A College of the Church for the 21st Century

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A College of the Church for the 21st Century

Pastor Brian Beckstrom

{An Unhelpful Narrative

Introduction

Part One: Where have we been? Institutional History, what can we build on?

Part Two: Where are we? Discontinuous Cultural Change & the Church Young Adult faith development Religious Snapshot of Wartburg College

Part Three: Where are we going? Our Adaptive Leadership Challenge

Conclusion: An Appreciative Theological Proposal

Discussion

A College of the Church for the 21st Century

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Wartburg College History

Where Have We Been?

{• German Pastor• Ecclesiastical

Maverick• Neuendettelsau,

Germany

Wilhelm Löhe (1808-1872)

{

• 1837: Church authorities send Löhe to obscure small town

• 1849: Löhe founds Missionary Society

• 1853: Creates Deaconess community

• Hospitals, a Magdalen refuge and other social service projects followed.

Neuendettelsau

{“Mission is the one Church of God in motion”-Wilhelm Löhe

Foreign Missions

In 1844 Löhe responded to the plea of Gemran American missionaries by sending missionaries to establish a mission congregation in Frankenmuth, Michigan with a dual purpose:

to give spiritual comfort to the German pioneers in the Midwest, specifically the Saginaw Valley

to show the native Indians in the area "Wie gut und schön es ist Jesus zu sehen" (how good and wonderful it is to see Jesus).

Mission to America

{ {Rev. Georg Grossmann

Saginaw, MI (1852-1853)

The Beginnings of Wartburg College

{By the end of 1854 there were 3 Wartburg’s in Dubuque.

Dubuque (1853-1857)

{ {St. Sebald (1857-1868)

The Wartburg Castle

On the Move

{ {Galena, IL (1868-1875)

Mendota, IL 1875-1885)

On The Move

{ {Clinton, IA (1894-1935)

Waverly, IA (1935-Present)

On The Move

Historical Assets

Missional Identity

Adaptability Audacity Discussion: What other historical resources have I missed?

Lehman, Karen, "Wartburg College Knight Guide - Wartburg History" http://knightguides.wartburg.edu/content.php?pid=498788&sid=4101988. Accessed 10/1/14

Matthias, Ronald. Still on the Move: Wartburg College, 1852-2002. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: WDG Pub., 2002.

Sources

{The privatization of faith and collapse of public religious expression

Where Are We?

{ {Modernism Universal truths/values

Overarching theories

Unified self

Postmodernism Particular (local) truths/values

Subjective, personalized ideas

Self is fragmented

Stuck in this worldview with You: Hypermodernity

[God?]

Hypermodern Faith: Private, Personal, Subjective

Experiential Satisfaction

Late modernity: eclipse of ethical universalism—only self remains (human flourishing reduced to self-gratification through series of experiences)

“For religious people, this applies to God no less than human beings. Desire—the outer shell of love—has remained, but love itself, by being directed exclusively at the self, is lost.” – Miroslav Volf, A Public Faith

Even God exists to gratify our individual desires

Incurvatus Se: The Sin of Hypermodernity

Sin is a relational category.

Luther: Sin = being curved in on oneself

Preoccupation with self and personal experience is a form of bondage

Public Faith: An Oxymoron?

{Discontinues cultural change & the Church

Where are We

Individual level: Hypermodernity is characterized by rapid cultural change driven by technological innovation, information overload, and constant communication.

Institutional level: Institutions are vulnerable in hypermodernity because they often lack the agility to change and adapt to keep pace with cultural change.

The result is cultural fluidity and instability

The Effects of Hypermodernity

Cultural Insecurity

Economic dislocation, uncertainty

Demise of “career” as stable path

Growing inequality

Debt

Religious Climate Change

“The evidence for a decades-long decline in American religiosity is now incontrovertible—like the evidence for global warming, it comes from multiple sources, shows up in several dimensions, and paints a consistent factual picture—the burden of proof has shifted to those who want to claim that American religiosity is not declining.”

