Episode 162: The Death and Resurrection of Peace Lutheran Church with Dave Greenlund (REWIND)

[00:00:00] and the Church and Main, Dennis Sanders,

[00:00:30] Hello and welcome to Church in Maine, the podcast at the intersection of faith in modern

[00:00:39] life.

[00:00:40] I'm Dennis Taylor's your host.

[00:00:41] Church in Maine is a podcast that looks for God in the midst of issues affecting the

[00:00:45] church and the largest society.

[00:00:48] You can learn more about the podcast, listen to past episodes and donate by checking this

[00:00:52] out at churchinmain.org or churchinmain.substac.com.

[00:00:58] And consider subscribing to the podcast and your favorite podcast app and leave a review.

[00:01:03] That helps others find this podcast.

[00:01:07] So I actually have a new episode coming up this week that you will be hearing about

[00:01:13] a Lutheran congregation in the Minneapolis St. Paul area that got involved in helping

[00:01:21] to provide housing for those experiencing homelessness.

[00:01:25] But as I was preparing that interview, I looked back and remembered another interview

[00:01:33] I did at another Lutheran church.

[00:01:36] This is what happens when you live in Minnesota which has lots of Lutherans is of a church

[00:01:42] that the pastor went there initially at least by the synod thinking that he was there to

[00:01:49] be a hospice pastor there to close to congregation.

[00:01:52] The congregation has seen better days.

[00:01:55] But that didn't happen.

[00:01:56] In fact, it has thrived.

[00:02:00] And so I was thinking about this episode when I thought about this episode that I did

[00:02:05] back in December of 2021.

[00:02:11] It reminded me just of the reason I did with Graham Bocott about St. Anne's Anglican

[00:02:18] Church in Ontario.

[00:02:22] And this is in some ways a similar story, a story of a church that a lot of people had

[00:02:30] given up for dead and yet is still alive.

[00:02:34] So I thought I would share this interview again.

[00:02:40] And especially for those pastors who are leading small congregations or congregations that

[00:02:48] are maybe looking for a second chance.

[00:02:52] And so this is an interview that I had back in December of 2021 with the pastor of Peace

[00:03:02] Lutheran Church in Lauderdale, Minnesota, which is kind of a small little bird that is

[00:03:11] nestled in between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

[00:03:13] And I had an interview, a great interview there with Pastor Dave Greenland, kind of about

[00:03:19] his story.

[00:03:20] He came to Peace Lutheran and the changes that took place in that community.

[00:03:28] So I will go ahead and let you listen to this.

[00:03:33] And just to let you know, early on I do talk about the podcast being called Enroute.

[00:03:40] And it's kind of like the one I did a few episodes ago that was the old name for the

[00:03:44] podcast.

[00:03:46] So that's kind of where that name comes from.

[00:03:50] But without further ado, here it goes.

[00:03:54] This interview I had with Pastor Dave Greenland of Peace Lutheran Church in Lauderdale, Minnesota

[00:04:01] back in December of 2021.

[00:04:24] Hello and welcome to Enroute, the podcast that is a journey of faith in modern life.

[00:04:46] Well it is December.

[00:04:48] I hope that you have had a good Thanksgiving and that you're entering into the season of

[00:04:53] the bad event.

[00:04:55] This is Dennis Sanders, your host.

[00:04:58] This is the podcast where we had we explore the who, where, why, what and how of religion

[00:05:03] and other topics.

[00:05:06] So what's going on today?

[00:05:08] Well tell me if you've heard this one before.

[00:05:11] There's this mainline Protestant congregation in some city or suburb.

[00:05:17] It might be about 60 years old.

[00:05:19] It could be 120 years old.

[00:05:22] The kind of good old days of this congregation were in the 1960s and 70s when the church had

[00:05:30] maybe about 800 members, had two services every Sunday.

[00:05:35] Then in the 1980s, the church started to lose members.

[00:05:39] It was just a few people at first but then it accelerated.

[00:05:43] There were families that left.

[00:05:46] There were also older members, some that died and some that couldn't make it to church.

[00:05:53] There are a lot of different things that were tried in order to maybe turn things around

[00:05:57] but nothing really worked.

[00:06:00] By 2010, the church that had once had 800 members in 1967 now had about 80 members.

[00:06:10] The church that was once bursting at the scenes is now feels empty.

[00:06:17] The remaining members are starting to wonder how much time they have until they'll have

[00:06:22] to close the doors of the church.

[00:06:26] This scenario or something like it has been played out over and over again in congregations

[00:06:32] around the country.

[00:06:33] Churches are dealing with declining membership and declining budgets.

[00:06:39] It's like this fictional church day wonder how long do they have until they have to hold

[00:06:44] their last worship service.

[00:06:47] It doesn't have to be this way.

[00:06:50] Peace Lutheran Church is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

[00:06:55] It's located in the small town of Waterdale which actually kind of lodged between Minneapolis

[00:07:00] and St. Paul.

[00:07:03] When Pastor Dave Greenland was asked to pass to congregation, he was basically told

[00:07:09] by the Synod office that he may have to be the hospice pastor for the congregation.

[00:07:20] The person that was going to allow and help the lead of church to die a good death.

[00:07:25] That was in 2004.

[00:07:29] Peace is still alive.

[00:07:30] It's still kicking and it's even grown a bit.

[00:07:35] So in this episode I get to chat with Reverend Greenland and it's about the story of peace,

[00:07:42] how it learned to connect with the community around it and actually how it learned to be

[00:07:50] dead in order that it could be resurrected.

[00:07:54] Let's listen to Dave Greenland.

[00:08:05] Well, it's good to have you on this broadcast date.

[00:08:25] Yeah, it's good to be here.

[00:08:26] Thanks for inviting me.

[00:08:28] Well, I think the first thing to ask is a little bit about your own background as a

[00:08:35] pastor and Lutheran pastor.

[00:08:37] And then a little bit about the church itself.

[00:08:40] Yeah.

[00:08:41] All right.

[00:08:42] Yeah, so I am from the inner city of Chicago and it was Luther in my whole life as a kid.

[00:08:49] It's happened to be the church that our family lived closest to and with a single mom and

[00:08:59] grandparents.

[00:09:02] I went to a Lutheran college in South Dakota because it was far enough away and something

[00:09:09] different, alterally.

[00:09:11] And when it came time for me to go to seminary, I decided that I had been steeped in the

[00:09:17] Lutheran tradition for so long.

[00:09:19] I needed something different.

[00:09:20] I needed to see what the world was as far as Christianity went.

[00:09:24] So I went to I love school at theology and Methodist school in Denver.

[00:09:30] And then when I got a taste of the Methodist and the United Church of Christ and the Catholics

[00:09:35] and everybody else, it was much more diverse, religiously there.

[00:09:41] George Tinker, Ose Gindian and Lutheran was my advisor at Iloft.

[00:09:48] And he said, boy, when you go off for your Lutheran year after your master, you should

[00:09:52] really go to the G2U in Berkeley, California because they really have a connection to all

[00:09:59] the denominations.

[00:10:00] So that's what I did.

[00:10:01] And I ended up on the west coast for a good number of years, four or five years, and then

[00:10:07] had an internship in Hollywood, California made my way back east for my first call in

[00:10:14] the Black Hills, South Dakota.

[00:10:20] And then, Como Park Lutheran Church here in St. Paul and then eventually over here to

[00:10:27] piece Lutheran.

[00:10:28] So this is my third call.

[00:10:30] And what made you, how did you find yourself at peace?

[00:10:34] What got you there?

[00:10:36] Yeah, basically got a call from the Bishop's office asking if I would consider moving over

[00:10:43] from Como Park to here which is, you know, as you can drive there in three minutes or

[00:10:51] less.

[00:10:52] It's so close.

[00:10:53] And usually that's not usually thought of as a good idea because you'll have, you know,

[00:10:58] a parishioners that will follow a pastor to another place if it's just down the street

[00:11:02] and didn't really want that kind of a mess.

[00:11:07] You know, the Bishop at the time, I just thought, I don't know you have any issue with that.

[00:11:13] You know, the two churches are so vastly different.

[00:11:16] You know, one being very traditional and the other one being so small in almost like

[00:11:25] a rural church in the middle of the city.

[00:11:29] And besides that, it had very few members and the Bishop's office more or less thought,

[00:11:36] you know, our days were numbered here.

[00:11:38] So they leveled with me and said, you know, if you take that call, basically it's hospice

[00:11:44] ministry and you'll be closing the ministry down after 70 years or so because it's just

[00:11:50] kind of handful of people left.

[00:11:52] And that's what it'll be.

[00:11:56] So I basically came in with my eyes open to the interviews and then found out really quickly

[00:12:02] that the people on the call committee, they weren't looking at it as a time to shut the

[00:12:07] building down, shut the ministry down.

