Losing 'Lutheran': Some congregations leave denomination out of name

Lutheran, The, Aug 2002 by Jerde, Lyn

Is "Lutheran" a beacon that compels people into the pews? Or is it a burden, with connotations of stuffiness, aging and fast-fading connections to Northern European ancestry?

It can be either.

Just ask Dale Brand, pastor of Shepherd of the Valley, Brownsville, Texas. The church's telephone answering machine message tells the story. In English, it's called a "Lutheran church." In Spanish, it's called "iglesia cristiana," or "Christian church."

Winter Texans-mostly white retirees from the Midwest-seek out the church because it's Lutheran. Year-- round residents of the area, which is about 95 percent Latino, come because worship is similar to the Roman Catholicism familiar to many of them and because Shepherd of the Valley celebrates traditional events such as first communion and quinceanero (15th birthday).

Shepherd of the Valley is one of 64 ELCA congregations that don't use Lutheran or ELCA in their church names. Of these, most use Lutheran and ELCA on church signs, Web pages or letterhead. And even without the name, many hold fast to their Lutheran identity.

Theology lives

"We are Lutheran because of our theology," says Sean Ewbank, pastor of Community Church of Life, Bakersfield, Calif. "Grace is emphasized. Attachment to synodical and other expressions of the ELCA were not at all important to my predecessors, but they are to me. We are strengthening our connections now."

Community Church of Life refers to the denomination in its publications and on its sign. The church's home page also links to the ELCA Web site.

But from the beginning, the omission of Lutheran from the church's name was intentional, Ewbank says, adding, "The founding pastor named the congregation, and he believed that the word Lutheran came with baggage that would not be helpful in the evangelism process. It seems to have been his call and his alone."

Ewbank says the influence of Community Church of Joy, an ELCA megachurch in Glendale, Ariz., guided this thinking.

Community Church of Life is located in a middle-class white neighborhood that was once rich in farms and oilfields. "By not including Lutheran in the name of the church," Ewbank says, "the founding pastor was deliberately trying to reach out to those for whom traditional churches carry negative baggage."

It wasn't so much baggage that Church of the Foothills, Sylmar, Calif., was trying to avoid in this community of 60,000 in the San Fernando Valley. It's just that Lutheran doesn't mean so much, says Sam Platts, pastor.

At Church of the Foothills, the quintessential Lutheran belief in salvation by grace through faith is essential, Platts says. As is liturgical worship.

Anything but typical

But in other ways, Platts says, the congregation is nothing like the Lutheran church in his Wisconsin hometown. Of this 150-member congregation, 70 are high school youth-most of them Latino.

Instead of an altar and pews, the church has chairs surrounding a table, where the chalice and plate are displayed around the clock, and where communion is celebrated every Sunday. The effort to make Church of the Foothills "open, flexible and welcoming," Platts says, includes a conscious effort to de-emphasize the name Lutheran.

"The congregation used to be called Lutheran Church of the Master," Platts says. "But people had no idea who 'the Master' is. And, in California, they have no idea what a Lutheran is."

Platts chuckled at the notion of Church of the Foothills hosting a lutefisk supper because that is an example of what he thinks of as "Lutheran culture."

When people hear Lutheran, he says, those familiar with the word associate it with old age and tenacious ties to a rapidly fading connection to German and Scandinavian ancestry.

"The church has a real cultural problem," Platts says. "Let's face it, Lutheran congregations are getting older, and it's very difficult for the Lutheran church to grow in the hands of older people."

The church's sign and Platts' title refer to the ELCA, but few people know what it means, he says, and nobody asks. "I think denominational identity is quite important to Lutherans in the Midwest, where they have a strong presence," he says. "But we need to appeal to different people and not just be traditional Lutherans.

"We're not a rebel group. We're not anti-ELCA. We just don't want to recreate the barriers of the past."

Brand's experience in Brownsville is similar to that of Platts. People in the community think of churchgoers as either Catholic or Christian, with no concept of the doctrinal and historical distinctions between varying Protestant bodies.

Brand says he uses the word Lutheran on Spanish-language cards he distributes to prospective members, only to help them recognize the church's sign. The few who ask what Lutheran means tend to think of slain civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., not of church reformer Martin Luther.

"It's not that we're anti-Lutheran," Brand says. "It's just that Lutheran doesn't connect with the people around here."

What does connect, however, is the congregation's respect for Latino traditions and the appeal of a liturgical worship service that is quieter and more reverent than those at some of the area's Pentecostal congregations, Brand says.