Engaging the Bible in Mainline Congregations – by Mark Rich
Read Stephanie Sorge Wing’s Essay, “Engaging from the Pulpit”
Read Jermaine Marshall’s Essay, “Divine Deconstruction for Human Reconstruction”
I’m an ELCA pastor, and one of my sons went recently to visit a friend’s Seventh-Day Adventist church. He mentioned two things afterward to me: the youth group class was very dressed up (dresses, suits and ties), and they all knew their Bibles well. (The topic was sacrifices in the Tabernacle, which would not have been my first choice of topics, but then I’m Lutheran.) Connect that kind of commitment to Bible knowledge with the practice of tithing, and you’re seeing a congregation that’s investing in its youth and building for the future.
Over the next 50 years, commitment to the practices of discipleship will mark the difference between the churches that will be shaping the religious landscape of the world, and those that are hiding in the shadows. One of those key practices is and must be the reading of the Bible.
The churches that accept the validity of critical biblical scholarship are getting their Sitzfleisch kicked by their more literal-minded brothers and sisters. With a few exceptions, we are not avid for reading and knowing the Bible. There are at least a couple of major issues here.
The progressive churches have to reconnect with the gospel of Jesus Christ through the Bible. Both critical scholarship and the literalistic churches are, frankly, weak on this score. That’s not necessarily a flaw for scholarship, for that’s not the point of scholarship. But for churches of any stripe that’s a fatal flaw. Progressive churches get it that the gospel calls them to understand God via God’s grace, and that is no small thing – indeed, it’s potentially revolutionary. However, progressive churches tend to act around the Bible as if they have a bad conscience. Yes, we all have our small familiar Bible studies, generally populated by folks with grey heads. But we are not putting the Bible front and center on our kids’ curricula or our congregational curriculum, and that shows all too clearly our bad conscience.
What we do not get is that, by accepting the insights of critical scholarship, we are not breaking faith with or abandoning the Bible. We are abandoning a literal reading of the Bible, which is not worth holding onto anyway. (Biblical writers themselves do not engage in such reading, nor does Jesus.) What we have to get is that in reading the Bible while benefitting from the considerable insights of critical scholarship, we can be drawn closer to Christ and his gospel so long as we are seeking him in and through its pages. That is and has always been and will always be the real point of the Bible for Christians. The Bible is so easily and so often misused and even perverted when we lose that focus and goal to our Bible-reading. But the Bible is also misused when we have no focus and goal, and fail to read it.
Reading and knowing the Bible is not just an end in itself, nor is the gospel merely self-evident on its pages. We connect to God directly through Jesus Christ, and not directly through the Bible apart from Jesus. We Christians are not simply Muslims with a different book. We do have a different book, and we also have Christ, and it is he who makes us Christian.
At my congregation (Peace Lutheran Church in Holland MI), we have embarked on reading the entire New Testament in a year, called the New Testament Challenge, NTC.
I serve a congregation that has survived a denominational change and two church splits over the last twenty- five years, and is now dealing with serious economic recession. With losses – members, revenue, jobs – on every side, it is difficult to find sufficient energy to focus on anything positive. As pastor, I sought strategies to engage laypeople in faith formation and discipleship training that would be low-cost, be life-giving and transformative, and strengthen laypeople’s connection to Jesus.
The immediate occasion for the NTC is the 50th anniversary of the congregation in 2013, which presents an opportunity for the congregation to look forward to and prepare for a faithful future. The challenge was to have 50 congregation members read the NT in a twelve-month period. I set up a reading order, a schedule (5 chapters per week), and a sign-up sheet. We started in February 2011. Rather than following the canonical order, we set up the schedule to follow a roughly chronological order, beginning with 1 Thessalonians and the rest of the Pauline corpus, followed by the Gospels and Acts. We will end with the deutero-Paulines and the rest.
Currently, 42 out of an active worshipping community of 75 regularly participate. I set up a website (peaceholland.wordpress.com) to support readers who read on their own. Reading sessions are offered three times each week to make participation more possible and flexible. I share some session leadership with a member who has some seminary training. We constructed a progress chart to keep the program before the congregation and to let each participant keep up to date with their progress. We made sure that everyone who wanted a study Bible got one, and equipped our classrooms with Bible maps and timelines. At major points I share a Powerpoint in worship to educate the whole congregation about what we are reading together, helping to keep the NTC before the body. A mid-point survey demonstrated spiritual growth and growth in engagement with congregational ministries as a result of participation in the NTC.
To my delight and surprise it is a genuine success. One of my members wrote me: “I look forward to the NTC every Sunday because it gives me an opportunity to carefully review and discuss a portion of Scripture with my fellow believers. We talk about both the historical context and our personal application. NTC is organized well and at a good pace. Students can jump in and out whenever they wish. It’s the best program that I’ve experienced since joining Peace 18 years ago.” I also overheard him and another member, unprompted by me, discussing how this program made so much sense because we’re Lutherans, and Lutherans read the Bible – that’s just what we do!
In a time of great stress and transition in society and the church, Biblical literacy equips congregations for faithful life and ministry. This project engages laypeople in serious Bible study, in order to better understand and live out the gospel of Jesus Christ.
On Wednesday, Jermaine Marshall and Stephanie Sorge Wing join the conversation.
Read Stephanie Sorge Wing’s Essay, “Engaging from the Pulpit”
Read Jermaine Marshall’s Essay, “Divine Deconstruction for Human Reconstruction”
Mark, your NTC is a great endeavor. Bravo to you and Peace Lutheran! I got my biblical education in elementary school, mostly in my “scripture class” and then in later school years, in literature classes. Then again, I went to school in England where it was not only allowed, but if you were to get a well-rounded education that was fully-versed in the Western Tradition, you had to know the Bible because so much of secular culture and literature are rooted in it.
On the other hand, my own kids, schooled in public system in NJ, only learned about this vast treasury of their roots in Sunday School. I loved that church, but as I kept saying through sunday school teacher sign-ups every year, we seemed to be giving the kids “crumbs from our table.” It was impossible for them to learn very much of substance and stand up for it later when the going got tough. Sadly, like with most of their peers, it just doesn’t matter to them anymore. They move on without it. And we are left with those who hold on to literal interpretations like their own lives depended on it.
YES! To value what we read and interpret The Word for our day is what it will take to get the progressives to reconnect with the radical Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you!