[00:12:09] They were looking to find ways to radically do something different in their neighborhood but

[00:12:15] just didn't have the bodies.

[00:12:19] So it's kind of a very traditional story in the mainline church now, especially for

[00:12:24] inner city.

[00:12:25] Well, even more suburban and even country churches, you know, how do we get people back

[00:12:36] in the membership or back in the community of faith?

[00:12:42] So, you know, when it's been going downhill for so long as far as, you know, people being

[00:12:50] a part of it, it's pretty hard to turn it around.

[00:12:54] So I think it was just being realistic on the part of the synod and we just had our second

[00:12:59] kid too.

[00:13:01] And we just happened to live two blocks from this church in Lauderdale itself which is

[00:13:07] a little city, a little town with its own city hall and everything.

[00:13:14] So I came in and realized really quickly that they really wanted to do something.

[00:13:19] And I thought, well, that's kind of exciting without a lot of illusions of, you know, boy,

[00:13:29] this could be something whatever that could stay around.

[00:13:33] You know, they had the ticker going, you know, at the current giving rate of the current

[00:13:39] membership, you know, we will be open for 18 months and then it was, you know, then

[00:13:44] we'll be open for 16 months.

[00:13:47] And every month depending on what the offerings were, we would adjust that.

[00:13:54] Okay, we've got enough money to exist for 11 more months or, you know, and so it was

[00:14:01] kind of, and sometimes even published in the bulletin that way which become such a defeat

[00:14:08] as kind of a thing.

[00:14:09] You know, you've seen it in many places, you know, in order to continue this ministry we

[00:14:15] need, you know, $1 million each week.

[00:14:18] Last week we got $27.60.

[00:14:21] This is how far off we are.

[00:14:24] So basically people can just continue to stare at the wreckage of a ministry that it can't

[00:14:32] sustain itself.

[00:14:34] So that just really deflates people.

[00:14:36] So they were kind of there, but at the same time they were, they were really wanted to be

[00:14:41] faithful to this place, this neighborhood and do something.

[00:14:45] And so they wanted to hire me full time.

[00:14:49] I would have, you know, I'm more, more apt to say, yeah, I'll just, how about if I come

[00:14:54] half time?

[00:14:55] They wanted a full time person in a ministry that wasn't taking anywhere near full time,

[00:15:03] you know, needs.

[00:15:05] My wife at the time is my greatest agent and advocate.

[00:15:09] And she said, you can't take anything less than guidelines for full time ministry there

[00:15:13] because we do have a second kid and she was in school.

[00:15:17] And the way she looked at it, and I think it's pretty right on.

[00:15:23] If I were to take the call here, if they paid me guidelines, you know, we would just close

[00:15:31] that much quicker a month earlier versus six months, you know, later, you know, depending

[00:15:37] on the money.

[00:15:38] So what if we really want to be full time, let's do this the right way and just, let's

[00:15:43] just have faith and move forward.

[00:15:45] But we, at the same time that people here, you know, the handful, they were realistic too.

[00:15:52] They recognize that, you know, as much as they desired to stay alive, it might not be

[00:15:58] in the cards.

[00:15:59] It might not be the best thing.

[00:16:01] It might not be, they may not have what the neighborhood needed at this moment.

[00:16:06] And they were going to be okay with that.

[00:16:08] So the idea was, if I came here, we would do what we always wanted to do here, you know,

[00:16:19] as a people and we won't go out just wishing.

[00:16:26] So one of the things that they wanted to do for years here, I came to find out was they

[00:16:31] always wanted to work on houses in the neighborhood for their neighbors and care for their neighbors

[00:16:37] and they even put it in place.

[00:16:39] They did a lot of work in developing a program, a barter system program where people would

[00:16:47] sign up with their gifts and they would get points for their gifts.

[00:16:52] So I'm always fond of saying, you know, if you were a brain surgeon here and you said

[00:16:57] I could do brain surgery, you would get the equivalent of five points per hour.

[00:17:05] But if you crochet gloves, hats and mittens, you know, it takes a lot longer to do that.

[00:17:13] But it takes expertise so that only gives three points per hour.

[00:17:18] So brain surgeon gets five points per hour.

[00:17:21] And so the idea is, you know, a plumber would get three points per hour or five points

[00:17:25] and then when you needed some work, let's say the person doing the gloves would need

[00:17:33] some plumbing work.

[00:17:34] They could call the plumber and say, I've got six points saved up.

[00:17:38] Could you come and work on my plumbing?

[00:17:40] And that's the way it was designed to work but it didn't work.

[00:17:45] And I've come to understand it didn't work because people didn't really need each other.

[00:17:54] You know, people really don't need each other.

[00:17:58] For instance, you know, there was a person that's actually still here that would give you

[00:18:06] the shirt off of her back and her husband's and lend you their car.

[00:18:10] They would do all kinds of things.

[00:18:11] They would rack up so many points in helping people if they were allowed to help people do

[00:18:16] whatever.

[00:18:19] But they didn't want to call anybody to come and do their windows.

[00:18:23] They're window washing because they didn't want to feel like, you know, they were using

[00:18:28] people.

[00:18:29] So it's the, I think it's the number one issue we have as a culture.

[00:18:38] I call it a credit card culture.

[00:18:40] You know, credit cards are really easy.

[00:18:43] You offer a credit card and you don't see the workers.

[00:18:47] You don't have to know their names.

[00:18:49] You don't have to feed them.

[00:18:50] You don't have to interact with them.

[00:18:52] You just paid the bill later and it'd be better not to talk about the money at all, to send

[00:18:56] the bill.

[00:18:58] But when it comes to, you know, it's, you know, Jane is coming to wash your windows and

[00:19:06] everybody knows Jane is hypoglycemic.

[00:19:10] So you better everybody knows, okay, we'll take care of Jane when she comes and she's,

[00:19:16] she's good on ladders but she got a watcher, you know, and she does a great job on windows.

[00:19:21] So that would be her gift.

[00:19:24] Well, what would you do if you had a credit card and you had the means?

[00:19:28] Would you hire a window cleaning company while you were gone on vacation or would you get

[00:19:32] involved with Jane on the ladder?

[00:19:36] You know, so the relationships always take longer.

[00:19:39] And you have to own the project together.

[00:19:43] And if the windows don't get completely cleaned the proper way, you only have Jane in

[00:19:48] yourself to blame instead of just pushing it off to some other, again, the credit card

[00:19:55] separates us.

[00:19:56] It becomes a wall between us and our neighbor.

[00:20:01] So it failed, you know, they had all these, you know, over 100 people signed up with the

[00:20:06] gifts that they could offer but nobody was calling in ever to get help.

[00:20:13] And you know, it was, and it was a wonderful vision.

[00:20:18] So when I got here, that's one of the things we had to work with is what do they want

[00:20:25] to do?

[00:20:27] And when you mean they, you mean the congregation.

[00:20:31] What do the congregation of 20 or less people, you know, you know, they really wanted to

[00:20:43] live out this vision.

[00:20:45] And but now it was becoming apparent that they were, they were very close to closing.

[00:20:52] They could see, they could see the end from where they were seated and so what we agreed

[00:20:59] on was, okay, let's have this vision.

[00:21:03] Let's do this.

[00:21:04] Let's take the money we've got left and put flyers out at every house in Lauderdale, 700

[00:21:12] miles above what we have.

[00:21:14] And by foot, we walked around delivered these flyers and just put them in the doors.

[00:21:21] Don't bother anybody.

[00:21:23] Don't knock on the doors.

[00:21:24] I mean, they've been practicing for months before I came in 2004.

[00:21:30] They've been practicing about knocking on the doors of neighbors two by two because Jesus

[00:21:35] calls us to go out two by two.

[00:21:38] And it would work like, it would work like, it would work like this.

[00:21:45] You know, one person would go up to the door.

[00:21:48] The other person would stay on the curb and you'd go up with your little board and you

[00:21:57] knock on the door.

[00:21:58] Somebody would finally come after you prayed for a whole minute that they wouldn't.

[00:22:03] They finally opened their door and they said, can I help you?

[00:22:07] And you say, yeah, we're from Peace, Lutheran Church.

[00:22:09] Do you have a couple minutes for three questions?

[00:22:14] Because it's better to ask people questions and engage them than just say, hey, would

[00:22:18] you come to church?

[00:22:20] So the question is, what do you think the neighborhood need?

[00:22:24] What could the church do more for the neighborhood?

[00:22:28] And everybody always answered the same question.

[00:22:30] The question of the same way was always, we need something more for the children.

[00:22:36] We need to feel safer.

[00:22:38] Well, those are like who's going to disagree with those?

[00:22:42] You know, but so you end up with the conversation ending in a pretty surface way and then you

[00:22:49] go down to the curb and then you go to the next house and you say, you go up and get this

[00:22:53] one because I had the last one.

