Northlake Lutheran Church

May I be so bold as to suggest this is the first resolution adopted by an Assembly of God’s people after the day of Pentecost. These are the opening words of the report that Paul and Barnabus are to take to the church in Antioch in response to the question of whether circumcision was to be required of Gentile Christians. Those of us who are students of assemblies and how church’s make decision might wish that we had a transcript of the debate around this issue to guide us as we make decisions about what the Holy Spirit is guiding us to do today.

Our most recent Synod Assembly had its highs and its lows. I am getting a consistent message that we are not going to resolve our differences by voting on them. Our synod has been voting on issues related to homosexuality for almost a decade. The issues still remain. How will we discern the will of the Spirit? I am increasingly convinced that it will not be by resolution and vote.

We have an abundance of talent and resources in this synod. We also have an abundance of mission opportunities before us. We live in the mission field. We live in a community with great ethnic and racial diversity. We live in an ever increasing disparity between the very rich and the very poor. In this place we are called to be stewards of God’s creation and to respond to the world with God’s will, God’s grace and God’s compassion.

I have proposed to next year’s assembly planning task force and the Synod Council that we change the format of the assembly. Let’s address the business issues on Friday and then use Saturday to be in education, discussion and enrichment around issues and opportunities related to congregational ministry. It will mean changing the way we do business. We may not have time for every resolution, so there will need to be a prioritization of resolutions or some other creative solution.

Voting will not settle the issues that divide us. It will only further identify the division. I am proposing that we pray about how we can discern the will of the Holy Spirit and then begin to act together on it. Let’s talk about that.

— Chris Boerger

Editor’s Note: The 2009 Northwest Washington Synod will be held Friday and Saturday, May 15 and 16, at the Lynnwood Convention Center. Kim Unti and Pam Kluth are co-chairs. You can reach them at synodassembly@lutheransnw.org.

From Synod Soundings, newsletter of the Northwest Washington Synod, ELCA, September 2008.

May 2008

Bishop's Message
A Most Unusual Request

by The Reverend Wm. Chris Boerger, Bishop

The Book of Faith initiative is a five-year project for every member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). This project is the result of a memorial from the North Carolina Synod to the 1995 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Its goal is to increase Biblical knowledge and conversation among all of the members of this church.

We are a church that affirms that the scriptures are the authoritative source and norm of our proclamation, faith and life. It is in the scriptures that we see Jesus. It is in the scriptures that we are confronted with our sin and the power of God’s grace. Luther noted that the Holy Spirit works faith in our lives through the means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments. Thus, for us, scripture is at the heart of our life together.

We do not approach scripture in a literalistic manner. We are not interested in what scripture said to our ancestors, we are interested in what scripture is saying to us and our time. The Bible confronts us with the lively Word of God. It is a word that is active today in our lives.

So, the Book of Faith project is about getting us as individuals, in small groups, congregations and synods to commit to study the Bible. That study is not about just learning the facts. It is about using this gift of God to guide our lives and our faith. This is important, life giving work.

Over the next few years, there will be new resources developed for our use. The key to this is not the resources, it is our commitment to read and study the Bible. Those attending the Synod Assembly this year will be given the introductory resource, “Opening the Book of Faith”. If you are not at the assembly, you can purchase a copy through Augsburg Fortress (www.augsburgfortress.org).

I see the potential that this intentional study of the Bible could change the whole church. Luther’s reformation was strongly supported by the translating of the Bible into the language of the people. As the regular person read the Bible, the faith of the church was strengthened.

We live in a time of Biblical illiteracy both in and out of the church. It is a time for us to grow in faith through our study of the Word.

(Editor’s Note: You can learn more about the Book of Faith by visiting the synod’s website at www.lutheransnw.org and clicking on Book of Faith under Spotlight. The Book of Faith website offers not only the opportunity to learn more about the initiative and to learn more about the Bible, but also to participate in conversations on-line, to sign-up for daily Bible readings, Bible studies, videos, and much more.)

V V V

Reprinted from The Spirit, newsletter of the NW Washington Synod, ELCA, April 2008

Bishop's Message
A Most Unusual Request

by The Reverend Wm. Chris Boerger, Bishop

One of the fun aspects of my call is meeting with call committees to review the ministry profile that they develop. This description of the congregation and of the attributes of the pastor they would like to call is used as the filter we develop to screen potential nominees for interview. I was recently pleasantly surprised by the profile submitted by the call committee of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, Maple Valley.

Under the section the leader we seek they said, "...would embrace stewardship and teach and encourage tithing of income, time and talents." There were other attributes identified, but this one caught my attention. Here is a congregation that is asking its pastoral leader to assist their existing stewardship team in teaching and encouraging the whole congregation in tithing their whole lives.

Stewardship is about our life of faith in action. It is about our money, our time and our talents. Too often we reduce the stewardship of life discussion to the annual stewardship sermon, if that, and an occasional pledging program. I hear people quickly correct me when I suggest that we should talk about our stewardship of money. They want to remind me that stewardship is also about time and talent. The fact is that many of these corrections are excuses to not have the discussion about money or time or talents.

We live in a most dangerous time. I am not talking about the public unrest in the world. I am talking about the amazing wealth that we, members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), have amassed and are using as if we deserved what we have. Our wealth comes to us as a gift from God. It is not ours for ourselves. It is for our use to expand the reign of God in our lives and in the world. The idolatry of things is advertised daily around us. How we use our money is an act of witness to our God.

We have several excellent resource people working in our synod who are deployed by the churchwide expression of the ELCA to assist us in planning and talking about stewardship. Pastor Phil Reitz is regularly working with congregational leaders to develop healthy and faithful stewardship education programs. David Swartling is now working as the Director of the Lutheran Planned Giving Consortium of Western Washington. David works with the ELCA Foundation to help us be intentional in our estate planning and in making sure our wills reflect our faith. Our Synod Vice President, Larry Johnson, is also the coordinator of our Charitable Giving Initiative grant that we received from Thrivent. Larry, Phil and David are available to you for work in your congregation. They just need to be asked.

I now have the task of finding pastoral nominees for a congregation that wants to be intentional in teaching stewardship, among other things. This is a most unusual request. I pray that it is just the first of many such visions of our life together.

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