionally low score is itself a strong indicator.

Respondents gave this goal an average of 3.17. While the quantitative scores clustered strongly around a score of three with a well-formed bell curve, like many of the other questions the answers to the qualitative question were again sharply divided.

Exactly nine respondents made mention of membership being exceptionally important and nine made mention of it being exceptionally unimportant. Thirty respondents expressed concern or frustration with participation, often mentioning that participation and taking part in action was more important than belonging or not belonging. The overall neutral response in the quantitative scores seems not to indicate a lack of interest in informal membership so much as an indicator pointing to membership in general being

160 less important than participation. The responses to these twenty-seven quantitative questions and nine qualitative ones seem to point to a set of logical applications.

Application

With the answers to the quantitative and qualitative questions in mind, there seem to be four major applications: 1). Choosing a millennial population to reach out to, 2). Creating a safe social space, 3). Actively calling and equipping, and 4). Clearly expressing purpose of movement. Not only are those the four applications that make sense, they make sense to apply in that order.

The bifurcation in the American Lutheran world that began with the

Seminex event and has continued on through contemporary times is nothing more than a reflection of trends and attitudes of overall society. As McLaren’s

Generous Orthodoxy hints at Universalism, Bell’s Love Wins lays out a case for what is essentially Christocentric Universalism, and Bolz Weber’s Pastrix lays out an even more radical course toward Syncretic Universalism, authors like Vieth take the opposite track by emphasizing dogmatically Lutheran ministry. It seems almost antithetical to church work that one would begin a process by considering who your actions would intentionally exclude, but looking over the whole of the data there seems little else to do. Vieth and Bolz Weber will never be part of the same worshiping body, nor will the distinct factions of millennials they are emblematic of.

For a church leader and congregation to choose which body they will appeal to is more a matter consciously making a decision that is already

161 happening on an unconscious level. I suspect that one reason that Lutheran churches are facing radical declines in populations is that we have refused to embrace this choice out of guilt. Instead we have tentatively backed into our positions while attempting to obfuscate that we have done so.

A perfect example of this is when in August of 2009 the ELCA passed a social statement advising that congregations were free to take one of four positions on same sex marriage: that it is allowable and normative, that it is allowable but not normative, that it is not normative but not prohibited, and that it is not normative and is prohibited (ELCA 2009, 21). Further, the church affirmed that “We further believe that this church, on the basis of ‘the bound conscience’ will include these different understandings and practices within its life as it seeks to live out its mission and ministry in the world” (ELCA 2009, 20). The ELCA officially decided not to decide but honor all interpretations. In the following years not one document, ruling, social statement, or public proclamation from the national leadership of the ELCA has reflected any but the position that same sex marriage is normative and acceptable, setting the stage for the splintering of the

ELCA into the ELCA, the NALC, and the LCMC.

Like the rest of us, they backed into position while claiming to not have taken a position. In doing this, we sacrifice our authenticity and mute our voice with a population that is searching for authentic witnesses. Both camps of subjective and objective truth have to do with embracing the ethos of a movement instead of the structures of an institution. We fail because we try to

162 camp on the hill of institution, too frightened to march down one side or the other to engage culture… either alongside it or in opposition to it.

As different as these two groups may be, they share the common desire to have a safe social space to live out the fellowship element of their faith. Again, not in an institutional way but in an organic social structure. In Chapter Three

Myers’ concept of rediscovering the front-porch suggested that what millennials are looking for is the lost social cohesion that was sacrificed as we became more urban, more mobile, and less connected locally. The church needs to find ways to fulfil the role of social network. Unlike the past applications that focused on institutional goals and group involvement in the larger ministry of the denomination, our future applications will need to be interpersonally driven.

One question the church avoids asking outwardly but perpetually asks inwardly is “how does this benefit the congregation?” If we do a Bible study off premises at a local craft beer brewery, how does this bring people in to “church” on Sunday? Beneath this question lies a set of unspoken assumptions and expectations. Among those unspoken items are: how does this put money in the offering plate, how does this support the worship service/style which we enjoy, how does this affect the notion that the church is a building, and what do we do with the feeling that unified ministry is the product of proximity and uniformity not shared mission? Creating a safe social space means we ask all the unspoken questions out loud in our leadership teams and assess whether the answers matter, are faithful, or are a hindrance.

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Of course, the commonly held mission of the church is ultimately what should hold the unity together. For too long the church has labored under the misapprehension that part of this mission is to be attractional. The entirety of the church growth movement was based on this assumption. Time and time again the millennial respondents to the survey stated that they wanted to be invited, asked, and called . . . not enticed. If we take the Markan account of the calling of the disciples as normative, Jesus’s greatest success was with those he called.

Likewise, it was the crowds of thousands that he attracted during his Galilean ministry that failed to follow through on faith when he challenged them. The millennial population gives us the opportunity to do what Jesus did: call a small number of believers, disciple their spiritual growth, form close interpersonal bonds, and send them out to do their own ministry. Without a clearly held missional perspective none of the above are possible.

