Track record for change Advocacy in the public arena isn’t a new thing for Lutherans, who were active in resettling refugees after World War I. Lutheran churches were also leaders in handling refugees during World War II and later in countries where people fled lives in peril because of famine, war or civil unrest. This long history has meant that Lutherans are
known nationally and internationally. In Geneva, Switzerland, advocates at the headquarters of the Lutheran World Federation have ready access to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and work closely with the United Nations on issues relating to refugees and other matters. Advocates, whether locally or internationally,
are people motivated by their faith. Kisare of the ELCA Advocacy office grew up in Tanzania and said interacting with missionaries and church people on various issues helped her learn to love that kind of work. Raised a Mennonite, she said “social justice was a big part of the teaching as I grew up.” Many seek to have an influence on government
and other decision-makers when they see local problems in a broader context. That was the case for Sara Lilja, now director of the Lutheran Episcopal Advocacy Ministry in New Jersey (LEAMNJ). As a parish pastor and counselor for survivors of domestic violence, “I spent a lot of energy on individual people and individual families,” she said. Then Lilja began to notice a pattern and saw flaws
in the social service and judicial system that was failing the people she was counseling. That led her into advocacy and to her new call as head of the New Jersey Synod’s Lutheran-Episcopal advocacy program. Lilja learned, for example, that basic state aid to
needy families had “not been increased in 30 years.” And she saw that a feeding program near Trenton, N.J., had an “express line” for people who needed to eat quickly because they had to go back to work at a job that didn’t pay them enough to purchase adequate food for themselves or their families. “As church, we need to stand alongside these people,” she said.
Julinda Sipayung, a pastor from North Sumatra, Indonesia, and executive director of the Sopou Damei (harmony place) Women’s Crisis Center, points to her country on a globe in Battery Park, Manhattan. Sipayung was a Lutheran delegate invited to attend the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women in March 2016 in New York with the Lutheran Office for World Community.
The Lutheran Office for World Community is located in the U.N. Plaza in New York. It’s the Lutheran representation to the United Nations and is a joint ministry of the ELCA and the Lutheran World Federation.
Lutherans traveled from across the U.S. to participate in the 2014 People’s Climate March in New York City.
16 OCTOBER 2016
Photo: anaglic /
Shutterstock.com
Photo: Courtesy of the Lutheran Office for World Community
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