[00:22:54] I'll wait here for you.

[00:22:56] And that's all there is to it.

[00:22:58] And so I said, you know, if we put the flyers out, we're not talking to anybody unless

[00:23:05] you run into them.

[00:23:06] Don't ring any bells.

[00:23:07] Leave it alone.

[00:23:08] And they say, why?

[00:23:09] I mean, that's against everything that is out there in any literature about going and meeting

[00:23:15] your neighbors.

[00:23:16] I said, yeah, I said, but let's think about it this way.

[00:23:20] And this is just for our neighborhood.

[00:23:21] It could be true for other places too.

[00:23:24] I found it's kind of true in a lot of places, but at least where I've been, you know, if

[00:23:30] I wasn't your pastor called here, I live two blocks from here.

[00:23:35] So let me guess you want to go and meet these people right at supper time because everybody

[00:23:40] will be there at supper time.

[00:23:42] So I said, I'm not your pastor.

[00:23:44] You ring my bell.

[00:23:45] It's supper time.

[00:23:46] I've got a, I've got a four year old and a two year old.

[00:23:49] I'm making dinner alone.

[00:23:51] The bell rings.

[00:23:52] I look around the corner and I see through the front window that it's somebody with a

[00:23:57] clipboard.

[00:23:58] And I see somebody down below on the bottom of the steps that I'm thinking Jehovah's Witnesses

[00:24:03] and I'm thinking, oh shoot, I'm in there.

[00:24:06] There's a pot of water boiling and I've got a four year old that wants to climb up there

[00:24:09] and stir it.

[00:24:10] What am I going to do?

[00:24:11] So all right, since they already saw me before I duck back in the kitchen and pretend like

[00:24:16] I'm not home, I've got to go to the door now I open the door.

[00:24:20] Now we're starting a relationship in a very precarious place.

[00:24:25] I don't want to be answering the door and they don't want me to answer the door.

[00:24:30] So we're starting a relationship.

[00:24:32] It'll be a place for neither one of us really wants to be there and now we're going to go

[00:24:36] from there.

[00:24:38] So I just said, forget it unless you run into somebody and you have a natural connection

[00:24:44] and you can have a conversation let it be.

[00:24:48] So we did that.

[00:24:49] We put these flyers out and out of 700 flyers we got three responses which isn't a whole

[00:24:57] lot.

[00:24:59] You know, and one of them was a member.

[00:25:03] So the flyers basically said, we'll come and we'll fix anything on your house from

[00:25:09] foundation to roof plumbing and electric.

[00:25:12] Anything you got wrong will bring all the materials and we'll bring the labor for free.

[00:25:18] And at first they were worried about, you know, we've only got $40,000 left in this

[00:25:24] ministry.

[00:25:25] If we do this, we can go through that in one week with a house project.

[00:25:32] And I said, yeah, that's true but we're not going to get anybody to ask for help number

[00:25:38] one.

[00:25:39] That's going to be a problem.

[00:25:41] And I basically said, you know, if a church group that I didn't know about showed up

[00:25:46] on my doorstep and said, we want to put a roof on your house for free, I would chase them

[00:25:51] off my property.

[00:25:54] Get out of here.

[00:25:54] I don't know you and I don't know what you're all, what are you doing?

[00:25:58] And we do, are you roofers?

[00:26:00] You know, all of that.

[00:26:02] So we had three, we had three takers and one was a whole house that needed to be painted

[00:26:07] that was the member.

[00:26:09] And or the soon to be member, that's the only member we've ever gotten from this program.

[00:26:13] And so we had two others.

[00:26:18] One was a garage that was kind of falling into the ground kind of rotting and another one

[00:26:25] was a roof project.

[00:26:28] And so we had three of them.

[00:26:29] And the weekend that came, you know, we showed up and we had about 20 members that came

[00:26:38] and a handful of people from the neighborhood that I already knew.

[00:26:42] And we made the little sandwich boards that we called it Christmas in August.

[00:26:47] And partly because it's kind of a neat name, nobody knows what it is.

[00:26:54] And it gives people the natural first question like, what is that?

[00:26:58] And we put the boards up in the front and neighbors would come out and say, what are you guys

[00:27:03] doing?

[00:27:04] What's happening here?

[00:27:05] Because none of us really look like construction workers and we're kind of a red tag team.

[00:27:09] And we tell them what we're doing and they either helped or they would, they'd give us a lot

[00:27:14] of accolades.

[00:27:15] And by the time that first, that first summer project was done, we had more money than

[00:27:24] when we started because the neighbors were donating.

[00:27:27] Just saying we're so glad you're doing this for Millie or, you know, thank you so much.

[00:27:33] You know, how can we help?

[00:27:35] And at first, I was a little frustrated because we're trying to wear down this account so

[00:27:44] we can close.

[00:27:45] You know?

[00:27:46] And we didn't.

[00:27:50] And we made it through that first year and people started paying attention and we

[00:27:57] wrote a couple of grants and we rewarded some money.

[00:28:01] And we started picking up members that heard about the program.

[00:28:06] And then the next year, we had five houses that responded and the next year there was

[00:28:11] seven.

[00:28:12] It grew every year.

[00:28:14] And then as we went along, you know, like I say, we got one member from all the people

[00:28:21] we've helped over the years, you know, probably 200 houses we've been in.

[00:28:29] We've only gotten one member, but we've gotten a ton of members that wanted to come and join

[00:28:35] in on helping their neighbors.

[00:28:39] So that's been very sweet.

[00:28:41] We've learned a lot that way.

[00:28:43] And now we've become a program where we do get together for one weekend a year and we

[00:28:50] usually work on between 15 and 25 houses in all kinds of ways.

[00:28:57] And but we'll be in a lot of cases in this neighborhood, we'll be the first call for help

[00:29:03] for everything from backed up sewers to leaky roofs.

[00:29:10] You know, I need help getting my car, you know, started or so just general things of

[00:29:16] life.

[00:29:17] And then of course those people will call during the year as well when they have a loved

[00:29:20] one die or you know, just a basic caring for each other kinds of things and loving your

[00:29:26] neighbor.

[00:29:27] And so we've got a very rich presence in the neighborhood and we still we worship, you

[00:29:33] know before the COVID thing happened, you know, we would have physically in the building

[00:29:38] 50 people for worship.

[00:29:41] You know, we went, we went in the first couple of years of doing this from the fastest

[00:29:47] growing ELCA church in the country because we were growing exponentially.

[00:29:54] That's amazing.

[00:29:56] It's really easy to do when you've got two people, you know, four people is doubling your

[00:30:00] ministry.

[00:30:01] That's pretty good.

[00:30:02] And I remember at a pastor meeting, I had a friend that came up and said, oh my gosh,

[00:30:07] did you see that your church was named as this exponential growth?

[00:30:12] Where do you see it ending?

[00:30:13] You know, are you going to keep growing like that?

[00:30:15] And I said, no, we're not going to keep growing like that.

[00:30:18] You know, we're going to, we're going to hit the place where we've got some kind of

[00:30:23] sustainable thing or we're going to hit some kind of an equilibrium.

[00:30:28] And I think we're close to that and I'm guessing that's where we'll be and we'll help each

[00:30:34] other.

[00:30:35] But, you know, it's not a dream to keep growing exponentially, you know?

[00:30:41] When I was reading the article about you from Living Lutheran, I think this was early

[00:30:50] on when you were interviewing with them because they would say that the congregation was

[00:30:55] dying.

[00:30:57] You said it was dead and could you kind of, kind of, kind of, explain what, what did

[00:31:04] that mean?

[00:31:05] And of course, the congregation isn't closed but you are already saying it was basically

[00:31:11] dead.

[00:31:12] Yeah.

[00:31:13] Yeah.

[00:31:14] That's a big point.

[00:31:17] You know, they wanted to see themselves when I came in 2004 as a congregation that was

[00:31:23] trying to redevelop itself or it was trying to hang on and no matter what they tried,

[00:31:31] it really wasn't getting any traction.

[00:31:35] And so we're a dying congregation.

[00:31:39] And I was the first Sunday that I was there or I was here for installation was the first

[00:31:49] Sunday installation service.

[00:31:50] And we had about, I don't know, 150 or 200 people packed in this little sanctuary and

[00:31:56] I thought, man, they were selling me a bill of goods.

[00:32:00] They're doing great until I started to realize looking out there that, you know, a lot

[00:32:05] of them were my wife's family, extended family, people from Colmar Park that came over to

[00:32:10] wish me well and send me on a new ministry.

[00:32:14] And just a handful of people that I'd known.

[00:32:18] And I thought if you subtract all those, it probably will be a lot less.

[00:32:23] Well, the next Sunday came the Sunday after.

