Network Blog

The word came down today of the cuts in the churchwide staff in the ELCA offices.  65 individuals, real people with real lives, real families and real mortgages find themselves out of work.  

This is not a unique situation.  Literally, tens of thousands of those in our congregations have faced the same thing.  But when it happens in our churchwide offices, it causes the pain of our friends, while yanking on the rug upon which we all stand.  

This happens in the church?  In our church?  

Yes, it does.  

There will be time for conversations about whether this is the right thing or not for our church to do.  There will be lots of opportunities to do Monday-morning second-guessing.  And there will be ample opportunity for missional imagination to be sparked, and to think about how the church might be church into the future.

Today, we grieve and mourn for our friends.

More details are coming.  And we will continue to post information here as we have it, specifically regarding how these cuts affect children's youth and young adult ministries.  But in the meantime, please pray for those who have lost their jobs.  Pray for our church.  Pray for ministry with the young.  And pray for all those in our congregations who still seek meaningful work.  

I've tripped over a couple of blogs that have done some nice work analyzing the cuts, that you might want to check out.

They are at:  
Koinonia
Cyber Spirit Cafe


Blessings,
Todd

I received a great e-mail question this morning from a member of the Network:

"Dear youth ministry network friends: The news that Youth Specialties is providing the bookstore at this year's extravaganza raised some questions in my mind: first, who are they, and do they recognize my infant baptism, and the baptisms of my youth members? Their website indicates that they do not consider the sacraments to be among "the biggies," by which I take it they mean things of first importance. I also gather from their website that they believe in biblical inerrancy, which is not the Lutheran view.

Finally, I wonder why the Extravaganza is not supporting our own publishing house, Augsburg Fortress? I would appreciate a reply."

I wrote back to him and thanked him for the good question, replied, and then wondered if it would be to publish both his question and my reply.  If one person asks the question, odds are that 12 others are wondering the same thing.  My reply:

Hi _______,

Thanks so much for your note.  You raise good questions.

Youth Specialties is an inter-denominational publishing house of youth and family ministry resources.  They are not tied to any one denomination or doctrinal position, although historically, they have probably been more closely aligned with the evangelical end of the faith-perspective. 

Most of their resources, however, are not doctrinal in nature, but rather are about the practice of ministry.  Looking at their list of authors, you will find people from across the theological spectrum, from Baptists, to Lutherans and Catholics.  Some of those authors probably don’t recognize infant baptism…many of them do.  Youth Specialties has put out a couple of books by some faculty members at Luther Seminary.

Their organization actually was completely independent for a number of years, and then 3 or 4 years ago, Zondervan publishing house bought them.  But then in the last year, Zondervan sold them to YouthWorks because Youth Specialties and Zondervan really weren’t that good a match…Zondervan was more theogically conservative.  YouthWorks is also an inter-denominational organization, however, they are very closely tied to Lutheran Congregations.  49% of their work is with ELCA congregations.  I know the leaders of YouthWorks and of Youth Specialties and they are all good people whose goal is to really serve congregations and organizations that they connect with.  I have no reservations or hesitations about working with them at all.  They are people of unimpeachable integrity and good hearts.

As far as supporting our Lutheran publishing house, they actually were our “bookstore” for the first 10 or 12 years of the Extravaganza.  However, 3 years ago Augsburg Fortress made the strategic decision to stop doing bookstores at all events (conferences, synod assemblies, etc) with the exception of the Churchwide assembly.  Frankly, they didn’t feel like it was a profitable venture to do these events.  They pulled out of Extravaganza 3 years ago (giving us only 3-weeks notice before our our event) and we haven’t had a bookstore presence since.  We’ve been looking for a new partner to fill this void, and Youth Specialties is, we feel, the best fit for us.  We have actually had a great deal of positive feedback on this new partnership from youth ministry people around the ELCA.

By the way, Augsburg Fortress will be back at the Extravaganza this year as an exhibitor, but with a single table, showcasing some of their confirmation curriculum.

I really appreciate your question, _______.  I am guessing that others might wonder the same thing.  With your permission, I would love to post your question (without using your name) and my reply on the Network Blog, so that others who may be wondering the same thing can have their questions answered.

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Peace,

Todd

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  - Hebrews 12:1

Someone recently asked me "How does the network get its work done?"  "Well, what do you mean?"  They went on to wonder about how a completely deployed organization, made up 99.9% of volunteers, over 120 of them, in every region of the church, got all of this stuff coordinated. 

My answer:  The Network lives in the cloud.

The cloud, as in the cloud of software.

Here's how we do things:

• Our primary method of communication is our web site, at www.elcaymnet.org (the one you're looking at right now.)  It is a web-based editing suite with distributed editing rights, which means that different people in different parts of the Network have editing rights of different parts of the site.  To do this, we use the "Compass" editing system hosted by www.infusion.com.
  
• Our e-mail service uses Constant Contact.  Constant contact is the leading e-mail marketing tool in the country right now.  You hear their ads on the radio or on TV.  It too is web based and different people can access and edit the materials in the e-news. (www.constantcontact.com)
  
• We have a ton of different teams that are doing their work.  Everything from the Extravaganza Team to the Connect Journal Team to the Vision 2.0 Team.  Each team has a section in our web-based project management software.  It is put out by a company called 37Signals.  The program we use is called "Basecamp."  It is a simple, easy to use tool that allows us to stay organized and communicate.  (www.basecamphq.com)
• The Network Database is also hosted on the web, and can be accessed by any number of people who have user-rights.  We use TrackVia for this.  Our mailing lists, membership, donors, Extravaganza registration, etc is all hosted on TrackVia.  (www.trackvia.com)

None of this stuff is hosted on any one single computer.  It all lives on the web.  It is all dispersed...accessible...usable...  In an organization such as ours, that's the most efficient way for us to do our work. 

I think it's also an apt metaphor for what the Network is.  The Network is non-hierarchical.  The Network isn't "based" really anywhere (the mailing address is my house, but that's just because we need a mailing address).  There are primary points of contact, but no one person or organization can "claim" the Network as its own.  It doesn't belong to any single resource provider, to the churchwide organization or any one church, synod or region.  It is possible to draw the Network's org structure out on a whiteboard.  But if you then looked at the board, you'd have to realize that really, the Network "lives" in the space between the boxes. 

The Network belongs to its members, an life is breathed into it by the Holy Spirit.  It is hard to pin down. 

But this gives it life and Spirit.

Truly, the Network lives in the cloud.

Peace,
Todd.