June 2006
e-Update for ELCA Rostered Leaders
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Grace to you and peace.
This email update is one in a series to keep you informed about the activities of the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality. Its purpose is to provide information so that you and those you serve will be well prepared to participate in the development of the proposed social statement on human sexuality.
As you are aware a draft social statement on human sexuality will be brought to the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in 2009. There are three major steps ELCA Lutherans will need to take together to reach that point:
1. Participate in a theological and substantive study of human sexuality and give response back to the task force (December 2006 - November 2007)
2. Receive a first draft of a social statement and respond to the task force (Spring 2008 - Fall 2008)
3. Receive and respond through synod council resolutions, memorials and Churchwide Assembly actions to the draft social statement which will come before the 2009 Churchwide Assembly (Spring 2009 - August 2009)
On the 2nd Sunday of Easter the task force wrapped up its spring meeting and authorized the general shape of step one above: the study on human sexuality. A group of task force writers is now at work on that task. This study will be available on December 1, 2006, and will be available from this website as well as in hard copy. Hard copies may be pre-ordered through the Augsburg Fortress website by clicking here (Item Number 6000216645, $1.50).
Through this study, the task force hopes to offer a clear theological framework in which to carry out this discussion as a church of the Lutheran tradition. Through your responses to the study, the task force desires to gain a better sense of the concerns, issues and urgency of the ethical decisions facing faithful ELCA Lutherans on matters of human sexuality. It also hopes to probe the resources members call upon to make those decisions, and where they hope to find guidance from the church. This is to be a study of human sexuality, and all of its gifts and challenges.
The task force hopes that every sector of the church will set aside time to engage in thoughtful reflection and moral deliberation using the study as a guide. We recommend that you plan for an educational setting such as a weekend retreat or a six to eight session format. The study booklet will include an accompanying bible study, which is integral to the study, and also usable on its own for synod assemblies, pastors' retreats, women's groups, youth events, and other gatherings.
Response forms, which will be available on paper and through this website, are due sixteen months from now: November 1, 2007.
Undertaking the study and responding to the task force are the most important requests the task force will make of you for the next year and a half. It is only upon completion of the study that the task force will shape a first draft of a proposed social statement. That draft will then be broadly available throughout the church for many months for response. It is finally then that the proposed social statement will be completed and considered by the ELCA Church Council in its April 2009 meeting for distribution in the church, for consideration at synod assemblies, and to be forwarded to the Churchwide Assembly for action.
As always you may check this website for updated and further information, including the complete time line. However, the most important dates for you to remember and plan for at this time are December 1, 2006, and November 1, 2007.
On behalf of the members of the task force and the Churchwide staff who accompany them, I give thanks for your faithfulness and the blessing you are to the church. Let us hold one another in thoughtful prayer during these next years of moral deliberation on this important matter.
In Christ,
Rev. Rebecca Larson, Executive Director
Church in Society, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America