[00:32:27] And it was the raising of Lazarus.

[00:32:31] And I remember looking out at the congregation and we had these pues set up just like a regular

[00:32:38] sanctuary facing forward, 14 foot pews on each side with a bowling alley down the middle.

[00:32:46] Not even enough room on the side aisles to get a wheelchair up there.

[00:32:52] And about 11 people in the sanctuary for worship.

[00:32:58] And of the 11 people, five were seminary students that were conned program.

[00:33:04] And to realize that, you know, the conned students were doing all the lessons.

[00:33:08] They were serving communion.

[00:33:10] They were, you know, doing all these what came to be known as the professional religious

[00:33:16] parties.

[00:33:18] And as I was looking out at these people, you know, they were sitting all over the place.

[00:33:25] And they, you know, they would smile.

[00:33:27] But there was hardly any.

[00:33:30] I just said, you know, you guys really, you pulled the wool over my eyes here.

[00:33:36] I said, you guys told me that you were, you were a dying church.

[00:33:40] You're not dying.

[00:33:40] You're dead.

[00:33:42] This is dead.

[00:33:44] And they were a little shocked and I just said, you know, it's, uh, you're done.

[00:33:50] And I said, the good news is, you know, you're dead.

[00:33:54] The good news is your bed.

[00:33:55] The good news is you can resurrect something dead.

[00:33:59] You can't resurrect something almost dead.

[00:34:01] It's kind of like this.

[00:34:02] It's like the, uh, you know, the, um, the movie, uh, uh, I forget what it was called.

[00:34:10] Um, uh, it doesn't matter.

[00:34:12] But, uh, you know, when you're always on the line and you, you're still operating under

[00:34:19] your own steam, it's so easy to just be clutching it.

[00:34:23] Whatever you can grab in order to stay from going under and keep bailing out the boat.

[00:34:30] And it's like, uh, we don't belong in a boat.

[00:34:33] The boat doesn't float.

[00:34:34] Just get in the water.

[00:34:36] You know, we're dead.

[00:34:37] And, um, to recognize that we've got nothing to lose.

[00:34:42] We're dead already.

[00:34:43] You know, $40,000 in a bank account, it doesn't matter because we're dead.

[00:34:48] A dead person has no use for that.

[00:34:50] So let's, let's take that good news and just take those resources and, and pay them forward.

[00:34:58] And we'll celebrate the ministry with a pot luck.

[00:35:01] We'll say goodbye and we'll go out on a good note, you know, given the money away rather

[00:35:06] than, you know, trying to do everything we could to keep floating.

[00:35:11] And so yeah, that was, that was a key moment for us to recognize.

[00:35:15] There's no guarantee for tomorrow.

[00:35:18] And we have to just, uh, move into that, to that recognition that we know we're already

[00:35:24] gone.

[00:35:25] We're already, we're already pushing up daisies.

[00:35:27] You know, and it's okay.

[00:35:30] So good memory.

[00:35:33] So but how did, do you think of that, that moment?

[00:35:37] I don't want to say turn things around but made a difference in that the church is still

[00:35:45] here, you know, almost 20 years later.

[00:35:49] That was the death in some ways a sense of letting things go and then kind of allowing

[00:35:58] what God was going to bring from this death.

[00:36:02] Right, right.

[00:36:04] Yeah, we, uh, well let's, I'm an artist, um, potter and a painter.

[00:36:13] And, um, and so I'm a visual, I'm a very visual, uh, person.

[00:36:19] And, um, I know one thing I firmly believe in it's, uh, you need to, you need to have

[00:36:29] a holy imagination in order to keep existing in a hopeless situation.

[00:36:35] You have to imagine yourself as blessed.

[00:36:38] It's like, you know, blessed are those that mourn.

[00:36:41] Not blessed are those who are done mourning and are already having a good day.

[00:36:46] It's blessed are those that mourn and it's in the act of mourning that we are able to recognize

[00:36:52] that, you know, we're, uh, we're not waiting for tomorrow before the blessing comes.

[00:36:58] We are blessed.

[00:36:59] And blessed are those whose churches are, are hopeless for, you know, they will, they

[00:37:07] will go on and do good things.

[00:37:09] They will go on and do powerful things.

[00:37:12] Um, so imagination is important.

[00:37:15] And visually I know that it's, um, you know, worship is a very visual tactile thing.

[00:37:21] Uh, you know, we, I always call it a holy waste of time.

[00:37:24] I don't know if Gordon, Raythrop said that or not but, um, worship is a holy waste of

[00:37:30] time.

[00:37:31] Now we're, hour and a half every week of our lives.

[00:37:35] We get nothing done.

[00:37:37] We are useless as far as any production of anything.

[00:37:42] And in so many ways it's such a healing thing.

[00:37:48] But it, you know, we spend all this energy and choirs making banners, you know, making

[00:37:54] sure communion plates are clean or that paramins are all set up or new banners for the

[00:38:01] altar, a candlesticks are just, I mean all of the unessential things that don't matter

[00:38:08] are beautiful and are in the right place.

[00:38:12] And so one thing I do know is we, we, we get to do things that are so wrote that you might

[00:38:17] have the most beautiful weaving for a banner in the world.

[00:38:22] And if you've had it up there for 25 years, you could walk me out and never see it.

[00:38:27] So it needs to be changing.

[00:38:30] You know, you need to be creating and you need to be actively doing that as a people.

[00:38:36] I believe that it's, instead, I think we've relegated the arts in communities of faith

[00:38:44] to Mrs. Johnson.

[00:38:46] And no offense to Mrs. Johnson bless her heart.

[00:38:50] But you know, Mrs. Johnson is known as the banner raker, you know?

[00:38:55] And, and whether that's good or not, sometimes Mrs. Johnson really got stuck on glue and shells

[00:39:02] to gunny sacks, you know, potato sacks and, and doing block letters out of felt that there's

[00:39:10] nothing wrong with that.

[00:39:12] But let's just let's give that, let's give that proper time to be shown and move on.

[00:39:18] The same is true with the most elaborate weaving.

[00:39:21] You know, you can buy, you can buy alter paramets from companies for thousands of dollars a piece.

[00:39:28] Well, who's going to move those on when you have this capital campaign that pay, you know,

[00:39:33] tens of thousands of dollars for things that somebody else manufactured and, and you put up?

[00:39:40] So it becomes more of a feeding the idea of the holy professional religion.

[00:39:49] You know, if you order it through a such and such company, then it must be a holy professional thing

[00:39:56] rather than, you know, let the kids make it.

[00:39:59] You know, and you might be surprised.

[00:40:01] So I think visually we started to work with the sanctuary and do our shows and we cut up the

[00:40:08] pews. We started cutting the pews up because we're only at handful of people.

[00:40:13] Why not sit in a circle?

[00:40:15] You know, we've got us in our midst or do we believe God has projected up on one end of the building?

[00:40:22] You know, should we look at each other when we speak and sing?

[00:40:26] Should we how should we develop, you know, who we are and and and make our setting reflect what we believe?

[00:40:35] And so that.

[00:40:38] So I had to become a cheerleader for some awful projects.

[00:40:42] Awful, awful, awful.

[00:40:44] Like we pulled the carpet out after we cut the pews up and and and the floor was so ugly.

[00:40:51] It was all, you know, asbestos tile from the 50s, you know, brown and light brown and dark and just horrible.

[00:41:00] And we couldn't afford to cover them.

[00:41:03] But we did we just we we primary painted over the top of those things

[00:41:08] and then we invited people to bring house paint.

[00:41:11] And we were going to teach each other how to marbleize the floor.

[00:41:16] So it looked like marble and God, it was horrible, horrible.

[00:41:22] And but then we put glazes over the top.

[00:41:24] We've got another artist here who knows how to do glazing techniques over the top and tied it all together beautifully

[00:41:31] and then we installed a labyrinth on the floor.

[00:41:35] So we got this nice circle.

[00:41:37] So we focus ourselves and, you know, around that labyrinth.

[00:41:41] So it becomes a different focal point.

[00:41:43] But it talks about the journey, you know, and we're all on a journey.

[00:41:46] We don't know where we're going or how we're going to get there, but we do it together.

[00:41:51] And so we started reflecting visually what we were what we were trying to live out.

[00:41:59] And so all of a sudden I put the seminary students that were wonderful.

[00:42:07] I had so many wonderful seminary students back when that program was really working.

[00:42:11] I'll put them on notice, you know, if you really need to practice reading the lessons

[00:42:16] you can let me know.

[00:42:17] But if you're pretty good at reading the lessons, forget it.

[00:42:20] We don't need you.

[00:42:21] We're going to give a lesson reading to the people.

[00:42:24] And if people are not good at reading and they want that's okay.

