AN INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL FOSS

What message are you hoping to convey to the NT-NL Synod?

Simple. With discipleship as the focus of ministry, there is great hope and joy in the work that we do. In my experience, congregations experience a wonderful sense of renewal and hopefulness. That’s kind of a fundamental message, and if I had to choose one, that would be it. Then, of course, we start getting into how to implement that.

So when you talk about the message of hope and joy, that’s in contrast to the current situation, which really can be burnout.

Yes. I think [John P.] Kotter, of Harvard Business School, says it well that in order for change to occur, you have to first establish a sense of urgency. I will be doing that with my first major presentation. We are in a very critical time, and it is not just Lutheran, not just mainline, but it cuts across Christian churches right now.

What do you hope our voting members will take away from your message?

My hope is that they will take away not simply a sense of inspiration, which I believe is critical to help restore energy and help people focus on the future and the present rather than just on the past. But I hope they’ll take away some specifics on how this can be done. It’s one thing to call us to a future. It’s another to begin to build the bridge between where we are and where we are going.

What do you believe is the biggest obstacle to a congregation in moving from a membership model to a discipleship model?

It seems to me there are two obstacles that I have identified and keep meeting again and again. One obstacle is that some feel there is no reason to change. Some people are quite satisfied with where we are in our church. As long as we can continue to do what we’re doing, these people feel they will be just fine. Now that obstacle tends to be more in small churches that define themselves more as a family. They all know and like each other, and they don’t look to the future because they are usually aging churches. But that’s clearly one obstacle.

The second obstacle is more endemic to the different traditions I speak to. Within our context, the ELCA, we have defined ourselves by how we do things rather than what we do. And the "how” has a lot to do with not only the worship but also the structure. The obstacle, then, is that this challenges our definition of what it is to be Lutheran.

So the attitude really is that “this isn’t the way we do things.”

Yes, and what makes it so strong is that the way we do things is then commensurate with how we understand ourselves. And so what I want to get to then is that how we do things doesn’t necessarily define us. It certainly can be an expression of our self-definition, but we need to go beyond that.

It’s interesting you mention that because it sort of begs the question of what it means to be a Lutheran.

Exactly, and I’ll share with you that having been at the national Assembly in Indianapolis, I believe that is the question.  Will we define ourselves as a confessional body, by our worship, by our mission, or by some sort of amalgam of them?

Would you suggest then that part of what we’ll take away from the Assembly will be to understand the need to have conversations about this topic?

Yes, I would say so. I’d like to tee up the question and then I’d like to propose an answer, not the answer. And I think that’s part of what has been helpful as I’ve been around the country in very disparate places like the Metropolitan Chicago Synod and the Virginia Synod, which is a smaller synod with very small churches. Part of what’s fascinating is that people want to argue with me and I just say that it’s not an argument. Let’s talk about a real issue, and here’s one possible way of getting at it. That tends to be liberating for people.

Do you sense that anyone who asks that question, or any group, or any synod, has to answer it for themselves?

Yes, because I believe that fundamentally leadership is contextual. So we may end up on the same playing field, but the specifics of how that is then lived out is contextually defined. Which means I’m already tipping my hand, I believe it is a combination of being both confessionally defined and mission-oriented. Worship, the how of the worship, is an expression of these. When we were simply replicating the village churches of Western Europe (Scandinavia, Germany, etc.), our worship reflected that. Frankly, that was our mission: welcome the immigrants, recreate in the worship context a place for the immigrants to be and feel at home. Now we are no longer an immigrant church. What does that mean? I don’t think it means an “either/or,” and I’m going to talk about that as well. Can we set alternatives beside one other?

So the church may be multi-expressional?

I think it will have to be.

And you said it would be contextual. Do you mean by region?

Yes. In fact, it’s interesting to me that a Gallup poll published either earlier this year or late last year found that the significant differences in the United States are no longer generational as much as they are regional. How we see the world is defined now more by region than by generation.

