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Dreams
for You . . . Dreams for the Church
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
aims toward four inter-connected outcomes. Click on
"learn more" to read more thoughts on the topic from the
Vocation and Education unit Executive Director, Rev. Dr.
Stanley Olson.
A
Culture of Call
As God creates and sustains faith in each of us, God
also calls and claims us. The ELCA wants to encourage a
culture of call in the church. Let’s live together
believing that every person is called — to share the
faith and to serve in daily life.
Learn more about A Culture of Call
Theological Conversation for All
Christians worship, they think, they put faith into
words. The ELCA thinks people do those best when they
are in continuing conversation together around God’s
word and God’s world.
Learn more about Theological
Conversations for All
Cadres
of Servant Leaders
God works through all people and always calls some women
and men to guide, proclaim, teach and support others as
servant leaders. The ELCA helps the church call forth
and support pastors, diaconal ministers, associates in
ministry, and deaconesses — and the many other servant
leaders God raises up.
Learn more about Cadres of Servant
Leaders
Fruitful Institutions
God works through earthly means, including human
institutions like congregations, seminaries, committees
and policies. The ELCA aims to help the church be a good
steward of its institutions so that they may be
continually fruitful.
Learn more about Fruitful Institutions
Millions of people are doing
ministry in Christ’s name through the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America. They are guided and served
by more than eighteen thousand rostered deaconesses,
pastors, associates in ministry and diaconal ministers
and by many thousands of others elected or selected for
various leadership roles.
The staff
in the ELCA's Vocation and Education unit works from
Chicago and in the nine regions. Simply stated, our
responsibility is to be for ministry in the ELCA. In
this, we have many co-workers — the rest of the
churchwide units, synods, congregations, seminaries, and
other institutions. It is a vast and capable
partnership, so we try to focus on the aspects of the
mission that can best be done from here. We measure our
work by progress toward the following inter-connected
outcomes:
1. A Culture of Call
As God creates and sustains faith in each of us, God
also calls and claims us. Every Christian is called to
proclaim the good news of Jesus so that faith is
nurtured in others. Martin Luther insisted that God’s
call also shapes our living in every sphere of life —
family, citizenship, culture, daily work. Growing a
crop, doing chemical research, preaching a sermon,
changing a diaper, and giving a concert can all be godly
roles. Christians of every ethnic and economic group and
of all ages are called to nurture faith and serve
others.
Lutheran
theology speaks clearly about the priesthood of all
believers and the vocation of every Christian, but these
themes are not always reflected in our practical
understandings and actions. The Vocation and Education
unit is charged with supporting all our members in these
two arenas, sometimes described together as “ministry in
daily life.” I am convinced that we need to deepen
awareness of these rich teachings. More and more ELCA
members can live with a sense of call to demonstrate
faith through proclamation and service in their everyday
roles.
The ELCA
uses the term “rostered ministry” to identify those
called to particular roles within and on the edges of
the institutional church. This narrower use of
“ministry” has a foundation in our broad understanding
of call. Rostered leaders can serve best if the ELCA has
a culture of call that affirms the work of every
Christian.
The
Vocation and Education unit's staff wants to help
rostered leaders renew their own sense of call and
enlist them in efforts to enhance a culture of call in
our church.
2. Theological Conversation for All
The faith God gives is expressed in worship and in
the articulation of our beliefs. To do each, Christians
need an understanding of God that is sufficient to the
demands of their daily callings and to the reach of
their minds. Those who are called to public
proclamation, interpretation and teaching will likely
need broader and deeper understandings to fulfill their
specialized roles. Those who serve on behalf of the
church through social ministry organizations, colleges
and other public ministries will require knowledge and
insight for articulating the meaning of their work. Yet,
theological conversation is for all.
The ELCA
directs the Vocation and Education unit to support and
encourage this theological conversation. Learning and
teaching happen in many arenas with diverse participants
and for various immediate purposes. The underlying goal
is always that Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions
will guide the church — in its gathered life as
institutions and in its scattered life as individuals in
the world. Authoritative interpretation and application
happen as the church’s members converse theologically,
respecting the insights of those with expert knowledge
and also the privilege and obligation of every Christian
to grasp and share the meanings of faith.
This
staff will look for opportunities to undergird healthy,
lively theological conversation throughout the church.
3. Cadres of Servant Leaders
God works through people and has always called some
women and men to guide, proclaim, teach and support in
ways we now call leadership. Since that term never
appears in the Bible, I find it more descriptive to
speak of the church’s need for servant leadership. The
call to servant leadership is parallel to other
Christian callings. These are not roles that are holy in
themselves. They are places where one can serve God.
The ELCA
has an ongoing need for persons to serve as pastors,
diaconal ministers, associates in ministry, and
deaconesses. Rostering these leaders enhances mutual
accountability and support between the institutional
church and its leaders.
The
coming decades will likely see continuing evolution in
these rosters — in discernment, preparation,
accountability, partnerships, and deployment. There will
also be growth and change in our use of synodically
authorized ministers and other servant leaders who are
called to service in the church, but not to rostered
ministry. The ELCA will affirm its historic strengths in
educating, affirming, deploying and supporting people
for ministry. As Lutherans have always done, we will
also seek to be flexible and adaptable for the sake of
mission. Experiments in the preparation, authorization
and linking of leaders will help us test new
possibilities. Our multi-cultural society and
pluralistic world will continue to draw us toward
greater diversity in the background, style and skills of
our servant leaders.
The
Vocation and Education unit has particular
responsibility to help ensure that Christ’s mission has
ample and adaptable cadres of faithful servant leaders.
The unit’s staff will be listening to the church to help
it know better how to call forth leaders for familiar
ministries and for new ventures in congregational life,
evangelical outreach, global mission, ecumenical
partnerships, education and service.
4. Fruitful Institutions
God works through earthly means — through words,
bread, water, wine, but also through institutions such
as congregations, synods, denominations, colleges,
seminaries, social ministry organizations, programs,
committees and policies. In each age the church must
steward the structures it has inherited, use them well,
evaluate them, adapt them, perhaps lay some to rest and
create new ones. The ELCA is blessed with thousands of
these institutions that mediate the call of God, enable
theological reflection, connect servant leaders with
opportunities, and engage in self-study and mutual
evaluation.
With
various partners, the Vocation and Education unit has
oversight and support responsibilities for a theological
education network that has lively nodes at our eight
seminaries, for a candidacy system that centers in
synodical and regional committees and for support and
life-long learning programs that involve synods, centers
and programs around the world. There is amazing
commitment, innovation, flexibility and collaboration
among the leaders of these institutions, including you
who read these pages. Vocation and Education unit staff
members are challenged to help these partnerships stay
mission focused, well funded, adaptable and fruitful
individually and as networks. We need your ideas and
energy to enhance this teamwork.
Thank
You!
We on the staff of the Vocation and Education unit
thank God for all of you who are the ELCA’s rostered
leaders and for your partnership in sustaining and
enhancing the ELCA’s culture of call, its theological
conversations, its servant leadership and its fruitful
institutions. Late last year I accepted the call to
serve as head of the unit’s excellent staff. In this
essay I have shared a general sense of the mission you
and we share. Within this website and in the journal
Lutheran Partners,
I will be offering more specific comments and proposals
for strengthening the work we do together. Your insights
and concerns are always welcome here.
The Rev.
Dr. Stanley Olson, Executive Director |