[00:42:29] We'll go slow, we'll listen.

[00:42:31] We'll let them correct themselves.

[00:42:33] We'll let...

[00:42:35] So we started doing very unprofessional worship services.

[00:42:39] You know, people collecting offerings that you know couldn't remember

[00:42:44] if they'd gone up that aisle or not or gone over to that side of the circle.

[00:42:49] And kids were involved in, you know, communion serving and very, very...

[00:43:00] You know, on the ground, you know, very rooted in this community.

[00:43:07] And so if seminary students needed to preach, that's great.

[00:43:11] In fact, that was super as far as I was concerned.

[00:43:14] I need a break in one some while.

[00:43:16] But we don't need them, we don't need them to do all of the professional church stuff.

[00:43:22] That's the work of the people and let's empower the people.

[00:43:25] And lo and behold, what do you find out?

[00:43:28] But the people that weren't the best at those jobs are stars.

[00:43:33] You know, they are the stars.

[00:43:35] And I mean, that's the gospel right there.

[00:43:38] And so the seminary students really enjoyed that.

[00:43:42] Some did, some didn't.

[00:43:45] That you know, they really wanted a lot of experience doing all the stuff.

[00:43:48] And so that era changed and ended.

[00:43:54] And we still had students around.

[00:43:56] That was beautiful.

[00:43:59] But I feel like we gave the ministry back to the people that were here.

[00:44:04] And as people came, you know, we really believed that they should change us.

[00:44:09] Every person that comes to that door should change us in some way,

[00:44:13] shape or form because we are a reflection together.

[00:44:17] And if they're just fitting into what you know, we're doing.

[00:44:20] And if you like us, like us, if you don't go somewhere else, you know.

[00:44:25] So we've shifted over the years and we've changed.

[00:44:28] And we continue to do that.

[00:44:31] But yeah, they were dead.

[00:44:34] And and and resurrection keeps coming to us over and over again.

[00:44:38] And that's been it's been rich.

[00:44:42] Yeah, I guess that's kind of, and if I've already answered this question,

[00:44:47] it's kind of where have you seen resurrection happening?

[00:44:51] It seems like that's been happening and having the people kind of

[00:44:56] taking over some of the parts of the service that fits along they didn't have a role in.

[00:45:01] Right, right.

[00:45:02] And yeah, that's in a lot of churches, you know,

[00:45:08] you know, we I said early on it's like, you know,

[00:45:12] people say, you know, the sign of a growing church is that there are children around.

[00:45:15] You know, there are little kids around.

[00:45:17] Where are the kids?

[00:45:18] And at first we only had a handful of kids, you know,

[00:45:21] we had two of them that we brought.

[00:45:24] And it's like, you know, I said, well,

[00:45:27] there are children in each one of us.

[00:45:28] We each have an inner child.

[00:45:30] So I want all of us, including 97 year old, you know,

[00:45:36] Alice Matthews, all of us are on our knees painting the sanctuary floor.

[00:45:42] We're given it our best shot and having fun with it and laughing at our mistakes.

[00:45:48] And we're going to be kids.

[00:45:50] And you know, the grieving that takes place,

[00:45:54] you know, we don't have enough kids to do a Christmas program,

[00:45:57] you know, that kind of a thing.

[00:45:59] And it's like, well, we're still going to have a Christmas program.

[00:46:01] Let's we're going to come and everybody just grab out.

[00:46:05] When you come in the door,

[00:46:06] and it's a no rehearsal Christmas program,

[00:46:09] and we'll call people up as the parts are told.

[00:46:14] And we'll have a narrator and just to give you a little taste of this.

[00:46:21] You know, we had a little girl that came.

[00:46:22] She's about 10 years old now.

[00:46:24] And when she was two, her second birthday,

[00:46:27] she went in for a well check.

[00:46:29] And they found she had, she had kidney cancer.

[00:46:33] And she needed to get a kidney removed and then have chemo and radiation.

[00:46:38] And as a two year old.

[00:46:40] And so we walked with that family for, you know,

[00:46:44] a couple of years of treatment and trying to get through cancer.

[00:46:48] Well, when she was about four, two years later,

[00:46:50] the Christmas program came around.

[00:46:52] And here she is.

[00:46:54] She's bald except for the furry little hair on the top of her chemo-ridden head.

[00:47:00] And she's got steroids in her.

[00:47:03] And she's got

[00:47:07] an acropathy in her, in her feet.

[00:47:09] So she doesn't, her feet don't work perfectly.

[00:47:11] And anyway, she wants to be an angel for the Christmas pageant that year.

[00:47:16] And she comes in and I tell you what, so disruptive.

[00:47:20] I mean, yelling and laughing.

[00:47:24] And she can't sit still in this angel outfit.

[00:47:28] So there are a bunch of angel outfits running around.

[00:47:31] And this kid is running from one end of the church sanctuary to the other

[00:47:37] and squealing.

[00:47:40] And there's not a dry eye in the place because who's to say that angel they're supposed

[00:47:45] to be well behaved or sit still or, you know, be angelic.

[00:47:51] Whatever angelic is, we just were so

[00:47:54] briefly thankful that she was alive.

[00:47:58] And we were so happy that in her steroid-induced, you know, hyperactivity,

[00:48:04] she was flying as an angel from end to end.

[00:48:08] And she really set us straight, you know, because you still have people that, you know,

[00:48:15] we want the kids to behave, you know?

[00:48:17] And it's like she really changed us.

[00:48:20] She changed us in her illness.

[00:48:23] And she's changed us through this pandemic too, as a 10-year-old.

[00:48:27] She's very compromised if she gets at sheathen big trouble.

[00:48:32] So there's very few, you know, I don't use anybody here that would not wear a mask or do what they

[00:48:40] could to protect that kid.

[00:48:43] And it's because they know the angel that she is and she's kind of a little demon underneath

[00:48:50] that costume. But we love that little demon.

[00:48:52] And so yeah, our pageants are going to be a little chaotic.

[00:48:59] I mean, okay, they're going to be very chaotic.

[00:49:03] But that's the way our life is too.

[00:49:05] And somewhere holiness comes through and that and it's changed us.

[00:49:13] Yeah, so that's resurrection right there, you know,

[00:49:15] to do a Christmas page and every nobody comes to me anymore and says,

[00:49:18] I'm so nervous and worried. Nobody's helping me put the Christmas pageant together.

[00:49:23] The kids aren't telling us some practices and I'm sick of it.

[00:49:26] I'm not doing it anymore.

[00:49:28] It's like nobody worries about it.

[00:49:31] Nobody, nobody.

[00:49:34] And it's beautiful.

[00:49:35] So it's a gift.

[00:49:36] It's a real gift.

[00:49:38] And where did you kind of say that the new members who were coming were hearing about this?

[00:49:46] Were they hearing about it just through other people or how did the word get spread

[00:49:54] that what piece was doing?

[00:49:55] Yeah, pretty much toward a mouse.

[00:49:58] Those neighbors talking to neighbors and neighbors talking to a family member that came to visit.

[00:50:04] So we're still a largely a neighborhood church.

[00:50:09] And it just spreads that way.

[00:50:16] Sometimes people will come like we had a city pages article that was done a few years ago.

[00:50:23] With very sweet and we had so many visitors showing up

[00:50:28] thinking that we were the promised land or something.

[00:50:30] And then what they came to find out was here's this kid running around.

[00:50:35] And here's a choir that sometimes doesn't sing on key.

[00:50:41] And this person here keeps dropping their coffee cup.

[00:50:48] How can we help?

[00:50:49] And it's like, well, we have a cup of coffee and meet a few people and live your life.

[00:50:55] Helping will come.

[00:50:57] Don't worry about that part.

[00:50:58] But no, where do we sign up?

[00:51:00] Who organizes this?

[00:51:02] And it's like, well, you know, if you want to come on Tuesday,

[00:51:05] I'm going to be working on someone's toilet.

[00:51:07] You know, I work on Tuesday, you know?

[00:51:09] So it becomes this how can I plug into a regimented thing

[00:51:14] and give my gift at the prescribed time or

[00:51:19] and there's nothing wrong with that.

[00:51:21] I totally respect that.

[00:51:24] But the magic that if there is any magic,

[00:51:29] it comes from people sharing their lives together.

[00:51:32] And so we had a number of people come through and then go back out.

[00:51:40] Because, you know, it's better to be able to give than to just live your life with people.

[00:51:45] And but we've gotten a lot of support

[00:51:51] from the neighbors and from in the greater cities area

[00:51:55] and across the country, you know, through that particular article.

[00:52:00] And so it's really been affirming.

[00:52:03] And yeah, it's been very wonderful.

[00:52:07] You know, we had a member in the neighborhood

[00:52:10] that I almost skimmed the name but it's an anonymous member that died

[00:52:18] and they left $220,000 in the Civil Church back in 2010.

