Posted on 10/21/2010 10:53:18 AM PDT by SmithL
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church has left its expansive six-acre complex at 2000 Country Club Road and moved into a smaller, one-acre church property currently owned by nearby River West Church. The Lutheran church held its first services in its new digs this past Sunday.
The property sale and swap is the most visible result of a painful division that occurred at Our Savior’s earlier this year over the issue of gay clergy in the Lutheran church. The split has left Our Savior’s, formerly one of the metro area’s largest and wealthiest Lutheran congregations, with half of its former members, few of its old leaders and little means to maintain its current building and facilities.
Our Savior’s’ lead pastor is Kim Frenz.
Church leaders involved are reluctant to discuss what many have called a tragic and painful ordeal. Others remember Our Savior’s as a robust and vibrant congregation that fell prey to a divisive issue affecting Lutherans around the country.
“It was a significant ministry,” said Pastor Scot Dunfee, a former dean of the Oregon Trail Cluster that represents 14 Lutheran congregations in western Clackamas County. “It’s very sad to see it dissipate. Whether either group will have the resources (they once had) again remains to be seen.”
Founded 60 years ago in Lake Oswego, Our Savior’s had as many as 900 members before the schism and traditionally provided programs for those outside its membership, including a counseling program and a 20-year-old medical mission in Haiti.
“It’s the only medical outpost for miles,” said Pastor Doug Adams of the Haitian mission. Adams came to Our Savior’s in the 1970s and now ministers at Community of Hope in Wilsonville. “If you got a cut, it was either the voodoo priestess or us.”
Adams was formerly the head of the church’s popular youth choir known as the Great Commission Subcommittee. The choir once attracted up to 100 students from Lake Oswego and Lakeridge high schools, and schools from other neighboring communities.
The choir could at times draw up to 50 percent of its members from outside the congregation, with performances that filled the auditorium at Lake Oswego High School.
“Our expression was ‘Our Savior’s, where the children bring their parents,’” said Adams.
In 1996, the church built the multimillion dollar, six-acre complex at Country Club Road, which includes 37,500 square feet of meeting and administrative space in two buildings, a 200-space parking lot, and a separate single-family three-bedroom, two-bathroom house.
Adams, who left the congregation in 1997, said the church’s programs and facilities attracted a large congregation with divergent and sometimes conflicting values.
“There were pro-lifers and people who were pro-choice and everyone didn’t get along,” said Adams. “But we never had people who said, ‘You have to believe what I believe or you’re going to hell.’”
However, conflicting values came to a head in March 2009, when the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Our Savior’s’ governing denomination and the largest Lutheran Church in America, voted to accept gay clergy into its ministries.
“I’m very proud of the church for that,” said Bishop Dave Brauer-Rieke of ECLA’s Oregon Synod, which oversees administrative issues for all ELCA churches in Oregon. “But the deal didn’t sell with some people.”
The bishop said that churches are not forced to have gay clergy serve. The ELCA would not assign clergy who are in conflict with a given congregation. However, the policy of the denomination does need to be accepted by all.
The bishop stated that in the past when the ELCA dealt with issues like abortion and women clergy there was blow-back, but that this issue has been the most “explosive” so far.
Of the 116 ELCA congregations in Oregon, so far only two have left over the issue.
Nationally, the ELCA said that 204 congregations, or two percent of 10,000 ELCA churches in America, have left because of gay clergy.
Our Savior’s itself came just a few votes short of the two-thirds majority required to leave the denomination.
“It was the disaster scenario,” said Brauer-Rieke who confirmed with the congregation before the split. “You have more than a majority but less than two-thirds. They were very polarized on the issue. Things got very dysfunctional.”
Starting in the spring of this year, a new non-ELCA-affiliated church formed called Community of Faith. The congregation now meets at the Stafford Center, a religious cooperative complex at 21065 S.W. Stafford Road in Tualatin.
Representatives at Community of Faith, like those at Our Savior’s, stated they did not wish to comment on the split except to say that the coming months would be one in which the members would need to “heal.”
Community of Faith is led by Interim Pastor Gary Englert.
The split divided the congregations and its financial resources. Today Our Savior’s has roughly 300 members in its congregation and the complex on Country Club road proved far too expensive for the smaller group to maintain.
Our Savior’s finalized its sale and trade deal with the nondenominational River West last month.
The 20-year-old River West, also of Lake Oswego, is a Christian church with roughly 1,000 members and three Sunday services held at its building at 15751 Quarry Road.
The two churches will keep their previous names. The first River West Sunday service at the Country Club Road facility is scheduled for Oct. 31.
Founding Pastor Gary Guy said the building is a boon for River West’s growing community of young families.