Whether one agrees with or disagrees with individuals like Nadia Bolz-

Weber or Gene Vieth, the fact remains that we cannot be unclear about their interpretation of the mission of the Kingdom of God in today’s world. They have authentic voices because they have clearly held positions that lack institutional metanarratives. Based on the responses from the survey, the church can either fail with half the population of millennials by choosing to espouse one missional direction, fail with the other half by espousing the opposite missional direction, or fail all of them by refusing to choose a missional direction. Like any sort of movement, direction is essential. It is not enough to state a missional goal. It is most certainly not enough to have a mission statement. If we understand that

164 missional movement is what helps millennials form a deeper sense of belonging in the Lutheran church, then we must make a point of impregnating all our ministry with missional movement.

In identifying to whom we are ministering among millennials, creating safe social space, calling and equipping, and effectively establishing missional movement we can help millennials develop a stronger sense of belonging in the

Lutheran Church. This answers certain questions, but it also opens the door to other fields of inquiry.

Further Study

A nearly infinite number of topics could spin off of the applications and survey results above but three have been plaguing my thoughts for months. Of the two factions, who is right? What institutional structures need to be in place for millennial ministry? What is the role of professional clergy in the future?

As to which missional movement direction I, and my congregation belong, we have made our choice. I will say more on that in Personal Goals, but I must admit that my decisions were based largely on presuppositions, intuition, and the guidance of my conscience. But, as much as I passionately hold to my perspective, I cannot say that it is based on objective study and research. I would be lying if said that I have treated both sides of the split, objective and subjective truths, identically. Although I side with Vieth, as does my congregation,

I do not have any antipathy toward the other side. I merely have theological disagreements. That said, I am only now beginning to understand their point of view. Is there a right and a wrong here? Are these just different ways to view

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God, much as I would see my Calvinist or Arminian siblings in Christ? McLaren would say so. Is the creeping Universalism of Bell, and the raging Universalism of Bolz-Weber a threat to the future of the Christian church? Vieth would say so.

Unless I have a firmer grasp on the answer to these questions, I feel uncomfortable defining these two sides as a dualistic conflict, or a parallel construction of shared goals. As unprepared as I feel to rule on that I also feel unprepared to structure my church to do the work that needs to be done.

The church is succeeding at what it is doing, but what it is doing is not succeeding. Our institutional structures are oriented toward institutional goals.

Everything from worship on Sunday to financial stewardship is geared toward an organization that is mechanistic in nature, not organic. How do we shift the institutional structure of the church to make way for the sort of social space and missional movement that has to occur? In that structure what role do we professional clergy have?

It is out of pure selfish anxiety that I pose the question about the role of professional clergy. If the institution that we all trained to serve in is actually part of the problem with the church, what then do we need to learn to serve in the future? Is there a place for full time professional clergy and does it take place in contextual community settings or just in large scale megachurches? How do we call and engage millennials in interpersonal relationships? What does that discipling look like? It seems like these fields of personal study will best be fleshed out in the doing of this ministry, but they all are dauntingly broad. I would recommend that future Doctoral students turn their attention to how churches

166 address the questions of assimilation and isolation as opposed to cultural engagement versus doctrinal purity. It seems easy to move from engagement to assimilation and from dogma to isolation. How can the millennial church address this question of finding balance? Some of which I have already begun to process in my personal goals.

Personal Goals

This project has deeply re-shaped my life and ministry. As we look at my person goals it is striking how asking questions about ministering to a specific generation changed my relationship with the Holy Spirit, my congregation, and my denominational affiliation.

Personal Goal One

My first personal goal was that I will satisfy my lifelong desire to better understand the exodus of post-moderns from the Lutheran tradition. Many of the things I intuitively assumed, namely the role of social space and missional movement, were confirmed. However, more tellingly were the things I assumed as given that have been turned around. I assumed that dogmatics and doctrine had to be hidden in contextual, application driven preaching to make them palatable. Now that I see that it is part of the authentic voice of the church, it has shifted my weekly focus to include more theology and difficult doctrinal teaching in my Sunday worship and weekday lessons. So far I have been surprised by how well this has been received both by the millennials in my congregation but also by the elderly who have expressed to me that it feels like a return to the

Lutheranism of their youth, which they have embraced with joy.

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In many ways I am a product of my own assumptions, including the belief that worship had to adapt to millennial tastes. For years I have labored under the assumption that worship had to be contemporized to appeal to younger adults. I even planted a congregation in Florida that was expressly contemporary worship driven for the purpose of attracting millennials. Now that I see the data it seems that it was never the structure of the service that was failing, it was the passion, excellence, and heart that was missing from it.

The reason I was active in the church as a young adult myself was interpersonal relationships that actively called me into ministry. As such it should have been obvious to me that the absence of this was one of the things steering millennials away. Seeing that the institutional character of the church stands in the way of this sort of missional movement, I was better able to understand the importance of the interpersonal call to ministry.

Personal Goal Two

My next goal was that I will develop a deeper trust of the Holy Spirit as it re-orders the nature of the church. Within Lutheran parlance the personal pronoun “it” is used for the Holy Spirit, as the nouns for Spirit in Hebrew and

Greek are neither male nor consistent, as one is neuter, and one is feminine.

This goal was lived out in a very dramatic and heart-rending way in my ministry.

After much discussion among my congregation we began to consider that the direction of the ELCA was going in was not the missional movement we felt comfortable with. We could have institutionally remained in, but not an active part of the church but we wanted to embrace missional movement.