[00:52:25] And I remember telling the Senate that we were going to give.

[00:52:30] We're going to tie that but we were going to find all these places

[00:52:33] that we're going to tithe to and we're going to engage ourselves

[00:52:37] in how to spend that money for the good of the world.

[00:52:41] And we firmly believe in what the Senate's doing.

[00:52:45] I think it's amazing, Senate.

[00:52:47] But our people never really understood about

[00:52:51] connecting money as a tool to what we do.

[00:52:54] So we were going to do that.

[00:52:55] I remember one of the bishops assistant said,

[00:52:58] I heard about your gift.

[00:53:00] I'm so sorry to hear that.

[00:53:03] And he said, so sorry to hear that.

[00:53:05] He said, yeah, and I understand what he's saying here.

[00:53:08] He said, little churches like you guys,

[00:53:10] if you give them a big gift like that, usually that

[00:53:13] it ends up creating so many fights and animosity

[00:53:16] and disagreements about how to spend that money

[00:53:21] that it ends up tearing people apart.

[00:53:25] And we certainly could have gone that way but we decided

[00:53:29] spread it out into three buckets basically.

[00:53:33] Infrastructure of our building would be x number of dollars.

[00:53:39] Give it to the neighborhood.

[00:53:42] Invest in the neighborhood somehow would be

[00:53:45] another third and then another third would be programs

[00:53:49] and opportunities for people with education and whatnot

[00:53:55] and helping.

[00:53:58] So one of the things we did was, oh,

[00:54:00] and the other thing is everything we do with that money

[00:54:04] that gift will only give 50% of what's needed for that project.

[00:54:08] So the first thing people wanted to do is let's get an elevator.

[00:54:12] Because we couldn't afford an elevator 20 years prior,

[00:54:18] it was $200,000 and so we ended up digging the elevator ourselves.

[00:54:23] Got shovels, we dug the elevator out ourselves,

[00:54:26] we built it ourselves, we had a company come and put the guts in

[00:54:30] and the whole project ended up being like $25,000 total for the whole thing start to finish.

[00:54:37] And it took us about a year and a half to do it together.

[00:54:41] And then we put solar panels on the roof and all of our utilities are paid for now.

[00:54:46] And then we make $5,000, $6,000 a year off the solar panels.

[00:54:52] And that keeps being regenerated into the fund.

[00:54:57] So they even got creative with that money.

[00:55:01] How do we use this as a tool?

[00:55:03] How do we give it away?

[00:55:04] We bought a grand piano.

[00:55:06] Not brand new, but enough so the neighbors could come and use it for recitals and whatnot.

[00:55:12] And yeah, so resurrection happens in ways.

[00:55:16] But one of the things that I remember hearing from

[00:55:22] one of the committee members back when we got that money was they kept asking me,

[00:55:29] is there anything we could do with this money that would cause you to say I'm done?

[00:55:33] I think I need to move on to another church.

[00:55:36] And I kept saying, you know, as long as we all agree together in community,

[00:55:39] what to do with this and we all have a voice,

[00:55:42] that's a consensus.

[00:55:43] I can live with that and they kept asking me and kept asking me.

[00:55:47] And then finally I said, you know,

[00:55:51] if we use this money as a credit card,

[00:55:55] if we just take this money and use it to avoid needing our neighbors to help,

[00:56:02] then I think I'm done.

[00:56:04] If we use it as a credit card to pay a company that come and put an elevator in

[00:56:09] and we can stand back and complain about how long they're taking

[00:56:12] or what the overages are in payments,

[00:56:16] we need to have some skin in the game and we need to do this together.

[00:56:20] And there's nothing wrong with doing it.

[00:56:23] You know, the way a good portion of society does and just use the money.

[00:56:28] We didn't make the piano.

[00:56:30] We didn't come together and say, we'll put $10,000 for it and then we'll make the rest of the piano.

[00:56:35] There's some things we can't do but there are some things we can.

[00:56:39] You know, we can, you know, we can make the dolly for it.

[00:56:43] We've got a steel worker.

[00:56:45] You make the dolly for us.

[00:56:47] And by engaging people with the gifts they have,

[00:56:52] and one of the other things was, you know, we're always on the ropes with money.

[00:56:55] We are this year too.

[00:56:59] We always said that you can only use up to 10% of that gift towards the operating budget.

[00:57:05] And it's been how long has it been 11 years since we got the gift?

[00:57:10] And we've never used a nickel of it for the operating budget.

[00:57:14] Not one nickel.

[00:57:16] And what we've used that money to do a lot of good stuff.

[00:57:21] So that's been very, it's been, and you know, we're totally,

[00:57:29] you know, we create almost tripled the energy of this building that we use.

[00:57:36] So in the sense, it kind of strains 1954 building all concrete blocks with no insulation.

[00:57:43] And we would qualify as a lead building.

[00:57:46] Wow.

[00:57:47] That's amazing.

[00:57:48] Because we're generating more, more energy than we're consuming.

[00:57:54] It's beautiful.

[00:57:55] And if we can do it, if we can do it, you know, there's so many things that can be done.

[00:58:02] So what would you say?

[00:58:05] Because there are lots of congregations like peace that are out there

[00:58:09] that are probably of that size. They don't have a huge amount of money in the budget.

[00:58:16] How, what advice would you give them for where they are and what they can do?

[00:58:22] And I'm not saying necessarily to turn themselves around, but to

[00:58:30] basically to live or to be reserved to all themselves to be resurrected.

[00:58:34] Let's put it that way.

[00:58:35] Yeah.

[00:58:39] Well, I think I'd begin with,

[00:58:47] I'd begin with just finding out where do they have joy?

[00:58:50] You know, where does their joy stem from?

[00:58:55] Quit focusing on the scene of the accident.

[00:59:01] Quit looking at the cars that they've driven.

[00:59:04] Quit looking at who they've been in the past.

[00:59:09] Stop all that and start asking serious questions about where do they find their joy?

[00:59:15] Where do they see resurrection happening already?

[00:59:20] And, uh, and you know, where are they curious?

[00:59:25] You know, what's their curiosity?

[00:59:27] And I'm talking about this in their regular lives.

[00:59:29] Not in

[00:59:31] their church life, but where do they find their passion?

[00:59:42] And go from there, like I had in the black hills of South Dakota.

[00:59:52] You know, I did a few things with people around working on homes for neighbors that were in need out there.

[00:59:58] It didn't really work.

[01:00:00] It just didn't fit that place.

[01:00:03] And what we did, we helped a few people, you know, they have a whole different,

[01:00:08] they have a whole different ethos going on in the hills.

[01:00:14] They did it in other ways through the arts and,

[01:00:20] you know, community garden.

[01:00:22] And, um, but you know, they don't do it.

[01:00:26] Don't find something to do that can raise you money.

[01:00:29] Don't, it's like, uh, when we really look back on the ministry that we've done,

[01:00:35] you know, we've gotten very little money from Christmas and August.

[01:00:39] You know, it's costus.

[01:00:42] But we've just, you know, we've just come to enjoy it so much and to love our neighbors through it.

[01:00:48] And it made a huge difference because it tapped into our passion.

[01:00:53] You know, we're always being scrappy about how can we make the budget?

[01:00:58] We're always doing that.

[01:01:00] You know, um, you know, maybe we could write this grant or that grant or maybe we could,

[01:01:05] you know, put together.

[01:01:09] You know, and every year is different.

[01:01:11] Like one year we, um,

[01:01:13] one year we, uh,

[01:01:18] I had a number of elderly people that were getting dementia.

[01:01:23] And they were sitting home alone or with a partner that just never got a break.

[01:01:27] And I said to myself, you know, maybe we should write a grant and create some kind of like a day

[01:01:35] program for some of our people, you know, or maybe deliver them to the community center.

[01:01:43] And then somebody asked if we would be interested in putting an addition on their house as a kitchen

[01:01:50] right down the street.

[01:01:52] And next thing, you know, I said, well, until I write that grant, maybe we'll do that with them.

[01:01:57] So we went down the street and every day at lunch, every day, you know, the person that

[01:02:04] that wanted this kitchen on their house was a volunteer of ours.

[01:02:08] She'd feed everybody that came.

[01:02:11] So she had people that, you know, were forgetful and but couldn't swing a hammer.

[01:02:18] You know, so it was kind of like, I called it the misfit construction company.

[01:02:22] And for over a year, everybody met there every day.

[01:02:26] And a lot of days I couldn't be there, but they'd still be there.

[01:02:29] They'd be sweeping up or sanding a little board that didn't need sanding or needed sanding.

[01:02:35] And then that family took care of all those people.

[01:02:40] And got us through.

[01:02:42] So we were, you know, given donations from that family for an addition

[01:02:47] and that made our budget that year.

