Only the oblivious at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August missed the message: Let us be a “sent” church and not a “settled” one while recognizing “God’s work. Our hands.”
Presiding Bishop
Mark S. Hanson and a line of other speakers repeated the challenge and
hope found in those words: telling our faith story, sharing our
resources, reaching out to the burgeoning diversity within the U.S.,
and becoming biblically fluent again while promoting a unified message
of the unheralded but terrific work done in the ELCA.
Those
stories get told not only at the podium by speakers but also around the
breakfast, lunch and dinner tables where voting members mingled. Or in
the halls outside the assembly and worship space in conversations with
acquaintances made over the years.
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