Join other Reconciling Lutherans

I’m proud to belong to a strong RIC (Reconciled in Christ) congregation. We are, in just about any sense of the term, a welcoming congregation. We welcome anyone with a hungry soul and mind.

In fact, the rainbow banner outside our church was one of the things that first caught our attention, when we drove by Pilgrim, just 4 years ago this week.

There are thousands of other Lutherans who are equally proud of their RIC home churches.

Edina Community Lutheran, in Edina, MN, is one of those congregations.

Edina Community is promoting a campaign to get 10,000 people to sign an online statement of support for the ELCA to be inclusive of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

Here’s the online form, where you can sign-up:

Reconciling Lutherans Website

I hope you’ll sign up. I did.

Tweeting at the CWA

I plan on Tweeting at the Church-wide Assembly, and I want to share with you my Twitter account info.

You can go to this URL and you’ll see my Tweets:

http://twitter.com/paulhardt

You can just copy and paste that link into your browser, and you’ll see my Twitter page.

While we’re told there will be no internet access on the floor of the Assembly, there will be wireless areas, provided by the publishers and some of the other vendors/exhibitors.

So, sign up now as one of my “followers,” and I’ll let you know about how things are going at the Assembly–”as they happen.”

On my way to the Church-wide Assembly

What is this Blog and Why am I Writing It?

This is the first post in a series I will be posting over the next several weeks, leading up to and perhaps after the Church-wide Assembly (CWA) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The assembly will be in Minneapolis (nuts, I missed out on a great trip to some exotic location! like Chicago!) and will go from August 17 through August 23.

I hope to help the readers of this blog understand more about what the CWA is and its meaning for the ELCA and the world at large.

I will share with you some of my opinions about the issues the CWA will tackle, as well as some of the “inside baseball” of the CWA, in hopes the reader will understand more about how the CWA works and how people can get involved in the larger church.

Feel free to comment to my posts. I’d love to hear from you.

How I Got Here

Well, I’m not posing the question in an existential or religious way!

However, you might be wondering, “How does one become a voting member of the CWA?” Good question.

There are at least two opportunities where Lutherans can be elected as a voting member to the CWA. First, you can be elected at the conference level. Pilgrim Lutheran in St. Paul is part of the South Central Conference of the St. Paul Synod. Voting members elected from their conference were elected in February, 2008, in our synod.

Additional voting members can be elected from the synod assembly. I was elected as a voting member at our synod assembly, last year in May, 2008.

In the election process, you are asked to put together a biography outlining your work with the church and the community.

I was successful in being elected a voting member at the May, 2008 synod assembly. We have about 30 voting members who will be attending the CWA from St. Paul Synod.

Big Issues Debated and Voted on at CWA

There will be a number of major issues debated and voted on at the CWA. As many of you know, the Social Statement on Human Sexuality and accompanying implementing resolutions will be voted on at the CWA.

Here is the website for the CWA, where you can find lots of information about the agenda of the CWA and the issues we will vote on:

Main Web Page for the CWA

Our bishop, Rev. Peter Rogness, made an excellent statement at our synod assembly in late May, and here is a link to it:

Bishop Peter Rogness’ statement to the St. Paul Synod Assembly, May, 2009

Watch for a post from me soon on my comments about the synod assembly.