News
By the staff of The Lutheran, ELCA News Service and Religion News Service
Bishop re-elected
Wilma S. Kucharek was re-elected in November to a third six-year term as bishop of the Slovak Zion Synod. On the first ballot, she received 97.3 percent of the synod assembly vote. Previously, Kucharek served congre- gations in Connecticut and Pennsyl- vania, and briefly as a deaconess in Indiana and New York. The Slovak Zion Synod Assembly met aboard the Carnival Dream, with stops in Key West, Freeport and Nassau. The assembly included business, Bible studies on the jogging track, enrich- ment, and a focus on spiritual and physical wellness.
Women to be bishops The Church of England opened its doors to women bishops in Novem- ber when Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York John Sentamu signed the change into canon law. In July 2014, the church’s General Synod voted overwhelm- ingly in favor of female bishops. At presstime, predictions were rife that the first woman bishop could be named by January 2015.
LWR ‘champion’ ELCA Montana Synod Bishop Jes- sica R. Crist received the Lutheran
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Building peace is difficult, but living without peace is a torment.
Pope Francis, in an appeal from “the bottom of my heart” to Israelis and Pal- estinians to “put an end to the spiral of hatred and violence.”
Council acts on funding, priorities A
t its Nov. 7-10 meeting in Chi- cago, the ELCA Church Coun- cil heard from ELCA Treasurer
Linda Norman that more than 16 percent of the $198 million goal of Always Being Made New: The Cam- paign for the ELCA has been raised. Norman also reported that 2014
ELCA mission support is on track to meet the budgeted $48 million, while gross revenue was ahead of budget by 2 percent and spending was at 92 percent. (Final numbers were not available at presstime, as the church’s 2014 fiscal year runs through Jan. 31, 2015.) Like all mainline denominations,
the ELCA has faced a historic trend of declines in undesignated giving. Today only about 69 percent of fund- ing for ELCA churchwide ministries comes from undesignated gifts in the form of mission support—funds con- gregations share with the 65 synods for synod and churchwide ministries. This high level of undesignated giving “just doesn’t happen in other denomi- nations,” Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton told council members. The 2013 ELCA Churchwide
Assembly approved the first-ever $198 million campaign to increase the church’s ministry capacity by growing designated funding by 64 percent by Jan. 31, 2019. During its meeting, the council
approved implementation of two portions of the campaign: raising
World Relief Champion Award from LWR President and CEO Ambas- sador Daniel Speckhard at the Nov. 7-10 ELCA Church Council meeting in Chicago. Speckhard also thanked the ELCA for its partnership and for sharing “a generous $2 million” for
$4 million for disability ministries and another $4 million for youth and young adult programs. After a lengthy debate, the council voted to equally divide campaign funds raised for youth and young adults between a future permanent endowment and current funding for programs. The council also:
• Approved a “Private Prisons Social Criteria Investment Screen” follow- ing the ELCA criminal justice social statement’s implementing recom- mendations. The social statement was approved by the 2013 Church- wide Assembly. • Discussed theological education in the ELCA, considered how the church develops new congregations, and used “appreciative inquiry” to look at priorities for the denomina- tion, areas where good work is being done and where the church needs to grow. • Extended the honorary title of “pre- siding bishop emeritus” to former ELCA presiding bishops Mark S. Hanson, H. George Anderson and Herbert W. Chilstrom. • Revised the 2015 current fund spending authorization to $69.7 mil- lion and the 2015 ELCA World Hun- ger spending authorization to $20 million. • Elected Vernon K. Veal, Bloom- ington, Ill., to the council for a term ending in 2019. He replaces Michael Mason, Anna, Ill.
LWR’s response to Typhoon Haiyan. “We’re doing this [work] because God’s calling us to do it, but … we need to be doing it [for] the security of the world if we care about our chil- dren’s future,” he said.
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