Tag Archives: ELCA

Lutheran Gay Clergy Retreat

In 1990, a pair of Lutheran congregations in the “Castro”, the San Francisco neighborhood called the “gay capitol of the world”, ordained an openly gay man and a lesbian couple. That was the start of Lutheran Gay and Lesbian Ministries. Later renamed Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM), this agency would ordain and roster over thirty gay and lesbian Lutheran ministry candidates because the ELCA refused to do so. Of course, ELCA policy changed with the momentous churchwide assembly of 2009.

So, what should ELM do now? A new course was charted for ELM at their January board meeting.

Far from feeling it was time to close our doors; we concluded that by creating a network for publicly-identified LGBTQ rostered leaders in a major Protestant denomination, we can participate in changing the church and transforming society. Furthermore, we concluded that we are strongly positioned to provide much needed support to LGBTQ people seeking to become rostered leaders in the Lutheran church. LGBTQ people know what it is like to be on the margins of the church. Through their ministry, LGBTQ rostered leaders are poised to offer an evangelical outreach to many and to work alongside others longing to be connected to a church that truly welcomes all.

ELM will soon be hosting a workshop/retreat at Stony Brook Conference Center in New York. Here are the details, cut and pasted from the ELM website:

The Proclaim retreat is a gathering of publicly identified LGBTQ rostered leaders and seminarians for a time of renewal, community building, and professional development. The 2012 retreat will be held at Stony Point Center, New York, April 18-21. Our keynote speaker is Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, who will join us for most of the retreat.

This retreat is open to members of Proclaim, significant others, and children 3 and under. For information on joining Proclaim go here.

The retreat begins with dinner on Wednesday evening and concludes with lunch on Saturday.

More about the Event:

This retreat will be the second gathering of Proclaim. We will gather together and embrace what it means to be publicly identified leaders as we care for ourselves, as we live in and amongst our communities, and as we serve as public witness to the Gospel.

The keynote speaker this year is Bishop Gene Robinson, the current bishop of the New England diocese of the Episcopalian church. Bp. Robinson is the first publicly identified gay person to be elected bishop in a major Christian denomination. His story is featured in the 2007 feature-length documentary, “For the Bible Tells Me So,” and his book In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God (Seabury Books, New York) was released in 2008.

Program:

Here is a sample of sessions and discussion items for our time together:

What is the banquet that we are invited to? What motivates/propels us forward? What feeds our souls?

Discuss how LGBTQ leaders can shape and reshape church and community in the present and into the future.

Examine how LGBTQ leaders are a gift to the church.

Offer opportunities for LGBTQ leaders to hone and sharpen skills for ministry.

Create a vision of what this community and church might look like in 10 years–when we are all moving/going together.

Registration is OPEN. Go here to register.

Registration Deadline is March 16, 2012.

If you have questions, please contact Rachael Johnson, operations@elm.org

Tampa, Washington & Chicago: hope to see you there

Here are three upcoming events that I’m marking on my schedule. Perhaps a reader or two will decide to attend, but all of you should follow from afar.

April 24 – May 4: United Methodist General Conference, Tampa, Florida

The national (international) convention of United Methodists only convenes every four years. Thus, when they do gather, there is a lot of business to take care of. The first week consists of committee meetings and hearings, and the plenary sessions take place the second week.

The Methodists are the largest of the “mainline” Protestant denominations with over 8 million members. For comparison, the ELCA has around 4 million, the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches slightly over 2 million each, and the UCC slightly over 1 million. Of these five denominations, the Methodists are the remaining holdout for ordaining gay clergy, and that will certainly be the issue at the forefront of the upcoming General Convention.

The Methodists are also the most international of the American denominations. While the ELCA belongs to the worldwide Lutheran Federation, that is not a governing body that decides ELCA policy. The same is true with the Episcopalians who are part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. But, within the polity of the UMC, their international sister congregations and conferences are not mere affiliates but actually belong inside the denomination; thus there will be large numbers of international delegates to the upcoming General Convention.

This is also a significant part of the reason why the UMC has not yet voted to ordain gay clergy—the international delegates tend to be much more conservative than the US delegates. The principal gay advocacy group within the UMC is the Reconciling Ministries Network, and I recently visited with Troy Plummer, their executive director, and Pastor Bonnie Beckonchrist, their board chair. Both are cautiously optimistic about prospects for favorable legislation in Tampa, but suggest it will take nearly 65% favorable vote from the US delegates to bring the total margin to 50% or better.

