Steve Rode leads an ELCA mission congregation, Our Savior, that meets at the YMCA in Boerne, Texas, a suburb of San Antonio. The group has little interest in finding a church building but wants to spend its money on helping others.
By Sandra Guy T
hree mission congregations whose members stood their ground when their home churches left the ELCA are proving they can make rapid and huge differences in their communities. The ELCA start-ups are all churches of the Southwestern Texas Synod, which has been hard-hit by congregations voting to leave. Their original con- gregations left the ELCA over the 2009 Churchwide Assembly’s decision to allow the ordination of gays and lesbians in committed relationships. The largest of the three, Lutheran Mission of Seguin (population 25,000
30 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Texas ...
Deep in the heart of
start-up congregations move forward in mission
Guy is an ELCA member and reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times.
KELLY WEST
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