+Bishop Dee Pederson
Dear Friends in Christ –
As I reflect on the 2025 Churchwide Assembly that gathered over 800 Voting Members and hundreds of visitors and hosts, “For the Life of the World,” these are the passages that echo in my heart:
- Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.” – John 6:51
- And 1700 years after the convening of the first Council of Nicaea: “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
First, thank you to the 18 people who served as Synod Voting Members for this Assembly: - Pr. Adam Roberts, Austin Lucas Peters-Smith, Pr. Jennifer Thul, Tim Ostby, Pr. Kirsten Nelson-Roenfeldt, Steve Roenfeldt, Pr. Austin Krohnke, Jan Nelson, Shawn Martin, Pr. Tom Evenson, Keith Evenson, Jodi Johnson, Pr. Janine Olson, Claire Boersma, Pr. Chimizie Ukaonu, Kaylee Helgeson, Pr. Paul Bravinder, and I. What an amazing group of leaders! Each of them serves God’s mission in their various daily vocations. Each offered a week of their lives away from family, work, congregations, and numerous commitments. They committed to praying, listening, learning, voting, speaking, and acting in order to travel to Phoenix (in July!) and be part of this Assembly. They participated in this “chief legislative authority” for the ELCA as “Voting Members”, not as delegates to a political convention; that language is intentional because we are the body of Christ and we participate because Jesus came “For the life of the world.” I am grateful for their preparation, engagement, good spirit, dedication, and faith!
Central to every Assembly is worship – always moving and inspiring. We heard powerful sermons by Presiding Bishop Elizabath Eaton; Rev. Imad Mousa Dawood Haddad, bishop-elect for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land; Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, General Secretary and President of the National Council of Churches; and The Rev. Dr. Wyvetta Bullock, ELCA Executive for Administration. You can hear the sermons and summaries of the business, Bible studies, prayer, and reports at Living Lutheran - 2025 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.
Listen – and be inspired!
This Assembly made significant decisions, including electing a new Presiding Bishop - Bishop Yehiel Currey, Metro Chicago Synod, and a new Secretary - Rev. CeCee Mills, North Carolina Synod. I have gotten to know Bp. Currey in the Conference of Bishops and am thrilled with his openness to this new call. In reflecting on his election, Bishop Curry stated: “I’m what a return on your investment looks like,” he said. “Perhaps I’m out there in one of you. I never saw myself as good enough, so for two years, I said no. I finally said yes. When I said yes, your support, this church’s support, of that ministry meant everything. So if you want to know what your benevolence dollars look like, it looks like me. And I want to say thank you. Thank you for your investment.” (Living Lutheran)
Please pray for these leaders and their families. Support them and speak well of them. Their calls to these churchwide ministries are significant for our church body. They are also significant for the communities where God planted each of us as we ensure that our congregations are places where BIPOC neighbors know belonging in the body of Christ and unending love as God’s beloved children.
The Assembly ran from July 28-August 2. Over the course of the week, we:
- were invited by the American Indian and Alaska Native Lutheran Association to wear red to bring awareness to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls; approved a Memorial on Indian Boarding School Remembrance; recommitted to study for the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery; and learned by attending an Exhibition/Educational PowWow;
- adopted our newest Social Statement: Faith and Civic Life: For the Well-being of All - an excellent study resource that provides a solid framework for healthy conversations and adult studies in this time of political polarization;
- received the final report of the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church, along with the ELCA Church Council’s response to the report and constitutional revisions, adopted a memorial about Recommendation 1 of the CRLC, and directed further work to the Church Council.
- elected members for the Church Council and various Committees;
- affirmed the percentage goal of 20% youth & young adult voting membership of the Churchwide Assembly, Church Council, and churchwide boards and committees;
- thanked ELCA Church Council members concluding their terms, including our own Cherrish Holland, Spicer, who served on the Executive Committee and chaired the Budget & Finance Committee. (Continuing on the Church Council is Kristy Henrickson of Pipestone).
- attended a candlelight prayer vigil hosted by AMMPARO to remember refugees and immigrants;
- approved updates to the Social Statement, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, which focused on consistency and updating of language and the legality of marriage that has changed since 2009;
- approved the creation of an Association of Vice Presidents (yay, SW MN Synod VP Maria Lokensgard!).
- adopted a Memorial on Palestinian rights and Israel, joining the voices of the World Council of Churches and our Lutheran companions in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELC-JHL). You can visit here to learn more about the initiative called Sumud (which means steadfastness in Arabic).
- received the Common Statement on the study of Filioque clause (“and from the Son”) in the Nicene Creed, allowing for deeper understanding between the Lutheran World Federation and Orthodox churches, more than 1,000 years after the Great Schism of 1054;
- heard reports from Secretary Sue Rothmeyer and Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton;
I return from this churchwide assembly recognizing anew what a time of change this is for the church in the world. We carry into this new chapter the emphasis with which Bp. Eaton began and concluded her ministry: “We are church. We are Lutheran. We are church together. We are church for the sake of the world.” Those emphases were introduced to us in a visit to SW MN early in her ministry as presiding bishop.
This churchwide assembly, as always, included its moments of tension: confusion about the rules, the temptation to wordsmith on the fly, comments that harmed others and needed repentance, a recognition of the need for change and uncertainty about how that change might happen, and the need for prayer.
Perhaps the words of Martin Luther shared by Professor Chad Rimmer provide grace in our time:
“This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise; we are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished, but it is going on; this is not the end, but it is the road; all does not yet gleam with glory, but all is being purified.” Luther, Defense and Explanation of All the Articles (1521)
I return home repeatedly praying the words of the Nicene Creed, “For the life of the world to come.” Those last two words, “to come” can point to heavenly images, as in the next life, the “not yet.” But my seminary professor, Gerhard Forde (from Indherred Lutheran, rural Starbuck) always helped his students think about God’s reign not only as something in the sweet by and by, but as the world to come – God’s reign - breaking into the present right now. To illustrate that, Dr. Forde would draw two circles side by side, “old” on the left, “new” on the right, with the circle on the right moving in on the circle on the left so that they begin to intersect and show God’s reign breaking into the present. “The world to come” has been breaking into our lives in the reign of Jesus Christ and continues to do so. And every week in the Lord’s Prayer we pray that it may be so: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.” (Try saying that without the comma after “done” and feel the shift of movement into your life right now.)
Churchwide Assemblies will never be perfect. We are sinner-saints, after all. Like life, the church can be messy. We stand in the shadow of the cross. And we serve the One who gave his life for this world God loves so much.
