News
By the staff of The Lutheran, ELCA News Service and Religion News Service
U.S. Congress: 15 from ELCA T
hree U.S. senators and 12 members of the House of Representatives belong to ELCA congregations, said Andrew D. Genzler, director of advo- cacy, ELCA Washington office. The 15 are among 26 Lutherans in Congress.
“Lutheran members bring a sense of the importance of public service and the vocation of public office,” Genzler said. “Our Lutheran perspec- tive is that government is one place we find God active in our common life—preserving order, protecting creation, helping people struggling with hunger and poverty, and building peace.”
Halverson resigns
Cynthia Halverson, president of the ELCA Foundation, resigned in Janu- ary. Prior to the churchwide office reorganization in October, she also served as executive director of Devel- opment Services. “Since her election to these positions, Cindy has pro- vided exceptional leadership. Cindy is highly regarded by the many gen- erous donors who support the ELCA and by staff and colleagues through- out the country,” said ELCA Presid- ing Bishop Mark S. Hanson in an announcement to staff. Halverson will complete her service Feb. 11. David Novak, director for gift plan- ning in the Foundation, will complete her four-year term, which ends in October.
A year later, Larsons serving More than a year after Benjamin J. Larson died in the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti, his wife Renee Splichal Larson and cousin Jonathan Larson are serving calls. All three were students at Wartburg Theologi- cal Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, and
8 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
were in Haiti at the time of the earth- quake. Minnesota Public Radio gave an update on Renee and Jonathan in a December broadcast. Renee is now pastor of Heart Lutheran Church, Mandan, N.D. Jonathan works with children and youth at First Lutheran Church, Duluth, Minn., where Ben’s parents are pastors.
Marriage, worship down Marriage among Americans who have graduated high school but not college is on the decline, and their religious attendance has also dropped, accord- ing to “The State of Our Unions,” an annual report from the National Mar- riage Project at the University of Vir- ginia, Charlottesville. “Middle Amer- icans” ages 25 to 60 (58 percent of the population) who were in their first marriages dropped from 73 percent in the 1970s to 45 percent in the 2000s. Members of this group have seen a similar drop in religious attendance, from 40 percent attending nearly every week or more in the 1970s to 28 percent in the 2000s.
The returning ELCA senators are Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Tim Johnson, D-S.D.; and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.
Former North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat, retired.
The representatives are Rick
Berg, R-N.D.; Lois Capps, D- Calif.; John Carter, R-Texas; Norman Dicks, D-Wash.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Tom Latham, R-Iowa; Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; Collin Peterson, D-Minn.; Thomas Petri, R-Wis.; Chellie Pingree, D- Maine; Bill Shuster, R-Pa.; Tim Walz, D-Minn.
Back to New Orleans The ELCA Youth Gathering will return to New Orleans in 2012 under the theme “Citizens With the Saints,” from Ephesians 2:14-20 (the reading for the final day of the gath- ering). “But the destination, New Orleans, is not the ultimate focus,” said Heidi Hagstrom, director. “We’re shaping a service learning experience that will affirm young people’s wel- come into God’s story through bap- tism, help them draw closer to God by engaging in intentional faith practices, train them to bear witness to Jesus’ activity for the sake of the world, and arouse in them their vocational call to serve.” See
www.elca.org/gathering.
An instantaneous response When between $4,000 and $6,000 was stolen from St. Charles Borro- meo Parish, Chippewa Falls, Wis., right after Christmas, First Lutheran Church, Eau Claire, Wis., knew it needed to help. “The response was instantaneous. It was just, we’re gonna do this,” Scott Miller, pastor of First, told a local TV station. The funds were slated for an orphanage in Peru. First offered a $4,000 matching gift, which has caused more dona- tions to come in each day. “It was almost like we had an opportunity to do a double blessing here because actually the children at Casa Hogar will get almost twice what they would have actually collected,” Miller said.
Quote We as Southern Baptists ... want the world to know that we pro- mote the King of Kings, not the King of Beers.
Tim Rogers, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Indian Trail, N.C., speaking at the Baptist State Convention of North
Carolina, which recently passed a motion to study church policy on the social use of alcohol.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52