Bishop's Book Review
Reclaiming the “L” Word
By Kelly A. Fryer
After a losing football game, Vince Lombardi, the great Green Bay Packers coach is reported to have told his players, “Back to basics. This my friends is a football!” Pastor Kelly Fryer is our coach and after a few rough decades of decline as a churchbody, the Lutherans are being called to get back in the game by going back to basics. Coach Fryer has written a small book that could be a great study for a Congregation Council or for any group that meets in our congregations. She makes me smile approvingly when her first chapter is entitled “In Defense of Dogma.” Critical to our life as a church the key concept of justification by grace is well summed up as Fryer talks of our God who “Always comes down!” If we are going to do God’s work in this world we must have our foundation built on God’s redeeming love in Jesus Christ.
Two other great points that are made in this little book. Pastor Fryer reminds us that what is death for the church is the notion that has taken root in all of our parishes that the pastor is to take care of us! Where did we get the idea that the ordained minister, called by the congregation, is responsible for all of a church’s ministry? Our seminaries taught students for at least two generations that the pastor’s chief responsibility was to be everybody’s chaplain. And our congregations have sought that in their clergy and affirm it again and again. Until we see the pastor as a developer of ministries (coach?) the congregations will not grow. Pastor Fryer affirms the congregation as the church but reminds us all that the church is not just the congregation.
Kelly Fryer is heavily quotable. Just one quote that sums up her evangelical piety: “The church may be the only organization on the planet that exists entirely for the sake of those people who don’t belong to it yet. In fact, as soon as we forget this and start making it all about ourselves, we stop being the church.”
We are all heavily informed from our experiences. My pastoral experience is based upon my years serving a well established 100+ year old congregation in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Pastor Fryer speaks of her experience as a mission developer in Illinois. Thus not every point, every strategy, every idea is easily translated for the Northern Great Lakes Synod. Still her clever and casual style of writing makes a good read and a good subject of discussion for leaders concerned and hopeful about their church’s future.
Thomas A. Skrenes
Bishop
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