Portico wins $5,000 Logging 863 miles on stationary bikes and more than 1,500 posts on social media, staff from Portico Benefit Services took first place in the Blue Bike Challenge and won $5,000 May 8 for the ELCA Fund for Leaders. Sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, the challenge was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center. “It just shows what we can all do together,” said Team Portico bike rider and chief operating and financial officer Stacy Kruse. “It was a great job by all.”
Guilty plea
Bruce Burnside, former bishop of the South-Central Synod of Wiscon- sin, pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless homicide and first-offense drunken driving in the April 7, 2013, death of Maureen Mengelt, the Wis- consin State Journal of Madison reported. Five other charges were dropped in exchange for the guilty plea. Second-degree reckless homi- cide carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and 10 years of extended supervision. Sentencing was set for later this summer.
Finnish numbers The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland had 4.1 million members at the end of 2013—about three- quarters of the country’s population. The statistics take into account that people are automatically born into church membership but are allowed to resign and not pay a church tax. In
2013, about 59,000 people resigned. A majority (53 percent) of those res- ignations came from adults aged 20 to 29. Yet 46 percent of new mem- bers were also young adults. For the over-80 age group, 89 percent claim church membership—as opposed to 65 percent of those 30 to 39.
Female pastor in Chile The Lutheran Church in Chile ordained Hanna Schramm as its first woman pastor, a move that means all Lutheran World Federation churches in the Latin American and Carib- bean region now embrace female ministers. Crediting German-born Schramm’s two-year ministry as a vicar in Chile for changing minds, ILCH Bishop Siegfried Sanders said the ordination means “openness and a more inclusive theology” for the church. “The ILCH has moved to another time, to the reality of today,” he said.
PORTICO BENEFIT SERVICES/STEVE MITZUK
Concern for ‘plot’ The British Office for Standards in Education launched an inquiry into 21 schools in the Birmingham area suspected of being part of an Islamist plot to take over those institutions. Six gave rise to what the office calls “serious concerns,” which include allegations that staff members were appointed on the basis of their reli- gious beliefs and teachers were encouraging students to believe in the biblical account of creation and accept the separation of girls and boys in classrooms, swimming pools and on sporting fields. Birmingham is Britain’s second-largest city. A 2011 census showed there were 2.8 million Muslims in England and Wales, up from 1.6 million in 2001.
Condemned to die
The National Council of Churches in May condemned the death sen-
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