So it’s important to understand how you define yourself and make sure you don’t give that up as you define your regional church.

Sure, and I would say even more fundamentally that when we know who we are, we end up fighting less around the peripheral issues and really get to the core issues.

How long has the transformation from membership to discipleship been under way at Prince of Peace?

Nearly six years.

What ongoing challenge does Prince of Peace face in its transformation?

We continue to work at it. In fact, I just met with our program team where I raised up the marks of discipleship again and asked the question, “How is what you are doing administratively or in program areas advancing discipleship?” If you cannot make the connection, we either need to find the connection or stop doing it.

That’s basic business logic as well—understanding the vision and making sure you are working toward that vision.

Right. And I think that the challenges we face are about focus and momentum. I’m going to talk about those. I call them mundane miracles because the real challenge is to get on focus, to not get caught up in distractions. I think our churches, in terms of the denominational structure, have gotten stuck in what I call the La Brea Tar Pits of distraction. That’s just freezing and immobilizing us. At Prince of Peace we continue to struggle with that. And we continue to be challenged with whether we’ll have the courage to see it through.

What does this mean for ecumenical connections or even within Lutheranism, where we still have different bodies of Lutheranism? Do you think this is a mechanism to help bridge us closer together, or is this going to drive us potentially further apart in some areas?

I think what it does is says that the denominational question is secondary. In fact, what we have seen are congregations of a variety of denominations that are willing to partner with each other based on shared values and mission. I believe that is made possible when each of those congregations has a clear sense of its own self-identity. They then come into a real partnership rather than a sense of one over the other. I believe the same thing is going to happen relative to denominations. It’s going to be interesting because I believe that one of the real issues in the 21^st century church is not whether denominations will survive—I believe they will—but what shape they will have.

It really strikes me as interesting when you talk about defining ourselves. For example, with the Missouri Synod there have always been confessional issues that have kept us apart.

I’ll talk about taking doctrine away from the front door and putting it into the library. It still needs to be in place; the question is where you put it in your ministry. There will be those who, because of either a fundamental insecurity or a commitment to a form of ministry that has passed, will refuse to take doctrine away from the front door. Those voices will have less and less impact on the larger shape of Christianity across the country.

So what we’re doing is asking the wrong questions about ourselves when we get caught up in arguing doctrine?

That’s right, and what we’re doing is providing answers before anyone else is asking the question. What I’m suggesting is that if you are patient and you do the discipleship piece, people then want to get into Scripture. There’s no way of getting into Scripture without dealing with doctrine. The question is when and how.

So we have to lay Scripture along with our confessional writings?

Increasingly. In fact, I would say that the new evangelicalism that crosses denominations is a biblical literacy, and I’ll talk about that. We are in a biblically illiterate time, and the confessions assume a biblical literacy.

The interesting thing in our part of the country is that being biblically literate takes on a whole different meaning than what Lutherans would generally think of it meaning.

Yes, and I think what happens is that it provides a forum from which our Lutheran way of interpreting the Bible can be presented. The Lutheran way of interpreting the Bible, I think, makes the most sense the more people get into the Bible.

What steps can a congregation take to ensure that its transformation is not just a change in name rather than a change in methods?

The reality is that transformation can never be a change in name. Discipleship is not a program; it’s a fundamentally different way of approaching our ministry. If you get that, there’s no way it will be a change in name. Once you get that, then you’ll understand that a ministry team is not just sugarcoating a committee. A ministry team is about people engaging together for a particular aspect of the ministry of the church. When that aspect is accomplished, they’re done. The freedom in that is enormous. As the church, then, they need to have represented in that gathering the parts of being the church. We are grounded in Scripture, we pray together, we develop relationships with one another, and then we do what we need to do. It’s that being part of the church that continues. You don’t sign up for a committee and then you’re on it until you die or can’t take it any longer, which has been the process most of us have used.

Do you use a lot of small group ministry?

Yes, but we don’t talk about small groups. We discovered that if you talk about small groups, men generally run screaming from the room.

What do you believe is the first benefit a congregation will see when making its transformation, and at what time should it expect to see that benefit?

ENERGY! There will be energy among the congregation. I love it. We had one congregation in inner-city Tulsa, Oklahoma, that blew up its committees, which is what I’m going to propose. It went to ministry teams. I was at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and the associate pastor ran up to me and she was so excited. She said, “When we blew up our committees, we had 25 volunteers in the church. Five months later, we have 125 people engaged in doing ministry.” Now, I don’t know that will happen in every place and every time, but I do know the energy does appear to happen every time.

Is it possible to phase in these changes? If so, what is your advice for accomplishing this?

My sense is that it’s essential. You can’t phase in the vision; the vision needs to be clear. But then, what has to happen is that you have to come back from the vision to where people really are and build that bridge, to use a metaphor, to the future. You don’t build a bridge in one moment. I think along the way people will have to make choices. For most of us in the church, we feel badly when people make choices. My view is that’s when we give people real dignity. We give people dignity when we present to them the honest choices and respect their right to make that decision. The game comes when some of them choose not to follow the vision.

That really says a lot about changing attitudes in the congregation—that if people make choices to leave, we stop blaming ourselves.

Exactly.

Are you aware of any non-Lutheran churches moving toward the discipleship model?

Yes, in fact one of the most interesting for me is a Quaker church in South Carolina that has become a disciple-making congregation. But there are Presbyterians, United Methodists, and so on. One of the fascinating things to me, apart from what the marks of discipleship and Power Surge as a book have done, is that after we (Prince of Peace) did this, I discovered that Willow Creek (another large ELCA church in Minnesota) had shifted to discipleship focus and I was unaware of them. It appears that the Holy Spirit is really creating a renewal movement across denominations, and discipleship seems to often be the focus of that.

So you’re saying they are basically independent movements springing up?

Yes.

I visited a church named Saddleback [in California] about a year ago and discovered they are using the discipleship model as well. I assume that is an independent movement as well.

Yes, I was unaware of that.

They have about 10 percent membership compared with the number who worship every week. They say that that is OK. People are invited to come and worship, but until they are ready to be a part of the ministry, they are not encouraged to join.

Isn’t that amazing. What I would say is that if that’s the way we’re willing to go—and I believe it’s an incredible invitation of spirit—then the way you do worship is fundamentally changed. Not the elements—we have confession and absolution, we have the Creed, we do the Eucharist—but the manner in which it’s presented. Because you can’t do worship the same way as an open invitation to encounter God, in Scripture and in Sacrament and in song, the way you can if we are all members.

Let me give you a concrete example. The most anxiety-producing moment to visitors is Holy Communion. That’s because they don’t know if they are invited, and if they are invited, how to do it. A good friend of mine was a senior pastor in Ohio who has just retired. He has done communion the Lutheran way for a long time, but now that he has begun to go to other churches, he’s told me he now gets it because he’s the one who’s waiting to see. When he goes to visit other churches, he always sits at least in the middle—never in front—so that he can see how they do communion.

We make the assumption that everyone at the worship service knows what we’re doing. As soon as we begin to open the door, we have to begin to talk about what we are doing, how we are doing it, and why. What’s fascinating is that we end up re-educating our own people.

How can other denominations in our area benefit from your message?

I wish it were possible to invite other denominations in because they’ll get it as well. Let me share with you what I find fascinating. The people who seem to get this the most easily are not the pastors. They are the people in the church who have been longing for a way to include others they love. And then it begins to make sense. I have a granddaughter, and I just long for her to be in church and to know Jesus Christ. I believe biblically there is no such thing as a private faith. So to know Jesus Christ is to be a part of Christ’s church. I want to do everything I can to open the door for grandchildren, for children to continue to be a part of the ministry. That’s really where my passion is.