wfn.org | ELCA Presiding Bishop Speaks to Antipoverty Activists

[<NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

Title: ELCA Presiding Bishop Speaks to Antipoverty Activists
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

>May 5, 2009  

ELCA Presiding Bishop Speaks to Antipoverty Activists
09-104-JD

WASHINGTON (ELCA) - The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding
bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),
spoke to more than 1,200 faith-based and antipoverty activists
here at the Mobilization to End Poverty event, April 26-29.  He
called on participants to "hold each other accountable" for the
work they are doing to end poverty. The event was held to engage
participants in making antipoverty work a political priority.

Hanson was one of six speakers at the "Church Leaders
Roundtable -- Uniting and Mobilizing the Church in the Fight
Against Poverty" plenary session at the event. Other
organizations represented on the panel were the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ), Convoy of Hope, Reformed Church in
America, Micah Challenge and Catholics in Alliance for the Common
Good. The Rev. Brian D. McLaren, author and speaker, moderated.

During the plenary panelists were asked a series of
questions regarding obstacles to overcoming poverty, pastors'
reluctance to engage in advocacy, congregational members'
accountability and ways to continue the work to end poverty back
home.

Hanson said if he were serving in a parish he would have
adults engage in a "community mutual accountability and
discernment" hour. "We would hold each other accountable to
publicly live out the mandate of serving the poor or spreading
the justice of peace," he said.

"We would confess it didn't go as well as God intended,"
Hanson said. "Then we would become a community of moral
discernment, not splitting conservatives and liberals, but
engaging the Word in the world as this community of faith in this
context."

Participants also visited members of Congress and advocated
for cutting domestic poverty in half in 10 years.

The Rev. Matthew Lenahan, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church,
Akron, Pa., explained that the mobilization was an "equipping"
event.

"We are called to initially go back and ask that one
question, 'What is God calling me to do and be now as a result of
this mobilization?'" he said. "I have great hope after my day on
the (Capitol) Hill that things can actually change when people of
faith care enough to step out of their comfortable place and
confront systems of injustice with a word of Scripture and a word
of hope."

Hosted by Sojourners, a progressive Christian network, the
Mobilization to End Poverty was supported by 23 denominations,
religious societies and groups. The ELCA was a financial sponsor
of the event.

>---

>The Mobilization to End Poverty blog is at
>http://blog.sojo.net/ on the Web.

Information about the Mobilization to End Poverty is at
http://www.sojo.net/mobilization on the Web.

For information contact:

John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog