For a study guide see page 26.


Photos by The Northern Illinois Synod Photography Club (page 27). Members were asked to capture “work of the church” images, and their explanations accompany their photos.


Renew


renovate C


and


The work of the church: ‘It’s not a numbers game, it’s spiritual belief and passion’


By Jane Oppermann


hange had come to our little street, and our neighbor wasn’t happy. Another neighbor had torn down his house


to build a bigger one, complete with a porte-cochere and rooms over a separate, spacious garage. We all had lived for years in our quirky, modest houses, close to one another and within walking distance to the village center. I watched from my kitchen window as our unhappy


middle-aged neighbor looked at the imposing house being built across the street from us. Standing on the street, hands on his hips, he gradually raised his arms toward the sky in outrage at the changes it had brought to the neighborhood. He had lived on the same street all his life. His house


had given him shelter and love. As his mother grew old, he nursed her through illnesses until she died. He was able to live securely and content, safe from unknown ele- ments of the bigger world. And now this. What was a porte-cochere anyway?


(It’s a roofed structure from a building’s entrance over an adjacent driveway.) And why would you need rooms above a garage when having no garage had suited his family just fine?


20 www.thelutheran.org


Te church is in need of a little renovation of its own.


As it attempts to fulfill Christ’s edict to preach the gospel to a changing world, the church finds itself hobbled by a culture where faith communities are oſten forced to take a back seat to ever-burgeoning materialism and where tradition has little relevance in people’s lives. Mainline churches are no longer in the mainline and


find themselves struggling with declining membership and worship attendance. Nearly 30.9 percent of ELCA churches reported an


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