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After a congregational meeting with our regional Bishop, Abraham

Allende, in which he stated in no uncertain terms that he was a universalist who believed that salvation would come to all humanity through Christ regardless of personal faith, we chose a new direction for ourselves. It was a difficult decision.

In the one hundred fifty-plus years of my congregation’s existence, they had never broken fellowship with their denominational body. I had never been a member of any denomination but the ELCA and its precursor body. After twenty- two years of ministry, and with the threat of losing our church building, savings, and even pensions, we left the ELCA and joined the LCMC. We could not begin to re-order the nature of our church without doing so. In April of this year the

ELCA released us and all our assets to the LCMC with no penalties or demands.

I have never been more at the mercy of the strength of the Holy Spirit in my life, and God has blessed us.

Personal Goal Three

My final goal was that I will order my life to better show the light of Christ to my community as it shifts around us. Free from the constraints of the ELCA, we have only begun to come to grips with what this means for our congregation and my own ministry. I now see my calling to be less one of administrator and

CEO and more of mentor. In my preaching I am more myself, and I have never been more “Lutheran” in my life. I embrace the value of the witness of my denomination and tradition now. Before I always felt apologetic about being

ELCA in the light of the excesses and heterodox teaching; now I am proud of the denomination we are affiliated with as it represents our missional movement.

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Before I saw Lutheranism as a flawed but functional theological view to be represented quietly and reticently; now I fully embrace the value and truth that the lens of Lutheranism highlights. This process has changed the entire course of my ministry and the nature of my service. As society shifts around us, I feel that the authentic voice this has provided us will serve to let the light of Christ shine around us.

Concluding Thoughts

I had a geometry teacher in high school named Gregory Miles. He was by all metrics a math nerd. His pants were too high (as was his voice), his pocket had a pocket protector and pens, his glasses were good and thick, and he had a perpetual band of chalk dust around his waist from where he kept his pockets full of chalk, wiping his hands on his waistband each time he put a piece back. And we all adored him. We adored him because he loved math and he loved teaching high school students. As a student who struggled to get “C’s” in math I got straight “A’s” in his class. I should have learned then and there that being honest about who you are and pursuing it with passion and love is the secret to success.

Now it will be my guide to ministry with the millennial Lutherans.

I started this process to find answers that I had been unable to discover after two decades of focused ministry dedicated to this topic. I had no idea how it would stretch me, or the far-reaching changes it would bring to my life and ministry. The most prominent learning that I will bring away from the project is the importance of honesty. I feel that the failing of the church with the millennial

Lutherans is entirely due to the failing the church has had with honesty. We are

170 not honest about our motives, we are not honest about our problems, we are not honest with ourselves about our fears, and we are not being our true selves.

I have learned to be passionately Lutheran, to embrace my missional movement, and not settle for less than what I think is God’s full truth, no matter the cost. As a result, I am willing to do whatever needs to be done to invite future generations to join me in the same.

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APPENDIX ONE

ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

DISCOVERY PROJECT OF HOW LUTHERAN CHURCHES EFFECTIVELY FOSTER A SENSE OF CHURCH BELONGING AMONG MILLENNIALS

A PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ASHLAND THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF MINISTRY

BY RUSSEL YOAK

ASHLAND, OHIO OCTOBER 1, 2017

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Purpose Statement

The purpose of this project is to discover the effective foundations of the sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church. The research question is: “what are the effective foundations of a sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church?”

Overview

The focus of this discovery project is to assess what the effective foundations of a sense of Christian belonging are among millennial participants with which they form their Christian identity. Those who participate will be surveyed using both an online as well as in-person assessment tool to discover, over a period of six months, the elements that form their sense of belonging in the Lutheran church and the degree to which these elements are successfully helping individuals form their sense of Christian identity. The data will be compiled using an online tool which will be distributed around the ELCA, LCMC,

LCMS, and NALC as well as in person interviews in youth groups, youth convocations, and national youth assemblies.

As the Lutheran church struggles to assess the rapidly declining young adult membership in our congregations many factors may come to play.

Foremost, is the notion that the historic means by which Lutherans build a

Christian identity through spiritual and institutional programs is failing to foster a sense of belonging. The traditional means of catechism, membership, and cultural identity seem to no longer be holding millennials in the life of the church

173 and I hope to use the data from this assessment in the process of reevaluating the focus of young adult oriented outreach.

Foundations

There are a plethora of assumptions and characterizations made about millennials and the somewhat difficult to define generation that followed them.

They are stereotyped as lazy, entitled, emotionally delicate, and self-absorbed.

These two generations have faced societal and cultural change on an astounding level and at an even more astounding pace. The Lutheran church has struggled to find a way to connect with these generations as the same exceedingly rapid social and cultural currents that millennials ride on have swiftly swept them away from church affiliation.

Some use the term “post-millennial” to refer to people born after circa

1990 up until present and “millennial” to refer to people born after circa 1980 to circa 1990. There are no hard, defined dates or identifiable epochs, merely approximations. The term “post-millennial” has become a stand in for any actual name for the generation that follows the millennials as there is yet to be consensus on a name or even a description of what makes this generation distinct from the millennials. As such, most sociologist make little differentiation between the two. The Pew Research Center, one of the principal sociological research centers looking at generational information, uses the blanket term

“millennial” to describe those “born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium.” (Frye 2016, Pew Research: Millennial Household).