I’m hoping to be there for the plenary sessions to do some live blogging.

June 25 – 28: UCC Coalition National Gathering, Elmhurst College, Illinois

The United Church of Christ has the most progressive history regarding gay inclusion of any of the five principal mainline denominations. The UCC Coalition is their advocacy arm, and this year’s national gathering will be historic. In June, 1972 openly gay seminarian William Johnson was ordained in a UCC conference in northern California, and this year’s gathering will celebrate the 40th anniversary of his ordination. Elmhurst College of Elmhurst, Illinois (a west Chicago suburb) will host the gathering and will also be the home of The William B. Johnson “Guestship”.

Elmhurst College has named its annual LGBT Guestship in honor of an esteemed alumnus, the Reverend Dr. William R. Johnson. A member of the Class of 1968, Johnson is a United Church of Christ minister and vice president for member relations of the UCC’s Council for Health and Human Service Ministries. In 1972, he became the first openly gay person in modern history to gain ordination to the mainstream Christian ministry.

“For four decades, he has worked tirelessly and effectively on behalf of the rights and dignity of all people and, in particular, of LGBT people of faith and their loved ones,” said President S. Alan Ray in announcing the William R. Johnson Guestship. “He has provided counsel and support to hundreds of LGBT seminarians and clergy in the UCC and beyond.” Ray noted that a scholarship in Johnson’s name supports openly gay UCC seminarians studying for parish ministry.

July 6 – 10: Biennial Assembly of Lutherans Concerned, Washington, D.C.

I attended the 2010 Biennial in Minneapolis, and I hope to attend this year also. In 2010, LCNA celebrated the momentous changes at the ECLA Churchwide Assembly of 2009. The preacher during the primary worship service was former NY Synod Bishop Stephen Bouman, who currently works within the ELCA home office as Executive Director of Congregational and Synodical Mission. His participation symbolized that gays and their advocates were now insiders, and Bouman’s sermon encouraged LCNA to use their gifts of advocacy for those who remain on the margins, especially the immigrant.

This year, the symbolism will be heightened as the keynote address will be given by none other than Mark Hanson, the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA.

Reconciling Works 2012 is more than a conference. It is an opportunity to explore and live out the work of reconciliation that we are called to do. Justice requires reconciliation, and reconciliation takes effort. Throughout our time together, we will work on justice issues from the intersection of oppressions (racism, sexism, ablism, etc.) and through the lens of full participation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the life of the Lutheran Church.

We’ll worship together, using a rich variety of traditions of the worshipping community. We’ll provide a blend of the familiar and the unique drawing on our Lutheran heritage and the wealth of liturgical practice in the area. We’ll network with one another, hear stories of joy and frustration, and make decisions together about the future direction of Lutherans Concerned / North America and our Reconciling in Christ communities.

I’m back!!

Well, at least for the moment.

I have been pouring hours and hours into my book project, Gays in the Pulpit. My working draft is now over 170 pages, which is probably half. And the stories! And the people!

Chicago is home to Reconciling Ministries Network—the Methodist LGBTQ advocacy group–and I have visited with Troy Plummer (their director), Pastor Bonnie Beckonchrist (their board chair), Pastor Morris Floyd (activist in the 80’s and 90’s), and Mark Bowman (original founder). Bowman is also the director of LGBTran Archives, which contains biographies and more about leading LGBTQ icons. Turns out I already knew Steve Webster of Madison, Wisconsin who organized the first Methodist gay caucus back in 1975.

Thanks to these excellent resources, my draft includes chapters covering the Methodist history up to around 2000. The Methodists are the remaining holdout among the five principal mainline Protestant denominations. The others (ELCA, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ) all ordain gay clergy, but the upcoming UMC quadrennial General Conference may change that. It’s close, with US delegates firmly on board, but because the UMC also has delegations from Africa, the Philippines, and elsewhere who tend to be very conservative vis a vis LGBTQ issues, the US delegates may need around 65% positive to offset the likely 90% negative from outside the US. The Conference is scheduled the end of April in Tampa, and I’m thinking I may attend and do some live-blogging as I did during the historic ELCA Assembly in 2009.

I am also up to around the year 2000 in my ELCA chapters. Chicago is home to both the ELCA archives and the Lutherans Concerned (LCNA) archives. I recently returned to Minnesota and had a delightful lunch with Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart of the famous extra ordinem ordinations in San Francisco in 1990, and I have been in email correspondence with Pastor Jim Siefkes (who organized the first Lutheran gay caucus back in 1974), Jeannine Janson (who compiled a booklet containing early LCNA history), Amalia Vagts (the director of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries), and others.