[01:02:49] It was amazing.

[01:02:51] And what we created a day program for people in need by doing it.

[01:02:56] And it was creative.

[01:02:58] And it's like, is that sustaining?

[01:03:00] No, we don't we're not doing that anymore.

[01:03:02] We don't have the ability to do it now.

[01:03:04] But who knows what's coming tomorrow, you know.

[01:03:09] So how did the church fair during COVID since a lot of people this time?

[01:03:16] Well, last year most of the year people weren't in churches and had to do things

[01:03:22] via YouTube or Facebook and all that.

[01:03:25] How did the church fair during that time period?

[01:03:30] Yeah, you know, we applied for the PPP loan.

[01:03:33] You know, and that really helped.

[01:03:34] We got about $20,000 through the government.

[01:03:38] That was like a fifth of our budget.

[01:03:42] And that really helped us.

[01:03:45] But we were also

[01:03:50] you know, that first year, you know, the Senate,

[01:03:52] St. Paul Arias, and you know, called and gave us $2,000

[01:03:57] towards our bills and said, you know, I think we're doing really well.

[01:04:00] You know, we've got this PPP thing.

[01:04:02] You know, give it to somebody that needs it.

[01:04:04] And they were very sweet.

[01:04:05] And I remember Patricia Lowell said,

[01:04:08] no, we want you to have it.

[01:04:09] It's from the it's from the ELCA,

[01:04:13] you know, national and for churches like yours.

[01:04:16] Do something with it.

[01:04:18] That'll help some people.

[01:04:20] So we ended up getting

[01:04:22] ended up getting $100 gift cards to all these

[01:04:27] to give out to people that needed it.

[01:04:28] And so we had 20 of them at first, $2,000 worth.

[01:04:32] And we gave them to our people and said,

[01:04:34] if you know somebody that's in need

[01:04:36] of groceries or help, give them this card.

[01:04:40] And the trick is this,

[01:04:42] give it to them

[01:04:44] and tell them that if they could use it,

[01:04:46] they should use it.

[01:04:48] If they can't use it, then give it to somebody

[01:04:51] that they think could use it.

[01:04:52] Pass it on.

[01:04:54] And then nobody, nobody felt

[01:04:57] like they were

[01:05:00] receiving something they shouldn't

[01:05:02] or they weren't ashamed of it.

[01:05:04] They became a link in the chain for help down the line.

[01:05:09] And so it worked so well.

[01:05:11] And the thing was people could come to the church

[01:05:14] and get four or five of these cards if they knew people.

[01:05:17] And so we were giving our own members these cards.

[01:05:21] And it was so amazing

[01:05:24] that people were able to come here and do that.

[01:05:27] And so we got another $2,000 of our money

[01:05:30] and then another $2,000 of our money.

[01:05:33] So I forget we've given six or $7,000

[01:05:37] where those cards out

[01:05:40] since COVID began on top of our, you know,

[01:05:43] pledging to the Senate and whatnot.

[01:05:46] And it's been beautiful because it's not a program

[01:05:50] we all vote on.

[01:05:51] And then that's it.

[01:05:52] You just hear some kind of a report on where the money went.

[01:05:58] It's literally physical people handing

[01:06:01] help to somebody else and reaching out to neighbors.

[01:06:05] And it happens through all of our members.

[01:06:08] And so we've got about four of them left,

[01:06:10] but we're probably going to have to get more pretty soon.

[01:06:14] But that was wonderful.

[01:06:16] The other thing is we do share our sanctuary.

[01:06:18] We rent out the afternoon on Sundays

[01:06:23] to a men and a congregation called a manual.

[01:06:26] And they have not met in the buildings since COVID started.

[01:06:30] But they still send us $1,300 a month.

[01:06:34] You know, we told them right away.

[01:06:35] And they're probably about the same size we are.

[01:06:40] But they've been committed.

[01:06:42] We said, stop paying rent until you come back.

[01:06:45] You know, we know how hard it is.

[01:06:47] And they said, well, we know how hard it is to keep a building.

[01:06:49] You know, and so they keep paying us every month.

[01:06:52] Even though they're not in the building.

[01:06:55] And that's just been such a sweet relationship.

[01:06:58] And we look forward to them coming back.

[01:07:00] But our budget hurts more this year than it did last year.

[01:07:05] But we still meet on Zoom lives.

[01:07:08] And we're doing a hybrid together live

[01:07:11] and in person right now like most people.

[01:07:13] But we say, we're masked.

[01:07:15] And people need each other.

[01:07:17] So we haven't.

[01:07:21] We've learned new things about ourselves

[01:07:23] and done some good things on Zoom

[01:07:25] that we wouldn't have done otherwise.

[01:07:27] So it's been good.

[01:07:29] What are the things that you've learned on Zoom?

[01:07:32] Oh, so different.

[01:07:34] Boy, I've really enjoyed it.

[01:07:41] And I said this to and our people would say the same thing.

[01:07:45] They've really enjoyed Zoom worship.

[01:07:49] Trying to figure out what that is.

[01:07:51] And part of it is when you're in person

[01:07:54] like we are now, we're half in person, half on Zoom

[01:07:56] and we project it and people interact with each other.

[01:08:00] But when you're in person

[01:08:02] there's all this body language going on.

[01:08:05] There's a breeze that comes in

[01:08:06] and makes everybody kind of, you know,

[01:08:08] shudder a little bit and then they look at each other

[01:08:11] in the eyes across the room.

[01:08:12] And for a moment their concentration is gone

[01:08:16] and they are wondering who opened the door.

[01:08:18] They're wondering, you know,

[01:08:20] and then somebody drops something

[01:08:21] and then they look over and somebody's laughing.

[01:08:24] So there's all of this interaction that's going on

[01:08:27] that's unspoken in the room when it's live.

[01:08:30] And there's there's

[01:08:32] there's there's not a level of concentration.

[01:08:37] Like right now I see you.

[01:08:42] You know, we always joke about on Zoom

[01:08:44] were they wearing pants or not?

[01:08:46] You know, who cares?

[01:08:47] It doesn't matter.

[01:08:48] But it's like in you worry about all that stuff in person

[01:08:52] but on Zoom I'm looking at your bright smiling face

[01:08:56] and you got a painting on your wall

[01:08:59] and that is it.

[01:09:01] So I'm interacting with you

[01:09:04] and as a congregation of 50 people

[01:09:08] everybody is muted except for a speaker.

[01:09:11] Everybody's focusing on that.

[01:09:14] They might drop their coffee cup but nobody hears it.

[01:09:17] The dog might come in, nobody hears it.

[01:09:19] And if somebody wants to speak on Zoom worship

[01:09:23] they have to physically unmute

[01:09:25] and people listen to them.

[01:09:28] And people that never spoke before speak on Zoom

[01:09:33] because they've got equal access, equal opportunity

[01:09:37] and they know people will be listening

[01:09:39] and so it's really been an equalizer that way

[01:09:44] for those that will do Zoom.

[01:09:46] But some people want nothing to do with it

[01:09:48] and we don't have very many people like that

[01:09:51] but we've tried to help them get computers

[01:09:54] if they need it.

[01:09:57] Yeah, it's after churches done

[01:10:01] people clear out and they're gone

[01:10:03] and oftentimes Zoom breakout rooms

[01:10:06] will go for another hour, an hour and a half.

[01:10:09] It's like because they are

[01:10:11] they have this undivided attention

[01:10:14] and that's not something we have anymore

[01:10:17] in churches or otherwise you don't have it.

[01:10:19] So, what do you see the future of congregation?

[01:10:31] I don't know.

[01:10:32] We have to catch up to it.

[01:10:36] I don't know.

[01:10:37] I don't know.

[01:10:38] You know, I've been here for 20 years now.

[01:10:41] 20 years.

[01:10:42] The 20 years, 18 years, 18 years

[01:10:48] feels like

[01:10:50] just started but

[01:10:52] and it feels like, you know,

[01:10:55] 20 years.

[01:10:57] But it's changing all the time

[01:10:59] and I was worried for a long time about

[01:11:03] because I really believe this

[01:11:05] congregation is doing amazing things

[01:11:06] for this neighborhood.

[01:11:07] It's really a needed thing.

[01:11:10] You know, I'm sharing the body of Christ

[01:11:12] as the body of Christ in this place

[01:11:14] at this time

[01:11:15] is it's been so powerful

[01:11:18] and so I started thinking about

[01:11:22] wanting to be a good steward of this gift

[01:11:25] to the neighborhood.

[01:11:26] How can we set it up

[01:11:28] to be self-sustaining

[01:11:29] into the years to come

[01:11:30] long after Dave Greenland?

[01:11:34] And I've had plenty of people

[01:11:36] that have said, don't worry about that.