For this reason, I will be treating the two populations likewise synonymously. The

174 millennial abandonment of organized religion represents the single largest departure from church life in western history and few denominations have felt it more severely than the Lutherans.

The foundations will include a brief summary of my personal background in ministering to millennials as well as the inherent faults in our current system of incorporating them into the life of Lutheran congregations. The foundations will also include: a biblical and theological investigation of the concept of belonging as it pertains to the church; a historical context of Lutheran efforts to foster belonging, and a contemporary perspective on the challenge to incorporate millennial individuals in congregational settings.

Personal Foundation

My first memory of actively participating in the administrative life of a congregation came when I was eighteen years old. As an eighteen-year-old member of the congregation I was entitled to have a voice and vote during our congregational meetings. During the annual meeting a budgetary item was presented that struck me as a silly waste of tens of thousands of dollars when absolutely no money was being budgeted to do outreach to my peers in Gen-X. I walked to the mic, and spoke passionately about the issue at hand, the purchasing of a very expensive air-conditioning system. I spoke with regard to the absolute lack of concern with the fact that my peers were leaving the church in droves, and seemed unlikely to come back. At the time a well-meaning, but ultimately wrong, older member politely but smugly told me to stop being dramatic…the young people would return when they had kids, just like they

175 always did. In that moment I knew that I would spend the rest of my life trying to find a way to draw my generation, and later generations as they occurred, back to the life of the church even in the face of adversity and doubt.

In seminary and after I worked toward a career in youth and college ministry. I did my Contextual-Ed with the Lutheran campus ministry at the

University of South Carolina. When I was ordained I knew that under the ELCA’s system I had to do three years of congregational ministry before I could do a specialty ministry with a campus ministry group, but during that time I worked as the state youth coordinator, served as the chaplain at our state youth camp, was appointed to the board of directors for the campus ministry at West Virginia

University, and started a campus ministry at Marshal University. During this period, it became evident to me that the problem could not be addressed through specialty ministries but had to be addressed on a congregational level. In response to this I volunteered for, and was selected to be a church planter with the ELCA for the express purpose of starting post-modern congregations. I still do young-adult oriented congregational outreach ministry and now I am certain that the problem does not have to do with the transmission of faith or theology but with the very notion of belonging itself.

As I said, I myself am a member of a generation that is largely grouped together with the millennials: Gen-X. As such, though I share a number of attributes with millennials we are not synonymous. Although the terms postmodern and the various generations that have existed under the post-modern umbrella are often spoken of demographically it is worth noting that post-

176 modernism is not a demographic, it is a psychographic: a way of looking at and ordering our understanding of the nature of life. Although Millennials, post- millennials, and Gen-Xers share a common deconstructionist world view we practice it quite differently. I have, none the less spent a lion’s share of my personal career attempting to solve the puzzle of why the principally post-modern generations have had such a hard time developing connections in traditional

Lutheran settings.

Biblical Foundation

In the Gospel of Mark the two passages that serve as the foundation of the Biblical perspective of belonging are: Mark 1:16-18 and Mark 3:13-15. The first deals with the notion of calling and the second with the notion of sending. I will be using the Gospel of Mark because, of all the Biblical authors, “what it means to follow Jesus is in the forefront of Mark’s mind” (Stein 2008, 80).

Mark 1:16-18

This story “becomes a paradigm for the subsequent call narratives” as we work through the book of Mark and while there are certainly a wide variety of calling stories this one stands out as a archetype for the call process (Donahue and Harrington 2005, 76).

Mark writes, “As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee.” (Mark 1:16 NIV) to set the stage for this narrative, but it not merely a narrative device, the Sea of

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Galilee itself serves as a character in this story. In this case the Sea of Galilee

“was the fishery that supplied the fish that was the most common meat item in the regional diet” (Culpepper 2007, 53). It stands in as the archetype for worldly endeavor and day to day work. Jesus steps into the daily and ordinary to bring a calling to the extraordinary.

Jesus though does not call his disciples through the twin methods of volunteerism and membership that the ordinary educational system would have represented but instead his call resembled “the call of Elisha by Elijah, a prophet endowed by God’s spirit” (Culpepper 2007, 77). In rabbinic calls to belonging students desiring to become rabbis would volunteer to undergo extensive training in hopes that they would be accepted into the membership of rabbinic circles.

Instead, the “compelling calls of prophets come without preparation” (ibid). Elijah the prophet called Elisha without volunteerism or membership but he does so with a nod to the expected social norms of the day allowing Elisha to ask he

“permission to take leave of his parents” (Collins 2007, 157). Jesus on the other hand extends his authority even further in that “James and John do not even take leave of their father” (Culpepper 2007, 77).

The notion of calling sets the stage for what we are called to belong to, but the notion of sending explains what that belonging is enabling us to do and be.