Louie Crew, the founder of the Episcopal group Integrity, has been very helpful during phone conversations and email correspondence. His stories also go back to the mid 1970’s. I have exchanged emails with Ellen Marie Barrett, the first Episcopal lesbian priest way back in 1977, who provided a poignant look back at the pain of rejection but also the triumph—“I am a priest forever!” My Episcopal chapters go to around 1990.

The Presbyterians and the UCC still require a lot of work—those chapters only cover the very early 1970’s. I have been in touch with More Light Presbyterians and the UCC Coalition, but I now need to follow up on the leads they have provided. Retired dean of the United Theological Seminary Clyde Steckel has been helpful with early information about the UCC. Trips to Cleveland and Drew University in New Jersey are likely in the offing, which is where many key persons and records are located.

In addition to these contacts, I have also kept the nearby Arlington Heights Library busy with dozens of inter-library loan requests. Many official records of national church conventions are available online as well.

Gays in the Pulpit

I have several writing projects underway. I recently posted about Prowl, a compilation of five short stories based upon my Vietnam experience. I have also been working on a sequel to A Wretched Man. Third, last spring I started work on a non-fiction piece, tentatively titled Gays in the Pulpit, which will be a forty-year retrospective on the gay rights movement within the church. Now that we are settled into our new digs in Arlington Heights, I have again picked up that project in earnest.

I am personally acquainted with many of the more recent heroes of the push for full inclusion including Lutherans Anita Hill, Ruth Frost, Phyllis Zillhart, and Emily Eastwood; United Methodist Amy Delong; and Presbyterian Scott Anderson. If you click on their names, you will link to prior blog posts about these individuals.

My current research is also introducing me to earlier heroes. In 1968, Troy Perry was a gay Baptist/Pentecostal preacher who founded the Metropolitan Community Church, which now numbers over 250 predominantly gay congregations internationally. Father Robert Mary Clement was a gay priest who marched in the first gay pride parade in Greenwich Village and whose Beloved Disciple Church ministered to the gay community of New York City in the early ‘70s. Bill Johnson was the first openly gay man ordained by an established denomination way back in 1972 by the United Church of Christ. Ellen Barrett was the first out lesbian to become an Episcopal priest in 1977.

As I am reviewing the data from these early days, I have received invaluable assistance from Rev. Clyde Steckel, retired dean of the United Seminary of the Twin Cities. Rev. Steckel was witness to and participant in the UCC steps toward gay inclusion in the ‘70s. The record in the UCC is striking because they were so far ahead of the other mainline denominations. The UCC accomplishments in the 1970s foreshadowed the actions of the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Methodists a full generation later.

More to come.

The Power of Woman

As a former attorney, I appreciate the line of Charles Dickens spoken by Mr. Bumble, the law is a ass. In the context of the novel, Oliver Twist, Mr. Bumble recognized that his own wife was more powerful than he in their marriage relationship, and the patriarchal presumptions of the olde English common law were false.

The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the successful struggle for woman’s suffrage, and during the second half the women’s liberation movement achieved notable social and legal successes. To be sure, the victory is not yet won, and pay inequality in the workplace is an obvious example of residual sexism in our culture.

So too the church. Except for a bright, shining moment in the earliest days of the Jesus movement, the men have been in control until recently. Contemporaneous with the women’s movement in secular society, the role of women in the church has changed, and the wide advance of female clergy is eloquent testimony; yet, in my own ELCA, only a handful of women have yet been elected to the episcopate, which remains mostly but not exclusively male. This weekend, I will travel to South Bend, Indiana to attend an Episcopal Diocesan Convention, and the honored guest of the Northern Indiana Diocese will be the Most Reverend Katherine Jefforts Schori, the presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the USA, who is the first and only female to head a major Christian denomination in the US.

Though female leadership in the church is not yet completely de jure, along with Mr. Bumble I recognize the de facto power of women. Theological critics of the 2009 pro-gay actions of the ELCA are right in one thing—it was the women’s movement in the church a generation ago that set the stage for the recent successes of the gay rights movement: a “slippery slope” some would claim, but I prefer the metaphor of opening the door.

History repeats itself and not always in a negative way. The civil war in Northern Ireland finally ended when Protestant and Catholic women said enough. More recently, the women of Liberia rose up and ousted the corrupt Charles Taylor regime and elected a female as the first head of state in an African nation.

