September 5, 2025
Polity, God's People, and Impact
Last month Rev. Jonathan Barker, Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin resigned. Grace Lutheran after World War II was a robust church with over a thousand worshippers attending on a Sunday. Now Grace Lutheran typically has about 30 worshipers. Pastor Barker has served this congregation for 9 years. In August, Pastor Barker sent out a press release announcing that his sermon on Sunday would include an endorsement of sorts, encouraging Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York to run for president in 2028. His hope was, in part, to attract attention and possibly more people. Now Pastor Barker is no longer the pastor of Grace Lutheran.
It appears that the Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) has an ecclesial polity, or a form of church organization and structure, that gives the denomination a single tax-exempt status. If Grace Lutheran (or any ELCA church) were to be found to having broken tax law, the entire denomination and every church in it, would lose tax exempt status. You can learn more about this story here, but this story is not really the point of my thoughts today.
The polity of the ELCA represents the Apostle Paul’s understanding of the church as the “body of Christ”; an interwoven, interdependent community where no person is unimportant, and one person’s pain causes all members pain, for all share life together. (See for starters, 1 Corinthians 12) The ELCA has chosen to apply this concept which is typically understood in terms of a single congregation to its entire denomination. That means a pastor’s decision in Kenosha, Wisconsin would impact Lutheran churches from Seattle to Saratoga. One church or one person’s action could have a ripple effect near and far.
It seems that this cautionary tale should also give us some hope. By analogy, one person’s advocacy for others by loving their neighbor, can have unseen impact near and far. Positive impact. Transformative, redeeming impact. Because of the work of God’s Spirit, our efforts, individually and collectively, are magnified by the work of God as part of Christ’s body on earth. Sometimes the results seem slow and small, sometimes the impact can be large and quick. The question, however, is neither speed nor magnitude. The question is if we honestly believe we can have any impact.
The days after the crucifixion of Jesus, a handful of people offered a message of life and hope in Jesus’ name. That message converted one their fiercest foes into one of their strongest advocates. In no small part, because of that convert the empire that crucified Jesus would eventually become the center of the Christian faith. Who would have ever imagined the impact that handful would have on human history?
I invite you to prayerfully imagine the impact each of our lives of faith—along with the ministries of our church, our conference, our denomination, and the Church universal—might have in positive, life changing ways for people around the world and around the corner. Might this give us all hope to continue in our witness in word and in deed to God’s redeeming work in Christ, which is what will ultimately change the world.
With audacious hope
~ Pastor Todd