In this episode, Pastor Liz Eide discusses the renewal journey of the Lutheran Church of Peace in Maplewood, Minnesota, emphasizing the transformative power of listening. Since 2018, she has led efforts to deepen relationships through structured listening sessions, intertwining biblical narratives with personal stories to foster community bonds. Pastor Eide shares how this approach clarified the church's vision and core values like "Boundless Joy" and "Radical Hospitality," while promoting a culture of innovation through grace and evaluation. She reflects on the challenges of growth and maintaining community identity, providing valuable insights for leaders looking to rejuvenate congregations through relational engagement.
Suggested Reading and Listening:
Lutheran Church of Peace website
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[0:08] Music.
[0:34] Hello, everyone, and welcome to Church in Maine, a podcast for people interested in seeing where faith, politics, and culture intersect. I am Dennis Sanders, your humble host. So, for the next few episodes, we're actually going to move away from election and political talk. Don't worry, we will be back at it again very soon. I have some episodes coming up that are talking about politics, especially probably how we are moving forward. But in its stead, as I said, for the next two episodes, we're going to be talking about congregational renewal. Now, usually when you hear stories about congregations, especially mainline congregations that are turning things around, it almost always focuses on some pastor, and it's usually they they're built up as this hotshot pastor that comes and is able to help this church that was maybe a few weeks from closing their doors to becoming a vital congregation again.
[1:35] But what if the reason that a church turns around is because it actually focuses on listening, listening to God, listening to each other, and even listening to the community? So, my guest today is going to share the story of a Lutheran congregation in the Twin Cities suburb of Maplewood that was able to experience congregational renewal by engaging in spiritual practices such as listening. Liz Eide is the lead pastor of Lutheran Church of Peace in Maplewood, Minnesota, and we'll talk a little bit about the history of the congregation, kind of a little bit about its context, especially the context of the suburb of Maplewood, because, of course, it has a unique tie to a certain well-known corporation that is actually based in Maplewood. We'll also talk about what caused the congregation's decline and, of course, what's fueling its renewal.
[2:47] And as I said, we will talk about listening and how it made all the difference. So I really hope that you listen to this congregation, listen to this episode, especially if you are the leader, whether you are a pastor or maybe the head of the church board or session or vestry or whatever. Of a congregation that is wanting to be renewed, that you'll listen in to this important episode. So, join me in this conversation with Pastor Liz Eide.
[3:20] Music.
[3:36] Well, thank you for coming on to the podcast, and I'm looking forward to talking about what's been going on at Lutheran Church of Peace. Oh, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. Well, I think it would be helpful to start out by talking a little bit about your background.
[3:56] How long have you been in the ministry, and how long you've been at Lutheran Church of Peace? So i have been ordained since 2002 uh so 22 some years and was in youth ministry before that working for congregation and for an organization called young life and uh lutheran church of peace is my third call i served at church in rhode island for seven years and then served a large congregation in Woodbury, Minnesota for eight and a half. And I've been called, I was called to Lutheran Church of Peace as a redevelopment pastor in 2018. So I've been there just over six years. Okay. And for people who may not be aware, I'm short of because of going to Lutheran Seminary and being around Lutherans, what is a redevelopment pastor? How are they different from other pastors? Yes, my call, 50% of my call is to be aimed at redevelopment, which means that 50% of my call has to look very different from other calls. So a lot of the pastoral care happens within the congregation, as an example, so that there's space for reaching out into the community and spending time focusing on thinking about other shapes the church might take.
[5:22] So, tell me a little bit about the congregation itself and also about the community. Maplewood, having lived here, I know that it has, being a local, I know it has kind of an important.
[5:36] History, especially in the state of Minnesota for a certain company that is based there, but that is actually tied to the congregation. But just to know about the church itself and and its community.
