The bishops from each of the 9 regions of the ELCA select one of their number to serve as a liaison to the ELCA Church Council for terms of 4 years. I serve as the Region 4 liaison bishop, and I attended my first ELCA Church Council meeting in Chicago April 11-15. What follows is my own reflections on the meetings; here is the link to the official news release from the Churchwide office.
What struck me most deeply in our time together was the wide scope of our church that is represented in that relatively small body. What we see in our local experience is only one part of who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; sitting with council members from across the country it is much easier to see just what an amazing array of people we are (and the people themselves are pretty amazing in their own right). The denomination is well-served by this group of leaders.
I’m one of two bishops working with the Faith, Society, and Innovation Committee, and we spent a lot of time wordsmithing two documents: a Social Message on Gun-Related Violence and Trauma, and the draft of the Social Statement on Civic Life and Faith. Both are crucial statements in our current environment, particularly the statement on Civic Life and Faith, which will be in its public feedback period until Sept. 30, 2024. I encourage you to make time to read and provide feedback.
Other items of note:
- Presiding Bishop Eaton has returned from her time of personal leave and is very much back at work. In particular, she is working toward concrete action steps related to the Future Church and God’s Love Made Real projects, utilizing an implementation team that will be conducting online Town Hall meetings with Bishop Eaton in each region of the church in coming months. She was thankful for the time away to rest and recharge, and for the care given to her in that time, but is excited to move beyond research and studies into concrete action.
- The co-chairs of the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church commented on a few findings within their work:
- The Commission has been amazed to realize how deeply the influence of the predecessor denominations still affects the ELCA, 35 years post-merger.
- The variety of practices in synods and regions is sometimes a contextual benefit and sometimes not. Some leaders genuinely lead and some are obviously carrying out agendas for others within the church.
- It is clear that “Who are we?” is a question being asked throughout the ELCA. We have significant difficulty knowing where the ELCA fits as one slice within the worldwide church as a whole.
- The institutions, organizations, and ministries which relate to the ELCA as separately-incorporated non-profits (think camps, campus ministries, service agencies, etc. which we often know as “serving arms”) are passionate supporters and innovators within the church. There was once some desire to begin referring to this group of folks as a “fourth expression” of the ELCA - it has since morphed into a preference for “related institutions, organizations, and ministries” instead, which has, of course, morphed into an acronym: RIOMs.
Finally, I’ll end with a reflection from the Rev. Dr. Betsy Miller of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church, who brought greetings as a representative of our full communion partners. In describing the reality she sees as a leader of a church with fewer than 50,000 adherents, she said, “We’re a mission movement. We never should have become a denomination.” As much as the people gathered in Chicago were there to conduct the business of the denomination, I did have a definite sense that the mission, GOD’s mission for the ELCA, was in the midst of all our conversations. I think this will be the challenge of our time as the ELCA: in an age of institutional transformation, will we be captive to supporting the denomination at the expense of mission, or can we pivot to being a mission movement with a denominational structure that supports that mission? I'll be pondering this for a while yet; it's unsettling in the most spiritually enlightening sort of fashion.
Yours in God’s restless peace,
Bishop Scott Johnson