One of the Liberian women leaders was Leymah Roberta Gbowee, a Lutheran and the keynote speaker at the Women of the ELCA Triennial Convention in Spokane this summer. Earlier, she had been a scholarship recipient through the International Leadership Development Program of the ELCA in 2006-2007 to support her study in peace building at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. An announcement from Oslo, Norway this week named Gbowee as a co-winner, with two other women, of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The following is from an ELCA press release:

The starting point of the women’s movement was war fatigue, said Gbowee, a mother of six children. She grew tried of watching children die from hunger and “waking up every morning and not knowing whether a tomorrow was possible. You can’t plan for the future.” Along with thousands of other women from across Liberia, Gbowee wanted to dream of a better community.

She decided it was time to stop the war and called together women of all faiths — Christian, Muslim, indigenous and others — from across Liberia to “step out,” recognizing that Liberian women can play a critical role in peace building.

Using the experiences of the women before them, Gbowee used prayer, picketing and silence to further their mission. Despite insults and other behaviors that came their way, Gbowee said, “We kept quiet because we had a sense of purpose and sense of direction.” The women also put together statements of peace for African governments, engaged the media and initiated personal, one-to-one conversations with power brokers “to see how we could get the peace that Liberia was searching for,” she said.

“Leymah Gbowee’s life and leadership are a witness to the power of women to resist forces of violence and domination by creating a movement for reconciliation and peace,” said ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson. “In Liberia, I experienced her passionate commitment to rebuilding a nation torn by civil war not by seeking vengeance, but through her faith to encourage dialogue and inclusiveness at all levels of society.”

Bumble concluded his soliloquy: the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.

The ELCA and Ecumenical Partners

The 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly (CWA11) was hopeful, spirited, and frequently emotional. I was often moved to tears, and I was not alone. Assembly speakers routinely received standing ovations.

The ELCA believes in ecumenism, the expression of unity and cooperation with other religious bodies. Wet eyes and and a long, loud ovation filled the assembly hall when Bishop Hanson embraced Dr. Sayyid Sayeed, the National Director of The Islamic Society of North America. Similarly, the voting members rose to their feet to greet Bishop George Walker of The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME Zion) when he addressed the Assembly.

Bishop Walker’s presence was both the culmination of five years of dialogue with the AME Zion Church, and also the prelude to scheduled meetings in Salisbury, North Carolina between leaders of the two denominations.

Last Friday, the 16th of September, leaders of the two denominations celebrated what promises to be an “unprecedented agreement between historically white and black churches” in a communion service at St. John’s Lutheran Church of Salisbury.

The mutuality expressed at the religious service and also at the discussions the following day are the result of a fortuitous geographical commonality. Salisbury is home to AME Zion’s Hood Seminary, Livingstone College, and the ELCA’s North Carolina Synod Headquarters. Rubbing elbows together in the same small city led to friendships which in turn led to the current discussions.

Georene Jones, a St. John’s member and student in the theological studies program at Hood Theological Seminary, called Friday’s service an “absolute affirmation of what I believe.”

“It gives me great hope for the future of the church,” she said. “This is a culmination of my hopes and dreams.”

See reporter Nathan Hardin’s excellent report in the Salisbury Post.

A Wretched Man Movie?

About six weeks ago, I was contacted by a Hollywood screenwriter who expressed interest in adapting A Wretched Man, a novel of Paul the apostle into a screenplay. Following discussions and negotiations, we have today reached agreement. The screenwriter, who has been in the movie industry for nearly a decade, shares my vision and passion. In his first email to me, the screenwriter commented:

I am fascinated by the story and believe that it could make a really intriguing film—something independent, honest, touching … a film that takes these Biblical giants and makes them accessible, human, and endearing. What I like about your take on the story is that when Paul is wounded—it actually seemed to hurt. I think a movie like that would speak to many.

Whether A Wretched Man reaches the silver screen or not remains a long shot. After a screenplay is completed, the screenwriter must then persuade a producer or other monied interests to invest in a film, but I am convinced that the screenwriter has the appropriate experience, expertise, and contacts to give it a good shot.

Indulge me in a bit of fantasy. For those of you who have read the book, what actor should play the role of Paulos? Shall I, a la Hitchcock, play a cameo role? Perhaps the character of Eli the sage? Or Jubilees, the phantom seer?

