wfn.org | ELCA Assembly Closes with Worship, UCC Official Preaches

[News News <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

August 24, 1999

ELCA ASSEMBLY CLOSES WITH WORSHIP, UCC OFFICIAL PREACHES
99-CWA-68-SH

     DENVER (ELCA) -- "Look to the rock," proclaimed the Rev. John H.
Thomas, newly elected general minister and president of the United
Church of Christ, as he preached during the closing worship at the 1999
Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA).
     "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," Thomas
noted, citing the Gospel text of Matthew 16.  "Is it enough to be a
sedentary rock, an enduring place unchanged by its surroundings?"
      The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the
ELCA, met Aug. 16-22 here at the Colorado Convention Center. There were
more than 2,500 people participating, including 1,038 ELCA voting
members. The theme for the biennial assembly was "Hope for a New
Century."
     Christians need to go back again and again to rocks set by God,
Thomas said. They call us home from the far places we sometimes stray,
he added.
     "Truly, God has a sense of humor!" said Thomas, when speaking of
the text. "How is it that we find ourselves reading this text in this
evangelical context, particularly given the ecumenical agenda we've
dealt with over the past week? Perhaps we'd better simply leave it as a
delightful sign of the ironic, provocative, sometimes humorous and
always healing grace of God. 'You are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my church.'"
     A significant part of the agenda for the churchwide assembly were
two ecumenical proposals, which were approved by ELCA assembly voting
members.  The full communion agreements with The Episcopal Church and
Moravian Church In America open the door for exchange of clergy and a
variety of cooperative ministries.  In 1997, the ELCA assembly approved 
a full communion agreement with the UCC, the Reformed Church in America 
and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A).
     "Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson struck the right note when he
challenged us not simply to remember what we inherited, but to consider
what we must bequeath," said Thomas.  Anderson made the comment in his
sermon at the assembly's opening worship.
     Ventures into an uncertain future are risky, he said. "They have
come to us this week by many different names: ecumenical ventures that
will change us in ways we cannot control; a reach toward, perhaps even
an embrace of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters; liturgies shaped
by the cadence of African drums as well as the rhythm of Bach chorales;
theologies forged in the crucible of economic struggle; battles against
racism; and the oft overlooked imagination of women," Thomas said.
     As voting members concluded the assembly with the worship service,
Thomas sent them home with advice.  "As you leave this place
exhilarated, exhausted, inspired, troubled, hopeful, fearful -- remember
this: You are Peter, by God's grace skipping across the waters of your
baptism, soaring, daring, dancing toward the horizon of God's day of
grace, bringing wonder to children and hope to the world, until in God's
providence you settle gently again into the waters that gave you birth,
joining all those who have gone before you, where all will be well."

For information contact:
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