The church has about 100 children enrolled in classes held in a separate building that River West leases at 16148 S.W. Boones Ferry Road. The move will allow River West to consolidate its operations onto one site.
“The biggest gain for us is the children’s area,” said Guy. “The best areas in the (new) church are the children’s areas. Young people are our biggest growth area.”
For the bishop the issue signifies the larger struggle of the Lutheran church who’s adherence to Scandinavian culture is marginalizing it in today’s culturally diverse American.
“Is the church going to be an exclusive group, or an inclusive group?” said Brauer-Rieke. “I for one, am pleased that Our Savior’s have been able to right-size themselves and for River West.”
Donald Wienk has stayed with Our Savior’s throughout the transition and is looking forward to the move.
Wienk came to Our Savior’s over two decades ago when he put his two daughters through the Great Commission Subcommittee choir program. The choir was canceled this year.
“Hopefully they’ll restart it next year,” said Wienk.
Wienk said that despite the challenges at Our Savior his faith has carried him through the difficult transition. “We think everything is positive. It’s a fresh start. We’re moving ahead with God’s ministry.”
School district and River West officials reportedly are negotiating a parking agreement to allow some continued use of the church parking lot for students across the street at Lake Oswego High School.
The church has left the building. This sign for Our Savior’s Lutheran Church at 2000 Country Club Road is out of date now. Our Savior’s and River West Church have negotiated a property sale and swap and Our Savior’s held its first service at its new facility at 15751 Quarry Road. RiverWest will hold its first Sunday service at the Country Club Road facility Oct. 31.
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Be rooted in Christ!
. . . before the elites decided that feel good politics to welcome gay lifestyles wea more important than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
How is that working out so far?
“I’m very proud of the church for that,” said Bishop Dave Brauer-Rieke of ECLA’s Oregon Synod, which oversees administrative issues for all ELCA churches in Oregon. “But the deal didn’t sell with some people.”
Doesn't "sell" well with the Bible either, but it sounds like that is the least of your concerns, sadly...
...yet. (I hate having to complete sentences.)
“Nationally, the ELCA said that 204 congregations, or two percent of 10,000 ELCA churches in America, have left because of gay clergy”
And how many have had their meeting with their Bishop and the final vote of the congregation to leave the ELCA but are now waiting and waiting and waiting for the ELCA to complete their end of the break-up? Our church got tired of waiting for the ELCA to complete their last step and has taken steps to join a different organization.
What's not revealed is the large number of congregants leaving the churches which didn't vote to leave. I'm sure this has a much more significant impact, financially, than the <2% of "congregations" that have left.
I had the same thought if 200 Churches are moving out how many people are leaving the churches that are staying?
According to David Swartling, secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 544 congregations have taken first vote to leave the denomination through October 1, 2010. Of that number 395 passed their first vote; 181 failed. Of the 395 congregations that passed their first vote, 258 have successfully passed their second vote; 16 failed in second attempt. Thus far 204 congregations have been officially removed from ELCA roles, representing a net loss to the ELCA of 112,818 members.
(Swartling reported that a total of 576 first votes had been taken because some congregations took more than one first vote.)
Editor's Note: If you count all the congregations that have successfully taken their first vote and are waiting to take their second vote, then add those who successfully have taken their second votes to leave the ELCA since August 2009, it represents a net loss to the ELCA of over 200,000 members. This figure is based on the congregations recorded on our list and posted on this site. The 200,000 figure does not include ELCA members who have left on their own,, those ELCA members who have left to establish new congregations, or the members of 50+ congregations not yet included on our list because we have yet to identify them.
Like with those who could read their Bible.
......Bishop Dave Brauer-Rieke of ECLA’s Oregon Synod....
Yet another ELCA mis-leader with a hyphenated name!!!!
This is getting downright monotonous!!!!
The whole article is nothing more than a whitewash.
The fact is MANY object to actively buggering clergy. Clergy are supposed to be the people who lead by example, and their example is incredibly hypocritical - NOT the way to lead a church.
But the article is supposed to make us feel good about this blatant hypocrisy, and show how the majority supports faggotry in the clergy. In fact, the opposite is true.
My wife’s pastor, who gave us pre-marital counseling, dropped his affiliation with the ELCA, and started a new church. Cafteria style biblical study didn’t appeal to him. He had no problem with loving the sinner and hating the sin, but couldn’t stand canonizing the sinner and celebrating his sin.
Thanks for the info
I would bet that the River West Church is a biblically based church who reveres the Word of God and is growing by leaps and bounds although Bishop Dave Brauer-Rieke of ECLA’s Oregon Synod doesn’t seem to get that.
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