Mark 3:13-15

13 Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach 15 and to have authority to drive out demons. (Mark 3:13-15 NIV)

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In this text Jesus again sets an emblematic theme up when he commissions and sends those who belong to his way. The passage begins with the words “Jesus went up on a mountainside” (Mark 3:15 NIV), alternatively this could also be translated “into the hills” (Williamson 2009, 80) or even “up the mountain” (ibid). Much like Moses’s trip up the mountain to get the ten commandments or Elijah hiding in a hollow in the mountain to witness the glory of God those who belong to the way go up the mountain. Likewise, they also see

Jesus transfigured “on the mountain”. Through this Jesus takes the disciples from the work-a-day world of the sea where they are just fishermen to a new kind of belonging on the mountain where in Mark 3:13 the world ἐποίησεν is used to describe them. This word literally means “made” although it can be translated

“appointed” or “ordained” or even “called” (Williamson 2009, 80). Jesus is making them into something that belongs absent volunteerism or membership

Theological Foundation

In the theological foundations we will discuss three areas that are important to the project: ecclesiological belonging, experiential belonging, and the synthesis of the two.

Belonging is an exceptionally difficult topic when addressing post- moderns, as indeed and overwhelming majority of millennials are post-moderns, insofar as the term itself bears a certain negative connotation. Theologically when discussing “belonging” we need to determine if we are talking about belonging in an ecclesiological sense or in an experiential sense. When dealing with millennials the notion of ecclesiological belonging is fraught with conflict

179 when compared to the pluralistic nature of their worldview, while the notion of experiential belonging is equally burdened with dangers of associating the concept with individualistic interpretation which leads to disunity and disconnection.

The pluralistic nature of millennials is such that when addressing the notion of ecclesiological belonging, that is to say belonging as determined and adjudicated by a corporate body like a denomination or congregation, there is an immediate rejection on the part of millennials. None the less, the issue of belonging is at least partially an ecclesiological issue. In response to the pluralistic perspective of the post-modern generations many church bodies have reacted either by closing ranks and becoming more exclusionary, or by abandoning long held traditions and embracing relativism.

Doyle shares in his book, Ecclesiology and exclusion: boundaries of being and belonging in postmodern times, that neither of those two paths have effectively succeeded in inviting millennials into the life of the church and indeed he points out that we need to “reject relativism,” while at the same time the

“opposite extreme of ‘dogmatism’ needs to be equally rejected” (Doyle, Location

89). With the difficulty of neither side being successful often the church turns to allowing the individual to define these understandings taking the choice entirely out of the hands of the ecclesiological bodies and make it about individual choice.

In his book, Eat This Book, Peterson sets out to “confront and expose this replacement of the authoritative Bible by the authoritative self” (Peterson 2009,

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Location 204). In the Lutheran church the cult of the authoritative self certainly has been at the forefront of far too many of our programs and outreach initiatives when it comes to young adults. We have, time and time again, sought first to find what appeals to young people, and then secondarily sought to fit a sound theological ecclesiology into that framework. The problem with making belonging existential is that there can be no sense of shared community when each individual is the center of their own understanding of the faith community they belong to.

The solution has to be synthesis of both elements. The individual needs the ecclesiological body for corrections, direction, and instruction. The ecclesiological body needs the individual for dynamism, action, and inspiration.

As I look at belonging it is my hope that I will see a path to encourage individuals who are finding their way in the faith to do so together in ecclesiological bodies.

Historical Foundation

The historical foundation will take into account include the role of Martin

Luther in forming the Lutheran concept of the foundations of belonging, as well as the function of the Lutheran catechism that Luther left in place. In 2017 the

Lutheran tradition will commemorate five hundred years since Martin Luther inaugurated the Lutheran Reformation. Twelve years after the formation of the

German Reformation, in 1529, Luther wrote his Small Catechism. Before taking on the task of writing the small catechism Luther had surveyed Saxony to determine the doctrinal, biblical, and ecclesiological wellbeing of the church. The results were disastrous. His findings indicated that the people of that time had

181 little knowledge of what the Bible said, little understanding of theology, and felt desperately disconnected from their faith.

Luther inaugurated a new form of catechesis in the church that was none other than a new method of transmitting a sense of belonging. What was that

“new method inaugurated by Luther? It was none other than that of the catechism that is made up of short questions and answers” (Michel 1940, 493).

The concept would be that through the model of mentoring and teaching individuals through the transmission of small, easy to understand packets of information individuals would come to understand their faith, deepen in their discipleship, and feel more connected to the church of the time. The focus was on knowing and knowledge as the sources of belonging and faith whereby we teach God’s expectation of us. Thomas states, “Our purpose in teaching is to instill the expectation that God does for us what we are unwilling and unable to do for ourselves” (Thomas 1990, 261).

Five hundred years later and the teaching/institutional model started by

Luther remains the principal tool to indoctrinate teens into the faith. On a denominational level and on a congregational level we have discovered that individuals treat the catechism process as a final “hoop” to jump through on their way out of church, not as a means to more fully deepen into it. Robert Kolb proposes that the question we Lutherans ought to be thinking about is ”as we look at the more recent history of Lutheranism is why in the last two hundred years, and particularly in the last fifty years, have Lutherans not done a better job

182 at the task of the cultural translation of our understanding of the pious Christian life into the world of today” (Kolb 2012, Concordia Theology).

The unfortunate truth is that “we know that given the current status of catechesis in our church—that is, given the current vitality, or lack of it, of contemporary teaching one finds it difficult to be optimistic” (Thompson 1990,

259). Participation in the historical institution of Catechism, instituted by Luther nearly five hundred years ago, which has served as the foundation of Lutheran transmission of faith and belonging is at an all-time critical phase.

Contemporary Foundation

The melodramatic tag of "crisis" has been applied to all manner of problems, large and small. Not all of these situations have deserved that label. But no one need hesitate about invoking that phrase to describe the shape of things to come in the mainline churches. (Lynn 1992, 112)

Our membership has suffered an enormous and precipitous decline that is all centered around the fact that millennials are not developing bonds in faith communities. Endless quantities of attention has been paid to the traditional and historical methods of the transmission of faith in belonging and “everywhere condemnatory criticisms have been voiced, particularly in regard to the traditional catechism teaching of our generations” (Michel 1990, 492). Little doubt can exist that we are failing to instill the faith that builds belonging in our youth, if you look at the statistics the losses are staggering.

The Pew Report states that “fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as “atheist,” “agnostic” or “nothing in particular.” This compares with less than one-fifth of people in their 30s (19%),

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15% of those in their 40s, 14% of those in their 50s and 10% or less among those 60 and older” (Lugo 2012, Pew Research: Religion and Public Life

Project). As our congregations age and our membership fails to renew itself with younger members the task of attracting younger members grows even more difficult. All of this is despite the fact that “Millennials will comprise more than one in three of adult Americans by 2020” (Dews 2014. Brookings Institute) meaning that they in fact represent the single largest population of individuals in

American history. Even with this growing population the Lutheran Church continues to shrink and fail.

We are in a time of sharp transition which the Lutheran Church has not been able to determine a firm footing to address. As Hamm says in his book

Recreating the Church: Leadership for the Postmodern Age “It is a time of transition that may last decades (perhaps we have already begun a new era that we cannot yet name because we are standing too close) or that may last centuries” (Hamm 2007, Location 85). One of the principal problems is that, as

Barensten notes that the “Social differentiation and fragmentation lead to a longing for spirituality; commercialization and mobility lead to a longing for community; yet, suspicion of institutions and authority often lead to superficial and shifting loyalties, thus to ‘community light’” (Barensten 2015, 52). Our millennials long for community, but feel no sense of belonging in the Church.

Nonetheless, as Hillary Wicai writes of Millennials, “They want to hear and participate in the beauty of story and help them engage in something beyond themselves that they might not be able to explain” (Wicai 2001, 28-30). The

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Lutheran church however, is failing in drawing them into our communities to help them engage in that something beyond themselves. At the same time the evangelical Christian churches in the western world have attracted large numbers of adherents, but not in terms of regular membership. In fact,

Evangelicalism in the west has long suffered from in a constant state of flux as loosely affiliated adherents flow freely from one congregation to another in a constant state of flux. As Bibby and Brinkerhoff note, “we argue that many of the new additions to evangelical churches are actually reaffiliates, or "saints" from within the evangelical tradition” (Bibby and Brinkerhoff 1973, 275).

Context

The individuals asked to take the survey will be millennials who have self- identified as Lutheran. Participants will be drawn from online sources, my connection to the ELCA Northeastern Ohio Synod youth program, local youth groups among NALC, ELCA, LCMC, and LCMS congregations, the ELCA

National Youth assembly, the NALC Youth program, and the LCMC National

Youth Assembly. They may vary from denomination to denomination as long as they are Lutheran by tradition. Participants can be of any socio-economic range, race, gender, age (within the parameters of

“millennial”), geographic location, or level of participation as long as they self- identify as “Lutheran”. The purpose of this discovery study is to ascertain how well their participation in the Lutheran tradition has fostered a sense of belonging.

Local, national, and online gatherings of Lutheran youth as well as individual contacts within congregations will be used as collection points for data.

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The focus of the study is on how strongly millennials feel a sense of belonging in the church with special attention paid to how this translates in congregational settings. As a pastor, who is himself post-modern and often struggles to form and maintain connectedness to congregational communities, I am hoping to identify key elements to guiding millennials into deeper sense of belonging in the Kingdom of God, and in congregational settings.

Definition of Terms

Lutheran – Denominational bodies that trace their theology back to the Lutheran reformation, specifically those that hold to the confessions of the Book of

Concord including, but not limited to, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in

America (ELCA), The North American Lutheran Church (NALC), Lutheran

Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), and The Missouri Synod Lutheran

Church (Missouri Synod).

Millennial – According to Pew Research Center “the Millennials are the largest living generation by population size (79.8 million in 2016)” and includes “those born after 1980 and the first generation to come of age in the new millennium.”

(Frye 2016, Pew Research: Millennial Household).

544) As such belonging is individually defined as a matter of self-identification and not belonging in the traditional, adjudicatory sense.

Christian Identity – Hefner writes “In our tradition, we most often emphasize

186 the church as a community of persons. Luther's summary of the third article of the creed, from his Large Catechism, articulates this article of our faith: ‘I believe that there is on earth a little holy flock or community of pure saints under one head, Christ.’” (Hefner 1999, 218). As such our Christian identity, in a Lutheran context, has to do with how we see ourselves in Christian community under

Christ.

Catechism – The multi-year process of faith indoctrination pioneered by Martin

Luther in his Small Catechism which Lutherans still use as the foundation for teaching classes to teens who are preparing to make a profession of faith.

