Challenges to a successful stragegy.

Earlier today, I visited with Christ Church Episcopal of Savannah. The Bishop of the Church was vising the diocese of Georgia. After the service which ended around 6pm, we went out to the adjacent street for a reception. I was approached by several people. I decided to talk with a Father from one of the neighboring cities. I asked him about his relationship with the local Lutheran Church. Not very much he said. He did know the pastor's name and indicated they had been getting together over lunch every now and then. I asked what did his parishioners do in regards to working with the Lutherans in the area. The answer was expected. Very little. As he was talking, it occurred to me that what was needed was for us to just take all the small federated Churches and put two or three of them together and assign one pastor to all three. Now that would require the breaking down of denominations. Well, the way it is going now, it is better to decide your future and plot your demise in an orderly way than to have it forced on you by circumstances that you could have controlled. Let's face it, we need to think out of the box if we are going to jump start the growth of black churches in the ELCA. If we do not do something soon, we will be just like banks on wall street, looking for a shotgun marriage to save our behind. Let's start talking about a merger of these local congregations or at least the idea of a circuit preacher for the struggling congregations. Perhaps service rotation much like in the old day in the country. I am just so dissatisfied with the progress or lack of progress toward the African descent strategy. Now it could be that someone is working on a strategy and I am just so far out of the loop that I am blinded by the progress. I hope so.