wfn.org | ELCA Council Prepares for the 2009 Churchwide Assembly

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Title: ELCA Council Prepares for the 2009 Churchwide Assembly
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

>August 17, 2009  

ELCA Council Prepares for the 2009 Churchwide Assembly
09-189-JB/MRC

MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) -- In anticipation of the 2009 Churchwide
Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) the ELCA
Church Council, ELCA Conference of Bishops and vice presidents of the
church's 65 synods received an overview from the denomination's presiding
bishop and secretary. The council also received a financial report and
conducted other business when it met here Aug. 16-17.

The assembly begins Aug. 17 and concludes Aug. 23.

The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, shared 10 "girders"
that will sustain the assembly's work and "witness." The first is
prayer. "We are a praying church," and prayer will be "key to our life
together this week" as significant decisions are made.

The ELCA is a "worshiping" church. "The center of our life together,
the reason we call this an assembly, is the gathering of baptized
believers around the means of grace," he said.

"Third, we're a 'Book of Faith' church," and "We are an
evangelizing, witnessing church," Hanson told the council.

Hanson said critical questions for the assembly this week are: "What
shall be our witness?" and "What is the story we are telling?" He said
these questions will be asked in different ways, particularly on
Saturday, Aug. 22 when most decisions will have been made -- including
votes on two documents that address human sexuality.

"We are a missional church" and "an ecumenical church," Hanson
said.  The assembly will consider entering into a full communion
relationship with the United Methodist Church.

Hanson reminded the council that in the ELCA's existing five full
communion partners, "there is a wide diversity of perspectives, practices
and policies related to human sexuality (and) the place of gay and
lesbian people in ministry, which is a good reminder to say that (this)
doesn't define full communion."  He said full communion is based on an
agreement of the "core confessions of the faith that free us to do
ministry, mission and witness together, respecting the policies and
practices of the churches relative to questions" about professional
church leadership.

"We are a discerning church that has matured greatly, as we engage
in difficult questions that arise from how we live faithfully, as people
of faith, in a very complex, changing and challenging world," Hanson
said. "We come to this assembly with the foundation of strong, shared
leadership."

The ninth girder is that the ELCA "has always sought to be faithful,
careful and consistent" in how it selects and prepares people for public
leadership, Hanson said. "What standards do we hold our leaders to, what
knowledge (and) conduct should we expect?" The church's discussions about
ministry policies and sexuality "are a continuation of our strong
deliberate approach to leadership," he said.

Finally, "we build upon a strong foundation of being an
interdependent church," he said.

Hanson said after the assembly, his office will facilitate a series
of call-in conversations with various church leaders, at least through
the November 2009 Church Council meeting.  The purpose of the conference
calls is to discuss how the actions of this assembly "are being received
and understood throughout the church, (among) our global companions and
with our ecumenical partners," he said.

In other business, the council:

 + Delivered two citations in honor of Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr.,
president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS)
since 1991, and the Rev. Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Lutheran
World Federation (LWF) since 1994.
 + Received a report from Christina Jackson-Skelton, ELCA treasurer. She
said income to the churchwide organization this fiscal year through June
was $31.4 million, a decrease of $2.7 million from the same period in
2008.  Expenses through June this fiscal year were $33.8 million. Mission
support income, the significant funding vehicle for churchwide
ministries, was $24.6 million through June, down $1.3 million from 2008,
but close to what was anticipated in this year's budget.

Jackson-Skelton reported that through June, 17 synods sent more
mission support funds to the churchwide organization than for the same
period in 2008, while 47 synods sent less. Total gifts to ELCA World
Hunger Appeal were $5.1 million, below anticipated giving this year by
$300,000, and down $1 million from the same period in 2008.
 + Received a report from David Swartling, ELCA secretary. He said there
is a security plan for the assembly and, as of Aug. 16, no one had
requested a permit from the City of Minneapolis for a public
demonstration. He said the council's executive committee met in executive
session Aug. 16, and heard a confidential financial report from Beth A.
Lewis, president and chief executive officer of Augsburg Fortress, and it
addressed legal issues involving the publisher. In a separate executive
session, Swartling said the council and the ELCA Conference of Bishops
met to discuss plan amendments to ELCA pension and other benefit plans,
including legal issues.
 + Elected the Rev. Heather S. Lubold, Berkeley Hills Lutheran Church,
Pittsburgh, to fill the remaining two years of the council term of the
Rev. Jonathan Linman, New York, who resigned.  It also elected the Rev.
Paul L. Campbell, Living Water Lutheran Church, Scottsdale, Ariz., and
Keith E. Gatling, Kings of Kings Lutheran Church, Liverpool, N.Y., to
fill vacancies on the advisory committee for The Lutheran, the magazine
of the ELCA.
- - -

Information about the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly is at
http:www.ELCA.org/assembly on the ELCA Web site.

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