Project Goals

The following are my goals for this project.

1. To discover how millennials value the concept of belonging.

2. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward traditional congregational

membership.

3. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward informal congregational

membership.

4. To discover millennial’s attitudes toward belonging outside of

congregational membership.

5. To discover millennial’s attitude toward belonging as it pertains to

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Lutheran identity.

6. To discover how millennials perceive how traditional catechism classes

affected their long term sense of belonging.

7. To discover how open the participants are to ongoing discipleship

training.

8. To discover what methods for building as sense of belonging the

participants would be most open to.

9. To discover what would motivate millennial Lutherans to engage in

deepening commitment to a congregation.

Design, Procedure, and Assessment

For this discovery the design will be an online survey through a service like SurveyMonkey that will be distributed through social networking sites for millennial Lutherans, as well as though connections in the Northeastern Ohio

Synod, the National Youth Assembly, The Northwestern Ohio Synod, The LCMC,

The NALC, The ELCA, and RALPA in their various functions with millennial

Lutherans. The survey will be designed to address the fundamental questions of the foundations of the sense of belonging among millennial Lutherans as outlined in the project goals.

The goal is to gather survey data from a minimum of 50 individuals, as per the required discovery criteria. Material will be collected, compiled, and evaluated online, although in person interviews will also be included in conjunction with certain Lutheran Youth events. There will be a series of qualitative and quantitative survey questions using a 5-point Likert scale to

188 assess the quantitative questions and an open-ended set of questions to assess certain qualitative questions.

Personal Goals

1. I will satisfy my lifelong desire to better understand the exodus of post- moderns from the Lutheran tradition.

2. I will develop a deeper trust of the Holy Spirit as it re-orders the nature of the church.

3. I will order my life to better show the light of Christ to my community as it shifts around us.

Field Consultant

My field consultant will be Doug Pretorius, Pastor or St. Paul Lutheran

Church in Bellville, Ohio, frequent Dean of the Richland/Ashland Conference, and spiritual director. Doug’s familiarity with me and my methods, his extensive experience in church work on a local and statewide level, his contacts with the various synodical and local youth organizations, and his unique insight as a spiritual director will be extremely helpful to my project.

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APPENDIX TWO - ASSESSMENT TOOL

Please provide the following personal information:

Present Age:

❏ 12 - 14 Years Old ❏ 15 -17 Years Old ❏ 18 - 22 Years Old ❏ 23 Years to 39 Years Old

Gender

❏ Male ❏ Female

Do you consider yourself “Lutheran”?

❏ Yes ❏ No

Please indicate where you are in the Catechism Process:

❏ I have not begun Catechism ❏ I have begun, but not finished Catechism ❏ I have finished Catechism ❏ I will not participate in Catechism

How long have you been participating with your current congregation?

❏ Less than a year. ❏ 1-2 years ❏ 3- 5 years ❏ 6-10 years ❏ 10-15 years ❏ More than 15 years.

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Millennial Survey

Please circle the number that indicates your level of agreement on the statement. See the scale below: 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Slightly Neutral Slightly Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Agree

1. It is important to me to experience belonging in social 1 2 3 4 5 settings.

2. Traditional church membership is important to me. 1 2 3 4 5

3. Just attending a church informally without officially 1 2 3 4 5 joining is enough.

4. A person should look for belonging in social 1 2 3 4 5 organizations like clubs.

5. Being a member of a Lutheran congregation is 1 2 3 4 5 important to my experience of belonging in my faith.

6. An experience in Lutheran catechism classes gives a 1 2 3 4 5 lifelong sense of belonging in a congregation.

7. I would be willing to take classes after confirmation to 1 2 3 4 5 continue to grow in my faith.

8. I would be most open to social events as a method in 1 2 3 4 5 my congregation to build my sense of belonging.

9. When my congregation offers opportunities to 1 2 3 4 5 participate in leadership it motivates me to deepen my commitment.

10. I work hard to develop a sense of belonging in social 1 2 3 4 5 settings.

11. I believe that entry into congregational membership 1 2 3 4 5 through the confirmation program is important.

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Please circle the number that indicates your level of agreement on the statement. See the scale below: 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Slightly Neutral Slightly Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Agree

1 2 3 4 5 12. It is more important to participate informally in the ministry of a church than actually become a member. 1 2 3 4 5 13. It is important to experience belonging in school settings. 1 2 3 4 5 14. Being Lutheran gives me a sense of belonging in the church. 1 2 3 4 5 15. When a person takes catechism classes they are more likely to stay connected to their Christian faith over their life. 1 2 3 4 5 16. Classes are the best method for building my sense of belonging in my congregation. 1 2 3 4 5 17. When discipleship training is available in my congregation I am open to attending the training. 1 2 3 4 5 18. I am motivated to deepen my commitment to my congregation when I am given opportunities to learn. 1 2 3 4 5 19. My own need for a sense of belonging is a motivator in social settings. 1 2 3 4 5 20. Maintaining membership in a Church is valuable to a Christian. 1 2 3 4 5 21. Participating informally in the life of a congregation matters more than being a member. 1 2 3 4 5 22. Belonging is an important part of family life. 1 2 3 4 5 23. My Lutheran identity is a significant part of how I belong in the kingdom of God.