[5:51] Yeah. So, Lutheran Church of Peace was started in the early 1950s, and it is deeply tied to 3M, as many of those who worked at 3M in that day were living in the community in which Lutheran Church of Peace is located. And so, it came to be because folks moving into that area didn't have a church nearby, and they wanted to have a Lutheran church in their neighborhood. And so they gathered together and for a time they worshiped in one of the founding members' basements before they even had a pastor. And then early in the 50s, they built a parsonage and that was actually the first building. And so the pastor lived upstairs and all the church happenings happened in their basement. Sunday school, worship, church meetings, And that actually has an exterior stairwell so that people weren't traipsing through his home and his family all the time. But yeah, that's the legend has it that even after the church was built in the mid-50s, when visitors came, they never asked, where do you work? It was, what division do you work for? Because everybody in those neighborhoods worked at 3M.
[7:08] Well, yeah, my hometown is actually Flint, Michigan, which is very much a GM town. So that's the same thing. People would ask what plant you worked at. Yeah, you get it. Or what division. So I totally get it. Yeah. So what was the church kind of like in the 50s and 60s? I would assume that that was a period of growth, especially in mainline Protestants. And what was it like at Lutheran Church of Peace?
[7:35] Yeah it was a big time of growth as the neighborhoods grew the church grew and, lots of families and there are still many several of those families that are still around and second third generations that are worshiping there which is really fun but yeah it was robust growth and lots of kids so they just talk about all the kids that were running around and the way they had to section off part of the fellowship hall because they didn't have enough sunday school classrooms And then about 15 years ago, a beloved pastor moved on to another congregation, which happens, and it was a good leaving. But then they had about 10 to 12 years in there where they didn't have long-term pastorates in place. So somebody was there for about five years at one point, and then the pastor just before me was there for just two years. And in between, they had lots of interim pastors. People filling in. And so, in that kind of 10, 12 years, they saw a lot of decline.
[8:43] And what did that kind of do to the congregation, kind of dealing with those short pastorates, dealing with a lot of interims? How did that kind of deal with kind of the, they felt about themselves and about their mission and all? Yeah, I think, you know, without a strong leader leading them forward, they, you know, people started to leave for other congregations that were more settled and set up. And so, you know, how that happens is as some folks leave, other folks leave. And, you know, mainstream churches have been in decline for a long time. So they just saw that happening at a much faster rate in that stretch of their history. And so by 2017, they had shrunk by two-thirds. And so they'd lost about 75% of their congregation. And so they did a vitality study to see if God was done with them and it was time to shut the door, if there would be a new chapter.
[9:50] And it was really good. They had a wonderful interim pastor at the time. The synod came alongside them and Reverend Justin Grimm. And Pastor Neil Harris from the ELCA churchwide headquarters in Chicago came alongside of them and they did a big vitality study, including a summer pledge drive to see if people were financially committed. And they were. And so they applied for two grants, one from the St. Paul Area Synod and one from the ELCA churchwide, and they received both grants. And so they had the funds then to call a full-time pastor. And so that's how I came to be there as a redevelopment pastor. And that's part of it, too, is that we have a contract with the synod that we will work on things as recipients of these grants.
[10:40] So when that kind of started, when you came onto the scene, then what were kind of some of the first exercises, some of the first things that you wanted to do with the congregation? And what were kind of some of the... Barriers. And I don't want to say that in a bad way that, you know, people are putting up areas, but, you know, people are used to doing things a different way. And then this is kind of a stretching period. So what were some of the challenges? Yeah.
[11:11] I think the first challenge was we were invited to participate in the Synod's Year of Renewal process. And the first part of that is listening. So listening for God, listening deeply to each other and listening to the community. And so they had a team already chosen by the time I arrived. And so we went to the first sessions and we were trained in how to conduct these listening sessions with each other. And I think the first couple things were in our church council. We started reading through the book of Acts and spending 20 to 30 minutes in the word together before we started with the business of the congregation. And that was a real change. you know congregations are mostly used to a devotion but it's usually quite short and we have a prayer and then we we're ready to get into things and this was inviting us to really take a pause and to be in the word together in a more serious way and to be with each other in our faith lives and to share that with one another and then to allow that to be what led our work.
