Posted By

Frank Imhoff

The ELCA brought together 32 young adult Lutherans of African descent from across the United States to Chicago Jan. 6-7 to encourage them as church leaders and to seek their advice on attracting more young adults and more people of color to the ELCA.

ELCA Multicultural Ministries hosted "Breaking the Barriers: An African Descent Young Adult Consultation" at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago with funding from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and the ELCA Leadership Initiative. Participants were between the ages of 19 and 35.

Julius Carroll IV, director for African American ministries, ELCA Multicultural Ministries, said ELCA congregations, the majority of whose members are of African descent, were asked to nominate young adults for the consultation. He said the purposes of the consultation were to introduce them to the churchwide structure and opportunities for ministry in the ELCA and "to hear from them what barriers prevent them from being active within their congregations."

Participants said the older members of their congregations tend to hold on to their roles in the congregations or insist that those roles not change, Carroll said. Many congregations are not open to new things, like a Sunday afternoon "hip hop" service, he said. Participants also said they were unaware of all the ministry opportunities in the ELCA. Carroll said participants wrestled to recognize their gifts. "They realized that everybody doesn't have every gift, and everybody has at least one. They celebrated that," he said.

One goal for the consultation's organizers was for at least five young adults to say they would consider ordained or lay ministry in the ELCA, Carroll said. Eighteen of the 32 said they would consider professional church careers, he said. Carroll said several of the young adults formed a planning team that will work to involve more young Lutherans of African descent in similar discussions.

Culture-Specific Church Wants to be Multicultural
Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, spoke to the group about the challenges of leading a church that is approximately 97 percent white and has an expressed goal of being multicultural and antiracist.
“I try to be with young adults whenever I can because I come away with a sense of hopefulness for the church," Hanson said. "When I'm with young adults, I pick up on your restlessness with the way things are. You know that this is not the way God intends the church to be or the world to be," he said. "You want to be a part of a church that's making a difference in people's lives. I see a restlessness with bureaucracy among young adults," Hanson said.

Hanson offered several answers to his question, saying many in the ELCA don't understand why it has set these goals. "Too often we white folks think we need people of color to shore up the declining membership of a largely white church," he said. Rather than "survival," he said the real goal is to transform the church.

To become a multicultural church the ELCA must first confront racism, Hanson said. "Too often we white folks say racism is a problem persons of color must solve on our behalf, and we put the burden of racism on your shoulders rather than take responsibility for it," he said.