Five days and ten minutes that was how long the 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly was this year. It was actually a day shorter than previous assemblies. Some of you did not even know it was occurring. Others of you knew of it from announcements in congregational bulletins and newsletters or from The Lutheran. Still others of you watched parts of the Assembly on the web.
Ten of your sisters and brothers from the Allegheny Synod family, including me, actually attended the assembly and were voting members. We were a very small delegation amidst a total of 1,069 voting members at this year’s assembly.
We began the assembly experience on Monday, August 6 at 4:00 p.m. at the Navy Pier in downtown Chicago gathered around God’s Word in scripture and meal of bread and wine. We concluded at approximately 4:10 p.m. on Saturday, August 11 – 5 days and 10 minutes of our lives given to serving this church we love as voting members of its highest legislative authority.
We worshipped daily, heard uplifting reports of our church’s highly regarded ministries, attended hearings on issues before the assembly, asked questions, listened to plenary debate, spoke to issues, called anew our Presiding Bishop to his office, called a lay person (an attorney) from the state of Washington to be the second Secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, elected other persons to offices with the churchwide structure, and adopted and defeated a variety of recommendations, memorials, and resolutions.
Yes there were conversations around the topic of the disciplining of gay and lesbian persons in committed relationships. I have no idea what you may have heard from segments of the media, but suffice it to say, THERE WAS NO ACTION TAKEN TO CHANGE OUR PRESENT POLICIES regarding this matter. A resolution was adopted that encourages synods, synodical bishops, and the presiding bishop to move carefully and cautiously in implementing any disciplinary process with those rostered leaders in a mutual, chaste, and faithful committed same-gender relationship until the church has a social statement on human sexuality, due for consideration at the 2009 assembly.
But there were other matters too that received attention in those several days. We adopted a social statement on education, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the ELCA, thanked and honored our military chaplains, applauded the success of the new worship resource, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, approved a churchwide strategy for addressing HIV/AIDS, gave overwhelming support to develop the Book of Faith: Lutherans Read the Bible initiative and much, much more.
We enjoyed lunch one day with the voting members of our partner synod from Montana. We had opportunities to “catch up” with former friends and colleagues and made many new friends; and we sat a lot!
Voting members expressed deep appreciation for the opportunity they had to experience a national gathering of Lutherans. The week was meaningful. Worship inspired us. We felt pride in discovering anew our ministries in this country and across the globe. We shared in making significant decisions for this church, sometimes voting in the majority, and sometimes voting in the minority. I think the one thing we all agreed upon was that we, disciples of Jesus, had been good stewards of those five days and ten minutes. Our voting members were:
Pastor Denise Arpino, Jeanne Fleegle, Pastor Steve Lynn, Larry Mazer, Paula Maust, Nancy Wagner, AIM, Pastor Robert Wagner, Don Widener, and me …
+Bishop Pile
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