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Please circle the number that indicates your level of agreement on the statement. See the scale below: 1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Slightly Neutral Slightly Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Agree

24. Taking catechism classes will help individuals stay 1 2 3 4 5 connected to their faith over the long term.

25. When asked to participate in activities designed to 1 2 3 4 5 make me a better Christian at my church I am open to participating.

26. The method I would be most open to for building a 1 2 3 4 5 sense of belonging in my congregation is participation in service projects

27. The most motivational thing my congregation can do 1 2 3 4 5 to help me deepen my commitment is to provide social activities targeted at my generation.

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1. Give a few examples of social settings where it is important to belong.

2. In what way does having a traditional membership in a Lutheran congregation help you feel more connected to your Christian faith.

3. How is informally taking part in the daily activities of a congregation more important than having your name on a church membership list?

4. Name a few ways people experience belonging in their life other than at church.

5. Describe how self-identifying as Lutheran affects your life in the church.

6. How can a person use what they learn in a catechism classes to stay connected to a sense of belonging in their faith?

7. Name one way you would be open to opportunities like classes, retreats, or trainings to help you grow in your faith walk?

8. Name the top three methods you would be open to that your Lutheran congregation could use to help you build a sense of belonging.

9. The most motivational things my congregation does to help me deepen my commitment to my congregation are:

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APPENDIX THREE – COVER LETTER

Grace and Peace to you from Christ our Lord, My name is Pastor Russel Yoak and I am an LCMC pastor in Shelby Ohio at First Lutheran Church. I am in the process of searching for respondents for a survey as part of my doctoral studies at Ashland Seminary. The purpose of this project was to discover the effective foundations of the sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church. The research question was: “what are the effective foundations of a sense of Christian belonging amongst millennial participants in the Lutheran church?” To do so I am asking for participants between the ages of 12 and 39 who self-identify as Lutheran to fill out an anonymous survey with 27 multiple choice answer questions and nine open ended questions. I am happy to come to youth group meetings, young adult meetings/small groups, or any event that caters to members between the ages of 12 and 39 to administer this survey in person at your convenience. For members under the age of eighteen I will need to have a signed parental waiver (sample included here) before I can have them fill out the survey. I am happy to mail any number of these forms to you ahead of time.

An online form is also available for adult members that may not be interested in filling the form out in person. If you would like to circulate a link to the survey form among your millennial Lutherans over the age of 18, I would also greatly appreciate this. Of course, I am happy to share my results with you after the paper is written.

Thank you so much for your help and support, if you have any questions please feel free to email me or call me.

Blessings, Pastor Russel Yoak 1st Lutheran Church Shelby, Ohio. www.flcshelby.org [email protected] (419) 989 1575

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DISCOVERY PROJECT OF HOW LUTHERAN CHURCHES EFFECTIVELY FOSTER A SENSE OF CHURCH BELONGING AMONG MILLENNIALS

INTRODUCTION Your child has been invited to join a research study to look at HOW LUTHERAN CHURCHES EFFECTIVELY FOSTER A SENSE OF CHURCH BELONGING AMONG MILLENNIALS. Please take whatever time you need to discuss the study with your family and friends, or anyone else you wish to. The decision to let you child join, or not to join, is up to you. In this research study, we are investigating how young Lutherans understand their sense of belonging. Specifically, this study will examine how attitudes toward belonging affect the way young Lutherans feel connected to their faith. This survey will cover a variety of elements including their feelings about traditional Lutheran education, faith systems, and traditions.

WHAT IS INVOLVED IN THE STUDY? Your child will be asked to fill out an anonymous survey. We think this will take him/her 30 minutes. Subjects will be asked to circle how strongly they agree with certain statements and to answer a few open-ended questions. All of these will have to do with how they understand belonging in church. Your child can stop participating at any time. If your child stops, he/she will not lose any benefits.

RISKS This study involves the following risks: No risks involved in this study.

BENEFITS TO TAKING PART IN THE STUDY? It is reasonable to expect the following benefits from this research: this will allow our congregation to better foster a sense of belonging in our young members.

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However, we can’t guarantee that your child will personally experience benefits from participating in this study. Others may benefit in the future from the information we find in this study.

CONFIDENTIALITY Your child’s name will not be used when data from this study are published. Every effort will be made to keep clinical records, research records, and other personal information confidential. We will take the following steps to keep information confidential, and to protect it from unauthorized disclosure, tampering, or damage: An anonymous survey, physical data collected will be kept under lock and key, and stored digital data will be on password protected computers. Pastor Russel Yoak and the faculty at Ashland Seminary will be the only individuals with access to this data, which will be anonymous. YOUR RIGHTS AS A RESEARCH PARTICIPANT? Participation in this study is voluntary. Your child has the right not to participate at all or to leave the study at any time. Deciding not to participate or choosing to leave the study will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits to which your child is entitled, and it will not harm his/her relationship with regard to their participation in church activities.

CONTACTS FOR QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS? Call Rev. Russel Yoak at (419) 989-1575 or email [email protected] if you have questions about the study. Permission for a Child to Participate in Research As parent or legal guardian, I authorize ______(child’s name) to become a participant in the research study described in this form.

Child’s Date of Birth:______Parent or Legal Guardian’s Signature ______Date_____

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