Newsletter August 2013

The 2013 churchwide assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is in August in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.  Every other year the ELCA gathers about a thousand people from across the church to act as its highest legislative body.  There are always representatives of this far north-western corner of Minnesota, but this year we have someone even closer to home as one of the voting members of the assembly.  That’s Everett Englund of Karlstad, a lifelong member of Bethel Lutheran Church and a frequent lay preacher in our parish.  I myself have been elected to attend in the past: the 2005 and 1995 ELCA assemblies as well as the 1983 national convention of the American Lutheran Church, one of our predecessor church bodies.

“Elected” is an important word to use.  All the voting members of the assembly were elected at the local level to study, pray, debate, and finally vote on the matters before the assembly.  The ELCA is a church that decides issues and policies by votes of the people who are members or their elected representatives.  Although we have bishops, they certainly do not wield the power of bishops in some other denominations.  Although we have a national headquarters and a national staff, they are required to carry out the dictates of the people of the church as voted in assemblies.  The national church is an extension of the congregations; the congregations are not local offices of the national church.  The ELCA is not a hierarchical church.  The polity of the church is essentially congregational.  It is not by happenstance that the ELCA is defined as being composed of the baptized members of the congregations, not the bishops, not the clergy, and not even congregations as such.  Well do I remember intense debates over this back in the early 1980s.

This was a subject of debate in the early 1980s because the ELCA was formed back then, making this the 25^th anniversary year of our denomination.  The theme of this year’s churchwide assembly will be “Always Being Made Knew: 25 Years Together in Christ.”  There will be celebrations of the unity Lutherans have experienced in the last 25 years and reflections on what has threatened that unity.  Well do we know that the votes of the 2009 assembly in Minneapolis and of the 1999 assembly in Denver were not universally welcomed across the church.

That’s one of the realities of being a larger church with democratic decision making processes.  There are times when the views of some of the members do not agree with one another.  There may be honest differences of opinion about what the future course of the church may be as well as sharp differences about what the Word of God says about an issue.  Sometimes it is hard to hold people with divergent views together.  There are times when I struggle to hold my tongue and extend the hand of fellowship to someone with whom I disagree strongly, but I feel compelled to try to do it for the sake of Christ.

The key to the unity of the church is to look to Christ who is the head of the church.  The ELCA, the synod, and each of our congregations say in their constitutions that Christ is the head of the church.  Ephesians 1:22 says “….[God the Father] has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all,” and Colossians 1:17 says “….in him all things hold together.”

During his ministry on this earth, Jesus Christ prayed for his disciples with these words, “…that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me….” (John17:23) and taught that they ought to “love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:2)  But even as they literally walked behind Jesus some of them got into arguments (Mark 9:33) and disagreed sharply with one another.  The very first church convention recorded in the Bible (Acts 15) was called to settle differences between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians over what laws still pertain and which are no longer necessary.  Settle it they did, with prayer and the invocation of the Holy Spirit.

As the voting members of the 2013 churchwide assembly gather by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, pray that they will be led by the Holy Spirit to do what is best for Christ’s church and its mission in the world.  Pray for those from our conference especially: Mr. Everett Englund and Pastor Steve Bovendam.  Pray for Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson that he will be a symbol and source of unity for the church as true bishops are to be.  Above all, pray that each of us may contribute to the unity, mission, and witness of Christ who loves all of us.   And pray for peace in neighboring congregations of other denominations who are experiencing sharp divisions right now.