LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 64

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64

SYNOD REPORTS

and sisters in St. Louis and in the Synod, stood together at the cross
of Christ and His empty tomb. We appreciate the vast support of the
Synod and her leadership in ongoing efforts to bring hope to the hurting, and we rejoice in a commitment to find Christ’s ways to help us
all deal with future crises of this kind, which will come to us all this
side of heaven. Jesus, however, is Lord, and the enemy, who showed
his true colors on December 14, 2012, in his hatred of all that is God
and all that is good, is defeated. We stand together with all of you in
Jesus Christ our Savior.
To God be the praise, and to us be the enabling power to be His
Church in mission.
Timothy R. Yeadon, President
R3-03-19

New Jersey District
The 2013 New Jersey population is estimated to be 8,864,590 people, residing in 21 counties and 566 municipalities, with 59 percent
of the population being white, 18 percent Hispanic, 14 percent black,
and 9 percent Asian. Of the 4.8 million religious adherents, the largest
religious affiliations are 3,235,290 Roman Catholics; 214,620 Jews;
167,015 nondenominationalists; 160,666 Muslims; 160,226 Baptists;
138,052 Methodists; 97,885 Presbyterians; 79,066 Lutherans; 75,390
Episcopalians; and 60,430 Assemblies of God members.
The New Jersey District (NJD) comprises 55 congregations, with
16,170 baptized members and 12,631 communicant members and
an average Sunday worship attendance of around 5,000. Seventeen
congregations operate preschools, six operate PS–K schools, three
operate PS–2nd-grade schools, and two operate PS–8th-grade schools.
As a Lutheran presence, we are almost invisible in a state that numbers nearly 9,000,000 residents (.0018 percent—one out of every
5,000 residents—is an LCMS member).
The State of the New Jersey District—LCMS1

We continue to see that many of our congregations are growing
smaller in terms of both baptized and communicant membership,
and that the average age of those who worship are getting older. We
also know that this trend has been taking place for several years now,
beginning already in the early 1980s. At present, of the 55 New Jersey
District congregations, eight are close to closing their doors, since
their average worship attendance is below 20 now, and another 12 to
15 congregations worship below 50 members on an average Sunday
morning.
The crisis situation in which we find ourselves is this: we no longer live in a churched culture but in an unchurched and dechurched
culture. This state of affairs both challenges and invites God’s people
to possess a proper ministry balance between edification and evangelism and becoming more missionary in our posture and orientation
toward those who are not Christians.
What Have We Done in Response to This Reality?

At the 2007 Synod convention, one of the more significant adopted
resolutions was the goal of having one-third of LCMS congregations participate in a revitalization process. The New Jersey District,
under the leadership of President William Klettke, challenged 25
congregations (approximately 40 percent of the district’s congregations) to become involved in a structured change and transition
process with Transforming Churches Network (TCN), a process that
would guide and form pastors through monthly learning communities and strategically intervene in strengthening congregational health
through a weekend consultation event (and ongoing ministry coaching). In order to support this process, consultants and coaches were
2013 Convention Workbook

extensively trained and certified for their ministry to NJD pastors
and congregations.
We, overall, are very pleased that so many pastors and congregations have chosen to engage in the TCN process, but we also realize
that, for one of many reasons, other congregations have not chosen to
participate; and yet, whether a congregation is currently participating
in a process of revitalization and transformation or it is not, all pastors
and congregations of the New Jersey District face significant adaptive
challenges that require adaptive solutions, led by adaptive leadership.
In response to these adaptive challenges, the New Jersey District
has extended its contract with TCN, requesting them to design and
implement a process that would guide NJD pastors and congregational leaders in their labors to
1. name the presenting issues that their congregations are facing;
2. use these presenting issues to discern and name their adaptive challenges;2
3. think biblically and theologically about these challenges;
4. formulate an action plan that addresses the adaptive challenges that
they are facing in their congregations; and
5. identify the next steps that they need to own and commit themselves
to in order to move into God’s preferred future.

And what might be a few examples of adaptive challenges that
LCMS congregations are experiencing? Challenges that require a
deep change and sacrificial shift in our habits, identity, and ways of
thinking and living?
+ 	 Evangelism is only for ordained pastors and “serious Christians.”
+ How do we evangelize people “who are not like us” and who have built
their lives upon non-Christian narratives?
+ For many within the church, their identity and mission is defined more
by a “club” or “church member” mentality than by what the Scriptures
have to say about “who they are in Christ” and “why they are in the
world.”
+ Studying and growing in one’s knowledge of the Scriptures ends at
age thirteen (the traditional time of confirmation), fostering the practice that education is for children only, that confirmation is finishing
school, and that only “serious Christians” are to become mature disciples of Jesus Christ.
+ For a growing number of congregational members, the Christian faith
has been reduced to four sacred moments: Baptism, confirmation, marriage, and death, along with the celebration of Christmas and Easter.
+ We are too much “of the world” and too little “in the world”; in other
words, our daily ways of living are scripted too much by the “world
spirit” and not by His Holy Spirit.
+ The inability to teach and pass on the Christian faith to our children
and grandchildren; this is evidenced by the significant gaps in our
churches between
+ babies being born but never baptized;
+ babies being baptized but not taught the faith;
+ babies being baptized, taught the faith, and then confirmed, but
then refraining from engaging in a consecrated life as His baptized
disciple.

+ How to communicate and channel the Christian message in
oral, print, broadcast, and digital cultures, especially how to use social
media effectively for social engagement in the “public square.”
+ How to “be” and “live” and “witness” as His people in a postchurched world.
What Is Our Reflective Response to This Present Reality?

From the very beginning of time and human history, God’s fundamental mission is to save humankind; for God desires all people
to be saved and come to the knowledge of their salvation in Jesus
Christ (1 Tim. 2:4).
Everyone has a mission, and everyone is a missionary. In Baptism,
God reaches into the life of the baptized and claims him or her to be