The ELCA priority is now to pro- vide local mission tables convened by synodical directors for mission to bring such outreach close to home, where congregations might live into this promise. This is the principle around which we’re building a new church economy.
The stewardship of leadership Seminarians and newly ordained leaders bear the brunt of the old economy’s failure and the flux of transition to new systems. They are tremendously gifted and remain passionate about ministry. They just wish they could do it. Recent articles in The Lutheran articulated the dilemma: crippling student debt; restrictions for spou- sal vocation; challenging hous- ing markets; one-to-one ratios for candidates and first-call openings; and retirements on hold, possibly creating a pent-up need for rostered leaders while congrega- tions increasingly find themselves on the bubble of being able to call lead- ers with master of divinity degrees to full-time posts with a professional wage. We’re now talking out loud about bivocationality, encouraging undergrads to get degrees in sustain- ing trades. We’re thinking about combination parish/ specialized ministry calls and new patterns of educa- tion and how we deliver that training.
The new economy invites us to work toward equipping not just one wage-earning word and sacrament pastor per congregation, but parish teams to create worship, form faith, build a neigh- borhood coalition, work
bilingually, work at the intersection of oppressions, work through ecu- menical and interfaith partnerships, write grants and start nonprofits. ELCA rostered or synodically authorized leadership in the com- ing decades will likely be done on a part-time basis in multiple sites or working in other jobs that pay the bills and offer benefits. Other denominations and church cultures have worked and lived in this way for a long time.
The structure we’ve built for candidacy, education, mobility and roster has a ways to go in reimagin- ing, not just tweaking itself toward the future God and this economy are pulling us into. For the sake of our emerging leaders, as well as our institutions, we need to aim our pro- cesses and expectations toward these new realities and prepare seminar- ians and congregations for that kind
of career and congregational life. The millennial generation uniquely has the desire and charac- teristics to flourish in this environ- ment and conceive that new reality, as these gifts are released for mission and ministry.
Those of us who have cherished the way things were, well, we’ve loved those days. Now we need to embrace and support a new econ- omy. We need to provide for a much more rapid rate of change and evolu- tion in our standards and formation, establishing benchmarks for readi- ness and thriving in the new context. •••
Throughout the church, it’s a rich time to consider the life for us in a new economy unashamedly on the margins. We are not defined by the rubble, but have newly freed up building materials to consider God’s new city. M
EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA CHURCH COUNCIL April 8-10, 2011
Percentage of Congregational Mission Support for Synods/Districts and the Churchwide Organization
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%
Source: ELCA and predecessor Treasurer Reports. Prepared by ELCA Research and Evaluation.
Exhibit F, Part 5a Page 6
To Churchwide To Synods/Districts
4/4/2011
January 2012 25
1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009
Percent of Total Mission Support
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