Hospitality Amid Election Frenzy
Ellie Kunkel, Matt Clay, Angela Schubert, and Emily Moss attend Ecumenical Advocacy Days 2007.
In the run up to the 2008 presidential primaries, the ELCA Washington Offi ce coordinated a nonpartisan civic engagement tour.
ELCA leaders and members gathered in church basements and on ELCA college campuses across Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada in late 2007.
Vicar Trish Volberding attended a November 2007 event at St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she is the pastoral intern.
“The election atmosphere in Iowa is very unique,” said Volberding, a seminarian from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. “It’s been interesting for me to see all the frenzy and what goes on here [in Iowa].”
She found the event at St. Andrew “really interesting” because she heard from ELCA members who had effected policy change through persistent efforts.
She also heard about St. Stephen’s, an ELCA congregation across town that planned to provide space for both Republican and Democratic presidential caucuses in January. For years, St. Stephen’s has been a polling station, with members serving as poll workers and poll watchers, and providing hospitality for voters.
Did You Know?
There are 18 Lutherans in the U.S. Congress: 3 in the Senate and 15 in the House of Representatives. Fourteen are members of the ELCA.
Called to Be a Public Church is intended to encourage congregations to participate in voter registration drives, voter mobilization campaigns, and poll monitoring.
Your offerings help support ELCA efforts to involve Lutherans at the grassroots level on issues such as affordable health care and housing, fair rural development, farming and trade policies.
“ELCA advocacy ministries strive to do what Jesus and the prophets did and call us to do in the Bible—work for justice by advocating on behalf of those in need,” said Andrew Genszler, ELCA director for advocacy. “We work for just policies aimed at preserving God’s creation and breaking the cycles that keep people in poverty.”