News
By the staff of The Lutheran, ELCA News Service and Religion News Service
79 to serve as YAGMs
Seventy-nine young adults have accepted the call to serve with the ELCA Young Adults in Global Mis- sion (YAGM) program, a service opportunity for 21- to 29-year-olds (
www.elca.org/yagm). In August they will embark on a year of service with ELCA companion churches and organizations around the world. Heidi Torgerson-Martinez, YAGM program director, said the new group is the largest since the program began in 1999. Since then, nearly 600 young adults have served in country place- ments throughout the world.
Making good from bad
On the evening of Easter Sunday, April 5, a burglary took place at Peace Lutheran Church, Burlington, N.D. No damage was done and nothing of great value was taken, save the $300 for the ELCA Malaria Campaign raised by children during Lent. Emily Nesdahl, pastor, invited members, family and friends to make donations to replace the stolen funds. In the end, the congregation raised $2,120 for malaria prevention and treatment, seven times their original contribution.
Council appointment
Ulysses Burley, program associate for the ELCA strategy on HIV/AIDS, was invited to serve as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Nominated by ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton, Burley said his role as a member of the council is to “assure that human care and heart care are as much a part of the goals as health and HIV care.” His two-year term began May 21.
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Two Texas congregations declare themselves as the 499th and 500th new ministries of the ELCA. One of them is Spirit of Joy Lutheran, Seguin, whose members recently gathered for a church “selfie.” Tim Bauerkemper, pastor developer (holding a child and standing next to Bishop Ray Tiemann), said Spirit of Joy is a “new wine” ministry, a congregation that began from a church that had disaffiliated from the ELCA.
500 new starts: A milestone worth celebrating F
or Ruben Duran, the message is quite clear—“the church is not dying.” That’s a different mes-
sage, he says, than what has been widely reported in recent years about the decline in membership among U.S. mainline denominations like the 3.8 million-member ELCA. As director of new congregations,
Duran believes the ELCA “is not dying. We are changing,” particularly as the denomination reached a sig- nificant milestone this spring. Since the ELCA began in 1988 as a
result of a merger, more than 500 new congregations have been “planted, organized and joined the ELCA. That is a milestone worth celebrating,” Duran said. The “changing part,” he added, is
that 56 percent of all ELCA new starts are among ethnic-multicultural com- munities, and 27 percent in commu- nities where people are living in pov- erty or low income. Another 26 new ministries started with leaders whose congregations left the ELCA in recent years. Put that all together, he said, and
“we have 10 percent of the denomi- nation in the growing stages. This is
a good moment to celebrate. God is making all things new. The new start is the new skin of this church, and the new skin of the ELCA is a fusion of many nations being welcomed into the ELCA. It reflects the country that we’re becoming. We are not dying. We are changing.” For Anna-Kari Johnson, program
director for ELCA new congrega- tions, “it is inspiring to see so many congregations race across the finish line together to become the 499th and 500th congregations.” In addition to the newly organized
congregations, Johnson said there are 352 ministries under development. Among that number, 63 are prison ministries “that we hope will one day be organized as congregations,” she added. For the past two years, Judith
Spindt, director for evangelical mis- sion with the Southwestern Texas Synod, has partnered with two con- gregations in particular who declare to be the 499th and 500th ministries to join the ELCA—Spirit in the Hills Lutheran in Spicewood, Texas, and Spirit of Joy Lutheran in Seguin, Texas.
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