–Mark Chaves, “The Decline of American Religion” ARDA Guiding Paper Series

The Mega Church Anomaly

Nondenominational (Evangelical) Megachurches still growing

Megachurches more likely to be innovators

Overall percentage of Christians in US continues to decline

Church as Restaurant

Megachurches do a good job of reaching dissatisfied consumers, but not “nones” or young adults.

{Crystal CathedralREVEAL Study

What is the future of the megachurch?

020

The Rise of the None’s (Source: Diana Butler Bass

“Christianity after Religion” ) Percentage of

US Population (2011)

American Religious Trends

{Young Adult Faith

Where are we?

A Sign of things to Come

25-30% of young adults are “none’s”

Only 25% attend worship weekly

40% never pray.

Change is the new normal

Young adult are… Getting married and having kids later.

Will have 15-20 jobs in their lifetime

Have less life security that previous generations

Spiritual Tinkerers

“A tinkerer puts together a life from whatever skills, ideas, and resources that are readily at hand.” – Robert Wuthnow, After the Baby Boomers

Teens described virtually the same religious faith at the end of the first year out as they did at its beginning, except that their frequency of attendance at religious services declined. It was as if my teen respondents had secured their religious identity (or nonreligious identity) in a lockbox soon after graduating from high school. Though they may not have checked on that identity during the year, when I asked teens whether it was still there, they opened the box and confirmed, “ Yes, it’s still there.”The Identity

Lockbox

Students do not want colleges and universities to take on the role of “church” and supply religious answers to life’s questions, but many students do expect their undergraduate experience to help them think more clearly, feel more deeply, and consider more responsibly the broad questions of life. These questions no longer necessarily come pre-labeled as religious, but they are functionally religious because they focus on ultimate concerns:. – Invisible no Longer

Young Adults are not antagonistic towards faith

GUIDING BELIEFS OF MORALISTIC THERAPEUTIC DEISM

1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth. 2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. 3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem. 5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

“The problem does not seem to be that churches are teaching young people badly, but that we are doing an excedingly good job of teaching youth what we really believe: namely, that Christianity is not a big deal, that God requires little, and the Church is a helpful social institution filled with nice people focused primarily on “folks like us” – which of course begs the question of whether we are really Church at all.” – Almost Christian, Pg. 12How did this

happen?

“2012 Millenial Values Survey”, Public Research Institute http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/04/millennial-values-survey-2012/ Accessed: 5/8/12.

Clydesdale, Timothy T. The First Year Out : Understanding American Teens after High School. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Dean, Kenda Creasy. Almost Christian : What the Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling the American Church. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Jacobsen, Rhonda Hustedt and Douglas G. Jacobsen. No Longer Invisible: Religion in University Education. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012

Putnam, Robert D. and David E. Campbell. American Grace : How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.

Meister, Jeanne. "Job Hopping Is the New Normal: Three Ways to Prevent a Human Resources Nightmare." Forbes, 8/14/12 Accessed 1/25/15.

Zscheile, Dwight. Class Lectures, 1/5/15-1/9/15.

Sources

{Faith at Wartburg

Where are we?

Looking at the numbers

How do we evaluate ourselves as a College of the Church?

Robert Benne: Number of Lutheran students

Are we truly measuring what matters?

“Being in Church makes you a Christian in the same way that being in a garage makes you a car.” – GK Chesterton.