[12:24] And so it wasn't a huge barrier, but it was definitely a different way of being together and understanding that putting God at the center of our work together would make a difference and trusting that process. And then the second thing was the listening to each other.
[12:44] We hosted about 60 listening sessions with people one-on-one and sometimes with a couple. And it was just listening to people's hearts, what was on their heart, what brought them joy, what were they worried about, what were they anxious about. And it was not, you know, what do you like and don't like about the church? You know, we knew we could probably sit down and make that list ourselves in half an hour's time. And so it was a really different way to sit and listen to each other. And we had about 20 people that were trained up to do these listening sessions, and they all did, several of them. And it was wonderful. They each said, you know, we all know each other. We're the happy remnant left. And so, yes, pastor, we'll humor you and do this. But afterwards, as we reflected, to a person, everybody said, I heard stories I had never heard before. I learned things about, you know, my brothers and sisters in faith that I didn't know. There were things I didn't know. And it was amazing because in both instances, both on our church council and within these listening sessions in our congregation, we saw them at the beginning as a means to the end to gain information so that we could move forward. And the surprise was that they were, the practices were in and of themselves a gift.
[14:12] And the practices themselves were spiritual in nature, not just information gathering. And they led us to a place of knowing ourselves and each other in such a deep and profound way and it was really amazing and we really came out seeing these as spiritual practices. Not information-gathering practices. And those listening sessions really were the first things that started to change us.
[14:42] It's kind of interesting because we, one, tend to think of spiritual practices in an individual way and not in a corporate way. And then, two, it's interesting that when we think of church renewal, we don't think of spiritual practices. Right. I don't know what that says about us as a society. Yeah. But, you know, that's interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. As I've continued to work with the Synod's Congregational Vitality team, and we've taken some of these practices now to many, many congregations, everybody is always surprised that this is the first step, is to pause and listen deeply for God to one another and to the community. And it seems so sort of basic. And yeah, it's this very spiritual grounding practice. and everybody's ready to, you know, work hard and go after some product. And instead, we're saying, no, we really need to step back and step deeper into the Word and trust that God's presence is really going to be what leads us forward. And everybody is always sort of surprised by that and amazed at the transformation that really comes when you are willing to step into that practice in a deep way.
[16:05] So, that kind of leads me to this related point, what is the value of story in all of this? You know, you're talking about looking at the book of Acts, and Acts is the story kind of the beginning of the church, but it's also the story of the... Kind of the role of the Holy Spirit in the world, and then, you know, you're moving it into these congregational stories, the story of these people. You know, where do you think that that fits in this whole thing of congregational vitality and renewal? Oh, I think it's a really powerful space for congregational vitality and renewal. That's what I have found. I think being connected to each other's stories helps us to start seeing ourselves differently.
[16:55] One, we see ourselves in each other, and we hear our story in other people's stories, and we are connected to one another in a deep way, especially when you are hearing and receiving that story simply to receive it and not to comment on it, not to wonder about it, but just to receive it as a gift is deeply powerful. And then connecting ourselves to God's story in a deep way and taking the time to really see what was that early church like? Where is God at work in that church? Well, where might God be at work in our church then? And what's that look like today for us? And I think asking those questions and wondering together as we encounter God's story and as we encounter our stories. And as we put those stories up and started saying, okay, here's what we've been hearing through these stories. Here's what we hear is on people's hearts. That is really where we found traction to move forward. And that's where the Holy Spirit started to speak, was through stories, both through God's stories and through our own story, the stories of what's on our hearts. That's where the Spirit found space to guide us and lead us forward.
[18:16] So, after kind of doing these practices, what kind of happened next? What kind of were the results of those kind of listening to each other and listening to God? Well, it was exciting. We really did.
[18:31] We did a debriefing exercise where we put what we heard from people on little Post-it notes. And with nobody's name, just things that we heard, church is an important place to ask our questions.