[01:11:39] Don't worry.

[01:11:40] Just keep trying to catch up to the future now.

[01:11:44] Forget about the safety of, you know,

[01:11:47] guaranteeing this or that.

[01:11:49] You know, it's kind of like

[01:11:50] can we endow a position?

[01:11:52] You know

[01:11:53] and it's like

[01:11:54] no, I think church is

[01:11:57] really

[01:11:58] need to be hungry.

[01:12:01] We need to be hungry

[01:12:02] and always alert

[01:12:05] about how to be bodies of Christ

[01:12:07] risen in this time and place.

[01:12:09] The future is somewhere on the road

[01:12:11] to a meas, you know,

[01:12:13] it's up there somewhere.

[01:12:15] And right now I know that we

[01:12:18] we are doing our best to figure out how to keep

[01:12:21] this little girl safe

[01:12:23] from a virus

[01:12:25] and how to continue to connect with people

[01:12:27] that are really

[01:12:30] really scared

[01:12:32] in the loan

[01:12:33] and restless.

[01:12:36] That's our future right now.

[01:12:39] And how do we

[01:12:41] how do we remain hopeful

[01:12:43] in a world that just seems to be

[01:12:48] hell bent on

[01:12:50] self-sufficiency

[01:12:52] and

[01:12:54] doing their own

[01:12:56] safety measures of insurance

[01:12:59] and

[01:13:00] how to save this democracy.

[01:13:03] You know, it's

[01:13:05] not a bad thing to worry about

[01:13:07] but it's not

[01:13:09] something that

[01:13:12] this church will survive

[01:13:13] and be the body of Christ

[01:13:15] whether this democracy survives or not.

[01:13:19] And I have to keep telling myself that

[01:13:22] because I worry about it all the time.

[01:13:24] How do we

[01:13:27] how do we

[01:13:28] we repair

[01:13:31] you know

[01:13:32] the

[01:13:32] the caste system we have in this country

[01:13:35] of racism

[01:13:39] this church will continue to be the body of Christ.

[01:13:46] Wherever we end up on that

[01:13:48] and how do we present ourselves

[01:13:51] there's a lot to be hopeless about

[01:13:54] but um

[01:13:55] there's so much that

[01:13:58] we need to die to in order to be the future

[01:14:01] and part of some of the worrying is

[01:14:04] needs to die

[01:14:06] and uh and I say that I don't say that lightly

[01:14:08] because I'm

[01:14:10] I'm I'm worried about a lot of things right now

[01:14:14] and uh

[01:14:15] and I just have to be reminded you know

[01:14:18] is that little

[01:14:20] you know demon angel goes running through the sanctuary

[01:14:23] you know in my mind's eye or I see you're out on the street

[01:14:26] down the street you know

[01:14:28] running with her super boots

[01:14:30] you know with her feet that don't work

[01:14:32] and uh

[01:14:33] I I remember okay

[01:14:36] we're the body of Christ you know

[01:14:38] we're not this or that so

[01:14:41] um

[01:14:42] yeah I

[01:14:43] the future

[01:14:44] and i mind

[01:14:49] I think one thing that's been an interesting thing here is

[01:14:52] you talk a lot about

[01:14:54] you kind of self-sufficiency and it seems like one of the things that

[01:14:59] it seems that I've helped this congregation is to be vulnerable

[01:15:04] um

[01:15:06] I am I correct in that assessment or it just seems like that's what I've been

[01:15:10] picking up

[01:15:11] yeah no that's uh um

[01:15:14] yeah that's actually right

[01:15:16] uh

[01:15:17] we can't do it alone you know

[01:15:20] but that doesn't mean you don't start

[01:15:22] you know if you don't

[01:15:23] you don't

[01:15:25] when we started the elevator project looking back on that

[01:15:28] it's one of the craziest things I ever did

[01:15:31] crazy you know because I told people to bring their shovels with them

[01:15:35] to church

[01:15:36] we started digging a hole that was going to go 15 feet into the ground

[01:15:41] you know i can't i can't remember how many tons of dirt that is

[01:15:46] but you know you put your shovel in the ground and then you

[01:15:49] you put the dirt where

[01:15:54] it can't stay there because it's a big hole

[01:15:57] and not thinking that's true

[01:15:59] you know and if you think through every problem that you're going to have

[01:16:03] you'd never start

[01:16:05] and

[01:16:06] we had bigger projects than that

[01:16:08] you know

[01:16:13] you keep showing up

[01:16:14] and uh

[01:16:15] not with all the materials you need and just trusting that something will happen

[01:16:20] but you know um

[01:16:22] you know one example of that would be this so we were going to put solar panels on the roof

[01:16:28] and before we put solar panels on the roof a hailstorm hit the roof which was from god

[01:16:33] the hailstorm from god hit the roof

[01:16:36] and gave us an insurance payout to put a new roof on this church

[01:16:40] which we needed before we could put solar panels on

[01:16:43] so they're putting this the new roof on and they realize they need insulation up there

[01:16:49] and um so they're putting insulation up there

[01:16:52] and then they put the shingles on

[01:16:55] and as a result they've got insulation on the roof for the first time ever

[01:16:59] and what happens is the roof is not going to melt the snow off anymore

[01:17:05] so we created a problem now we've got this insulated roof that'll be more energy efficient

[01:17:11] but now we're going to have this incredible load of weight on the roof that never was there

[01:17:15] and uh the engineer for the solar panel said

[01:17:19] that the roof was going to collapse this winter in the first couple of snows

[01:17:23] we said that can't be true this has been here for all these years

[01:17:26] we've got our own engineer who confirmed that

[01:17:29] and said if you don't

[01:17:32] if you don't get the snow off that rough immediately when it comes down

[01:17:35] you're going to the building's got to collapse

[01:17:37] so we had people showing up every time it snowed more than an inch

[01:17:42] with roof rakes pulling the snow off

[01:17:44] and then we had to come up with a plan to reinforce the roof with 12 000 pounds of steel

[01:17:51] and do it ourselves otherwise it was going to cost a hundred thousand dollars

[01:17:56] so we bought the steel we had it delivered we had to unload it

[01:18:01] and then we had to figure out figure out how to quit 13 000 pounds of steel

[01:18:06] on the ceiling to keep the roof from collapsing

[01:18:09] I don't know how to do that and I still didn't know even after we put the stuff on the floor in the church

[01:18:16] but people started coming up and showing up and saying I think we could do it this way or that way

[01:18:22] and uh i mean it's just stupid the things that we did and very vulnerable

[01:18:31] and you know one thing we could have done is um it would have been as vulnerable

[01:18:36] to just pick the right construction company and then just have cottage meetings to try to figure out

[01:18:43] how to raise a hundred thousand dollars to save the roof

[01:18:48] that's not vulnerable that's uh

[01:18:54] not sure what it is but it keeps us from being vulnerable

[01:18:58] and uh we've gotten far from that so yeah that's a great point you know it's about vulnerability

[01:19:05] and you got and not worrying about looking like a fool

[01:19:08] it's you look really foolish here we really do

[01:19:13] well but I think that also goes back to

[01:19:17] christ as well i mean there is a talk about kind of christ being foolish and

[01:19:23] yeah oh talks about that so it's it's pretty biblical to act foolish

[01:19:29] yeah we for you know in some ways it's kind of like where we started this conversation it's kind of

[01:19:34] like we didn't have any kids that would show us that we had life but we all have an inner kid

[01:19:41] and to see a 97-year-old lady with her thiritic knees on the floor giggling in a sanctuary as she painted

[01:19:49] with house paint is priceless and it's it's uh it's so childlike and childish and

[01:19:59] full of life her giggles are full of life and we don't have enough of that but it comes out of

[01:20:06] a vulnerability um yeah yeah you're right well thank you for for this interview this was i think a very

[01:20:17] helpful um engaging and to tell the story of one church um i'm hoping that it can

[01:20:24] can make a difference to other people who are listening i you know it's not necessarily

[01:20:28] you do this and this will happen but i think it's it's helpful to hear those stories um

[01:20:35] to give communities a faith to think about that yeah i i pray that uh people that hear this will just

[01:20:43] start learning how to continue opening their eyes the way they have been but open your

[01:20:48] eyes and just keep looking and keep watching and listening and being foolish and you know follow

[01:20:56] the laughter um follow the smiles and then follow the food follow the food together and laugh

[01:21:06] it'll happen yeah and that food might be a potluck saying goodbye to a ministry

[01:21:13] that's okay too there might be something else coming

[01:21:16] so yeah uh thank you so much thanks for the great questions and um i'm glad that there are people out there

[01:21:25] that are doing the same things uh in different ways and uh it feels good to not be alone

[01:21:31] yes it does yeah all right you'd be well all right thank you so much take care all right

[01:22:01] yes