Having Lutheran students doesn’t ensure that the institution will have a Lutheran identity

This is especially true for young adults that have been formed by MTD and don’t see denominational affiliation as all that important.Measuring what

Matters

Student Demographics

27 states, 68 Countries

10% International Students

11% American Ethnic Students

17% First Generation College Students

25 Christian denominations, 6 major world religions

Lutheran

Catholic

Methodist

Christian

Baptist

None

29 27

11 113 1.2

Largest Christian Groups% of Student Body

Student Religious Affiliation

Decline: Church & College, 2005-2009

ELCA Wartburg ELCA Students

-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-20

% decline

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 201401020304050

Lutheran Students

% Student Body

Lutheran Students over time

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

0

10

20

30

40ELCA Lutheran Students

% Student Body

Student Religious Affiliation

200520062007200820092010201120122013201401020304050

34 32 31 31 29 27 25 24 22 18

43 42 41 40 39 36 34 34 31 29

% ELCA Students% Lutheran Students

Student Religious Affiliation

Muslim Hindu Buddhist Jewish0

5

10

15

2016

8

3 2

# of Students

Student Religious Affiliation:

World Religions

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

0 20 40 60 80 100

14273039

557577

6586

78No Affiliation

# of students

Student Religious Affiliation: “None’s”

The Association of Religion Data Archives. http://www.thearda.com/Denoms/D_1415.asp. Accessed 10/8/14

Wartburg College Student Demographics Reports. Wartburg College, 2014.

Sources

{The Holy Spirit & Adaptive Leadership

Where are we going?

Characteristics of God’s Spirit Is a Public person at work in the world

Brings creativity and innovation Heals and builds community Creates unity without diminishing diversity

Shows up in the most hopeless situations among the least likely people.

Interlude: Hope & the Holy Spirit

"Through the incarnation, we discover that God’s future is at work not where we tend to look but among the people we write off as dead or powerless to make things different. If the Spirit has been poured out in the Church – the Church as it is, not some ideal type-then we are compelled to believe that the Spirit of God is at work and alive among the congregations of America” - The Missional Leader, Pg. 9Theology of the

Cross

Technical Problems Adaptive ChallengesCan by solved with existing knowledge

Require new learning

Experts can handle Learning/innovation must come from the people

Operating environment basically stable

Changing environment

Can be dealt with on level of strategy/technique

Touch on underlying issues of identity and purpose

Technical and Adaptive Change

Adaptive Challenges

What does the Faith Pillar at Wartburg mean in a post Christendom era?

Adaptive Challenges

Increasing pluralism and a declining Church have made the Christendom assumption of a common faith identity unrealistic.

Adaptive Challenges

The triumph of moralistic therapeutic deism and the instability of young adult lives makes faith development challenging.

Adaptive Challenges

Reluctance to talk about faith publicly, and subsequent lack of a clear identity as a College of the Church, reinforce the notions of MTD that faith is a peripheral reality on campus.

We (Wartburg College) have not articulated a post Christendom vision for what it means to be a College of the Church that,

Is positively stated Demonstrates that our embrace of pluralism is because of the College’s theological commitment to the Lutheran tradition, not in spite of it.

Owned by all Responsive to the current realities of increasing pluralism and changing patterns of young adult religious affiliation.

Adaptive Challenge

{An Appreciative Theological Proposal

Conclusion

Theological Reinterpretation

Interfaith Youth Corps: What is something within your tradition that compels you to join in this work?

The cross is central for a Lutheran Christian theological understanding.

The Theology of the Cross reminds us that we have been crucified with Christ and died to self which allows us to live and serve others. Our needs/agendas can not the driving force in our lives.

Our particular calling as a College of the Church is to offer the best possible education to all those who come to us…because of our faith tradition, not in spite of it.

Therefore we can at the same time be both grounded in our identity and open to all.

Theology of the Cross

Freed through the Cross to serve

“[A] Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbor…. By faith he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into his neighbor. Yet he always remains in God and in his love….”

—Martin Luther, Freedom of a Christian

Heifetz, Ronald A. and Martin Linsky, "Leadership on the Line : Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading" http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=674952.

Luther, Martin and Timothy F. Lull. Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.

Malcom, Lois. Holy Spirit: Creative Power in Our Lives. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2009.

Welker, Michael and John F. Hoffmeyer. God the Spirit. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.

Zscheile, Dwight. Class Lectures, 1/5/15-1/9/15.

Sources