[18:47] Church has been an important place for, as I was going through a hard time, there was space for me to mourn and be supported. You know, I worry about my adult kids that aren't involved in a church any longer. I worry about my grandkids, who therefore aren't involved in a church anymore and who aren't hearing the story of God and don't know the story of God. You know, we took all of those things and just put them on the wall. And then we started to sift through and say, what are we hearing here through all of this? And where is that leading us into what's important to people sitting in this congregation, in this community of faith? And then how does that become our vision for where we hear the Spirit leading us forward? So we took all of that and sifted it out and what we heard from the community. And with it, we created a vision statement that, And that was the first next step. And after that, we sat and created five value statements. And those are what lead us today.
[19:58] And what are those value statements? Okay, this is the test. The first one became Boundless Joy. It wasn't one I ever thought would be on our values, but we really started with that listening. We had renewed energy and just renewed joy in receiving and hearing those stories. And so as we started to see that happen, we knew ourselves to be a joyful place, that we love eating together, we love laughing together, we love being silly together and saying, you know, that's okay, that's good. We also like to be serious about faith, but we can have joy doing it. So, boundless joy, bold innovation, you know, that supports where we've been and the tradition we come out of and wants to think about what shape the church might take in the future alongside of that. So, boundless joy, bold innovation, radical hospitality, engaged community, and faith-centered lives. So, those are our five values.
[21:08] Okay. So you have the mission statement, you have the values, and now, you know, several years later, what are things like at the church? How would you say things have changed from when they were maybe in 2017?
[21:29] Yeah. I think that... Everything we do is about developing deep community these days, especially coming out of COVID. We found really deep community during COVID in small church worshiping communities, and that was really powerful for us. And we created a care team that called everybody every week for a year just to check in and make sure everybody was doing okay. And coming out of COVID, we really wanted to continue that deep community. And so I think one of the things we've been willing to say on the other side of redevelopment or coming at this point in redevelopment is that community is really important to us. And so the movie club is just as important to us as the care team and the Bible study groups. And all of the ways that we are wanting to be community together are important and continue to draw us into a space where it is safe to wonder and ask the good questions of our hearts around faith and how God and life intersect and what that means for each of us and all of us collectively.
[22:50] And that the ways that we do that need to be truly LCP, authentically us. And that's going to look different from other congregations, and that's okay. And some of it is going to look very familiar, because it's very much the way we all have always done it. And some of the ways we're going to do it, it's going to look different. And that's okay, too. And I think we're just much more comfortable with trying things, experimenting, and saying, it's okay, the world isn't going to fall apart if we try something new, We're not going to throw everything out. We don't have to look radically different to be pretty radically different, if that makes sense. It does. So how do you deal with, in trying something new, let's say you try it, it doesn't have the best outcome. Yeah. How do you kind of deal with that and help to see that it's a learning experience, but maybe not?
[23:55] Um, and so, um, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, Yeah, part of it has been building a culture of evaluation. So we will often at the end of a council meeting say, how did we do today? How are we doing together? You know, how did we do in that conversation together? And we have some ways of being, you know, some ground rules for how we want to be together. And we'll just look at those and say, how are we doing with this? And I think Doing it often makes it much less scary so that this is just part of what we always do. We evaluate things and want to know, okay, what went well in this and why did it go well? And where are the gaps or where did things not go well or where did they flop altogether? And, you know, it's okay to name those things and then to wonder, okay, why didn't those things work? What was it about that that didn't work? and so that we can get at the root of what didn't work out and tweak that. Because sometimes maybe the program actually was good, the advertising wasn't, you know, or the timing wasn't. So, you know, sometimes you don't need to throw everything out. Maybe the experiment as a whole, you know, wasn't a complete failure. And if it was, okay.
[25:18] You know, so what? That happens. What can we learn from it? And so I think normalizing evaluation and those conversations has been really helpful. And just having a spirit of everything we do. Okay, we did that for a season. How did it go? And do we want to keep doing it this way? Or do we want to do it differently next time? Do we want to do it at all again next time? And saying no is okay. So living into some of those practices has been really helpful for us.