Consequences for New Prague Pastor

Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC) is around ten years old. Like the WordAlone movement with whom it shares many members, it was born as a dissident voice within the ELCA, but as the years have passed, it has become a separate church body, and its relationship with the ELCA has become increasingly adversarial. Since the ELCA adopted pro-LGBT policies at its national assembly in 2009, LCMC has openly encouraged ELCA congregations and members to split from the ELCA and join their organization. The mission field of the LCMC would not appear to be the unchurched but rather a poaching of ELCA congregations. LCMC regularly provides speakers to congregations in conflict to advocate for their organization and against the ELCA. While many of their speakers may be fair-minded, there are also plenty of reports of heavy-handed behavior and misinformation.

As the relationship between the ELCA and LCMC deteriorated, ELCA secretary David Swartling, the principal person responsible for interpretation and enforcement of the ECLA constitution, issued a memorandum to Synod Bishops and Vice-Presidents on Jan 19, 2010 that stated clearly and explicitly:

“Dual Rostering” of ordained ministers and congregations is impermissible under the Constitutions, Bylaws, and Continuing Resolutions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

Thus, when the senior pastor and council of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation of nearby New Prague, Minnesota, persisted in their attempt to dual affiliate with LCMC, they were naïve at best and belligerent at worst. The refusal of the council to allow the Synod Bishop to speak to interested persons at the church building prior to the scheduled vote regarding dual affiliation suggests more than innocent misunderstanding and is consistent with other reports of the heavy-handed tactics of LCMC supporters.

When the congregation voted down the resolution to dual affiliation offered by the senior pastor and council by a margin of 55% to 45%, it was effectively a vote of no confidence and a rebuke of the pastor and council, and now there appear to be consequences of failed leadership. The senior pastor has penned an open letter to the congregation, published in the congregational newsletter that appears online. The pastor writes (emphasis added):

A short time ago I visited with our Interim Bishop Glen Nycklemoe of the Minneapolis Area Synod. In the midst of our conversation, he presented me with several possible choices, including my resignation as your pastor.

However, rather than expressing contrition, the pastor attacks.

As I listened to his reasons, I was astounded at the level of misinformation that has made its way to his office … I am distraught over the lies that have been spoken.

I am more and more realizing that the church … has dramatically changed, and has more interest in protecting its hierarchical interests and structures than in seeking truth.

The pastor didn’t offer any details of the alleged lies and misinformation, nor any rebuttal to the fact that he and the council knowingly and willingly challenged their bishop and defied the constitution of the church body that nurtured him in his ministry and ordained him. By standing with the LCMC against the ELCA, he chose poorly.

If he doesn’t recognize the offense in his actions, then he is indeed naïve.

ELCA statistics: two years after CWA09

At the 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA (CWA09), a human sexuality social statement was adopted and ministry policies were revised to allow partnered gays to be “recognized and supported” and to serve as fully rostered clergy. These actions caused some to issue doomsday predictions for the future of the ELCA. Truth be told, some hoped for ELCA devastation and cheerleaded the prospect. Lutheran CORE spawned a dissident denomination with pretensions to “realign North American Lutheranism.” My blog tracking reports identify these Google searches just within the last month: “Collapse of ELCA”, “Downfall of ELCA”, “ELCA decline”, and more.

What is the reality?

To be sure, these past two years have been painful as congregations and members have departed the ELCA, and the process of separation has been conflicted and rhetoric harsh. Coupled with the Great Recession, church revenues have decreased significantly, resulting in deep cuts in order to keep the Churchwide budget balanced.

Yet, the upbeat and hopeful 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly (CWA11) struck harmonious chords–consonant and not dissonant. ELCA Secretary David Swartling provided the numbers, according to the latest data available:

95% of over ten thousand ELCA congregations remain
94% of over four million ELCA members remain
There have been 832 first votes to leave (51 congregations voted multiple times)
621 congregations have passed the first vote
517 congregations have passed the second vote
The greatest number of defecting congregations are rural
The greatest number of defecting members are from large, urban congregations (megachurches)
Annual congregational benevolence exceeded $2 billion
Total congregational assets exceeded $22 billion, which is growing
In many communities where congregations have splintered, Synodically Authorized Worshiping Communities (SAWC) have sprung up

A constitutional amendment was passed during CWA11 pertaining to separation procedures. A congregation with a failed first vote must have a cooling off period and may not vote again for six months. Also, a congregation with a failed second vote must start the process over but not before the cooling off period of six months has passed.

And what of the actions of CWA09, were they revisited by CWA11? Were there skirmishes on the floor?

Nary a whisper.

