If you are in the ELCA and plan to remain in the ELCA and are troubled about the direction the national church body is taking, now is the time to take action. Here are some things you should consider doing:
Research Lutheran Core, Lutheran Church of the Common Confession, Word Alone. Just google the names and you will find all kinds of information. People who favor the direction of the ELCA will say unkind things about the people involved in these organizations. I want you to know that I have worked with these folks and they genuinely love the ELCA and want the best for the organization. They speak much more charitably about those who oppose them than they are spoken about. They also encourage those who are unhappy not to leave the ELCA - it is worth saving.
Get yourself nominated to the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. How to do that varies by synod. I cannot go next time because the Florida Bahamas synod selects voting members by conferences. This year our conference needed a lay female. Next time it could be a clergy or person of color or youth...I don't know, but I suspect it won't be any category for which I qualify. Other synods elect their quotas statewide, and the same people can go again and again. Start looking into this now, because these elections will be held this coming spring for the 2009 assembly. If you don't qualify or don't want to go, start asking around and find someone who will.
Participate in the sexuality task force study. Go to www.elca.org/faithfuljourney/. People are not participating in this study at the levels that participated in the previous study. This could be because they are studied out, or perhaps they believe that is does not matter if they participate because they will be ignored anyway. Do it anyway if you plan to stay in the ELCA.
Pay particularly close attention to the Book of Faith: Lutherans Read the Bible initiative. You can keep up with it at www.elca.org/bookoffaith/. How we read and interpret the Bible will have great influence on the direction of the ELCA. Our presiding bishop has already stated that we have two hermeneutics in the ELCA, traditional and contextual and that they are irreconcilable and both are correct, or something to that effect. Which one do you want our Book of Faith to emphasize? Be involved.
Pray. God is in control. The ELCA is still His church. There are many faithful Christian people in the ELCA. Pray for them and for your church and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Stay in the Word.
I'll probably think of something I have left off, but that's all I can think of for now. If people do not act, all these sexuality changes will come about in 2009. Now is the time to act.
---Katie
3 comments:
Unfortunately, the ELCA's system of quotas shows just how in league with a social justice/politically correct viewpoint rather than a scriptural race/sex/wealth-blind outlook.
As an outsider, it continues to be apparent that the ELCA is on its way to becoming almost Unitarian-Universalist!
I'm surprised that your Synod doesn't have any "at large" clergy and lay male/lay female Voting Members.
In Lower Susquehanna we have a panel of voting members (1 per Conference) and of course each Conference rotates Clergy or lay male/lay female; but there are also 4 or 5 "at large" positions of each quota.
--Lightman
It is certain possible that they do and I am not aware of it. I do know that the pastor who encouraged me to run did not run herself because the conference voting member was to be a lay female. I assume if there were any at large clergy spots she would have put herself in the running. I'll check into it, but it really does not matter for me. I have had enough of the ELCA.
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