[25:52] Yeah, it seems like there is sometimes a need for, especially when it comes to all of this grace, that there is a lot of this sense of, it's got to be perfect. Yeah. It's not always going to be perfect. Nope. Actually, it's never going to be perfect. No. But, you know, that's always hard to do that. And for people to feel, go to that, understand that. Yeah. Yeah, I think we hold things loosely. The core of our theology, we hold very closely. But the way that we live that out, the practices, we hold them much more loosely in these days. And that's really helpful. And I think just having a lot of grace with each other to say, okay, we tried that. It didn't work. And we can sort of chuckle about it or say, all right, well, let's not do that again, but not make people feel bad for having tried something. So I think both of those things, lots of grace and holding things loosely, are really helpful, too.
[27:07] So what do you see as the future for the congregation? Where do you see the congregation headed? Well, that's such a good question, Dennis. I think we are in a time six years in that there is, I feel cyclically like we are kind of back at that time of saying, what's next? And part of it is we have been growing. And that's wonderful. And so now it's asking, how do we grow well? What does growth look like? And what kind of staffing do we need around that? What kind of support do we need? How do things shift? We've been a congregation with one worship service for many years now. At what point do we not fit in the sanctuary anymore and we have to think about that? What does that look like and how do all the changes that are to come with a growing congregation, how do we live into those in a way that doesn't lose the spirit of what we've learned and who we feel we are called to be in this time.
[28:15] So, obviously, there are lots of churches like Lutheran Church of Peace out there that, some were planted in the 50s and 60s, some were planted a century ago, but they're all kind of facing the same challenges where they were once a big congregation maybe and not as big, or they are kind of using focus, what kind of suggestions would you give them or ways that they can think about and about the future?
[28:50] One of the biggest things that was so important for us is coming to really clearly understand why we exist today and what's our why now. And not what our why was in the 50s or the 70s, but now in this time, who's God calling us to be? How is God calling us to be shaped as church in this time and in this space? And some of that is embracing the change that's happened in the community around us and wondering how can we be good partners, good neighbors in the community in which we are in now? And how can we understand what that community is and how we can best be a good neighbor and walk alongside? And not with the goal simply to get people to come to church, but to let that goal go and really trusting God's guidance and God's abundance, that people will come when we are clear about who we are and why we are here, and that that will become apparent to people as we move forward.
[30:06] Well, if people want to know, and I know they will, want to know more about the congregation and maybe even know more to talk to you about their congregation, how can they contact you? Well, you can find me at Lutheran Church of Peace. Our website is lcpeace.org, and I would love to talk to you about this. I work with our Synod's Congregational Vitality team. I love talking about vitality with church leaders and clergy and really passionate about it and would love to share more of our story or just hear yours and see if we can think about some ways that God might be speaking into your community and drawing you forward. All right. Well, Pastor Ellis, thank you so much for the time of chatting and hopefully we can have you back on sometime very soon. Well, thanks for having me. It was really fun. I love telling stories about LCP and I love thinking about congregational vitality today. There's a lot of hope out there and a lot of vitality as well. I agree with that. All right. Thank you. Thank you.
[31:18] Music.
[31:47] So, I'm curious to know what you thought about the conversation. I'd like to know, actually, if your congregation is dealing with renewal, and how are you dealing with it? What are the things that you're doing? Are you focusing on spiritual practices? Drop me a line, and you can do that by sending an email to churchinmain, all one word, at substack.com. I've also put links to Lutheran Church of Peace in the show notes. Just a reminder that if you want to learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes or donate, you can check me out at churchinmain.org. You can also visit churchinmain.substack.com to read related stories. I hope that you will consider subscribing on your favorite podcast app. And if you are especially listening on places like Apple Podcasts, I hope that you will leave a review. Doing that helps others to find this podcast, and you would be doing me a solid if you did that. That is it for this episode of Church in Maine. I am Dennis Sanders, your host. As I always like to say, thank you so much for listening. Take care, Godspeed, and I will see you very soon.
[33:07] Music.
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