I know that Goodsoil, the LGBT advocacy group, came prepared to defend the actions of CWA09 if necessary, but nothing developed. The recommendation of the Memorials committee to decline any reconsideration was adopted en bloc without comment. No floor resolutions were offered. The anti-bullying resolution passed without any speakers in opposition and with 97.5% in favor. Clearly, this church body has moved on with a sense of hope and renewed mission, and the inclusiveness embodied in the actions of CWA09 is now part of our identity.

With Mark Twain, we may confidently state, the report of our death is exaggerated.

How Can This Be? ELCA Assembly Opening Sessions

The morning and early afternoon of the first day of CWA11 were dry and boring—a lot of “how-to” instructions on procedures as well as introduction of matters to come later. But, with the afternoon worship, the Assembly began to soar. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson’s sermon was interrupted by “amens” and applause as he offered powerful words of hope and encouragement based upon the Lucan gospel theme of Mary’s annunciation.

“How can this be?” asked Mary, shocked by the angel’s revelation, and this phrase became the bishop’s refrain as he challenged the Assembly to hear Mary’s song and to dare to follow the call of the Spirit to do mission in the 21st century.

So are we ready for the Holy Spirit to move us with Mary? I believe that, as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we are being moved by the power of the Holy Spirit to sing Mary’s song of God’s disrupting, dislocating, relocating power.

Friends, you know and I know that religious leaders singing Mary’s song are not packing people into sports stadiums for so-called religious rallies. In a consumer-oriented, competitive, what-has-God-done-for-me-lately? religious marketplace, we are not going to hear much about God dismantling structures that marginalize and exclude people in poverty or those whose race or gender or citizenship or sexual orientation, physical or mental abilities or health make them unwanted, unnoticed.

But that is Mary’s song, and it is Mary’s song that the Holy Spirit will give you the courage and voice to sing. It is Mary’s song of God bringing the despised and the marginalized, the outcast and the downcast, the defeated and the denied, and even
the dead into a new place. The place where God is building the new creation—the new community in Christ.

When we have been disrupted by God’s grace, when we have been dislocated, when we have been knocked off balance by God’s word of judgment and left wondering, “How can this be?” the Holy Spirit moves us. The Holy Spirit relocates us into God’s
abundant mercy, into a community of faith that with Mary believes “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Oh yes, this is who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—a community freed in Christ to serve. So let this assembly unfold. Come, Holy Spirit. Come with your power, Holy Spirit. Move us as you moved Mary. Move us to sing, to live Mary’s song. Move us to faith. Move us to a living, daring confidence in God’s grace. Move us to respond with Mary, “Here am I—here we are. Let it be to me—let it be to us, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, according to your word.”

If the opening worship was the main act, there was also a sideshow. The clownish Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, the same who protest at military funerals, attempted to picket our Assembly, but the host Convention Center refused to let them on the grounds. Thus, their demonstration went unnoticed a mile away, and after an hour they departed.

After worship and after dinner, the Assembly returned for Plenary Session II Monday evening, and the main item on the agenda was the kickoff of the ELCA Malaria Campaign. The presentations roused the voting members to the point that I half expected a motion from the floor to raise the appeal to a higher level than $15 million. Despite the fact that malaria is both preventable and treatable, a child dies from malaria every 45 seconds. Every 45 seconds!

Here are the opening paragraphs of the resolution adopted by a vote of 968-19.

To launch the ELCA Malaria Campaign under the auspices of ELCA World Hunger as a major fundraising effort of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, its synods and congregations, and its affiliated ministries, auxiliaries, and individual members, that will encompass the best efforts of this church to join companion churches in Africa and
ELCA full-communion partners to contain deaths related to malaria by 2015;

To join with domestic and global partners to address malaria as a disease intensified by poverty within the context of comprehensive and sustainable community development and in close cooperation and partnership with this church’s companion churches in Africa and The Lutheran World Federation;

To invite every congregation, synod, affiliated ministry, auxiliary, and individual member of this church to make a contribution toward the goal of $15 million over the next four years (2011–2015) while emphasizing that gifts to the ELCA Malaria Campaign are not intended to replace giving to ELCA World Hunger but demonstrate commitment above and beyond normal ELCA World Hunger giving;

Over $1.5 million was pledged before the Assembly opened, and another $150,000 or so was pledged during the assembly.

After the plenary, I fired up my laptop in the lobby (the only place wireless was available without an exorbitant fee), but I barely checked my email before I was swept up in an engaging conversation that lasted late into the night—thus setting a precedent that would continue for the duration.