Background Reading

• Outcomes for the Churchwide Organization   [March 2005] Provides direction for 2006-2007 biennium for ELCA churchwide expression 

• Ecclesiology, Mission and Structure  [April 2004] An essay by the Rev. H. George Anderson, former ELCA presiding bishop 

• Context for Ministry  [May 2003] A report by Kenneth Inskeep, ELCA Research and Evaluation, providing contextual information gathered during the strategic planning process 

• The Future of ELCA Institutions  [January 2005] A keynote address by ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson

"What Does It Mean to be Church?"
Reports to ELCA Cabinet of Executives [December 2002]

• Gathered and Scattered: Worship and Service as What it Means to be the Church
  - Martha E. Stortz, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
  
• What Does it Mean to Be "Church"?
  - Mark Allan Powell, Trinity Lutheran Seminary
  
• Mission of the ELCA in the First Decade of the Third Millenium
  - Winston Persaud, Wartburg Theological Seminary

Other Responses

• The Difficult But Indispensable Church
  - Winston Persaud (Augsburg Fortress, 2002), pp. 191-198, 256-7.
• An ELCA Mission Statement [2003]
  - Marc Kolden, Luther Seminary
• ELCA Strategic Planning [January 2003]
  - Diane Jacobson, Luther Seminary
• Communio Ecclesiology and the Cross Limits Possibilities [2003]
  - Vítor Westhelle, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

Essays on the Ministry of Word and Sacrament
The ELCA Conference of Bishops engaged in a yearlong study on “the ministry of Word and Sacrament – Ordained and Authorized Lay Ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” These four papers were prepared for the October 2003 meeting of the Conference of Bishops as resources to the bishops in their reflection and discussion. This first set of papers is on the meaning and function of call and ordination in the life of this church from the perspective of the theologians’ academic disciplines – Scripture, Confessions, Liturgy and Mission.

• The End of the Public Office of Ministry in the Lutheran Confessions 
  - Timothy Wengert, The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
• Authorization for Ministry and the Lutheran Confessions 
  - Timothy Wengert, The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
• A Liturgical Perspective on the Meaning and Function of Call and Ordination in the Life of This Church 
  - Thomas H. Schattauer, Wartburg Theological Seminary
• Ordination for All Who Exercise the Ministry of Word and Sacrament: A Practice and its Implications 
  - Thomas H. Schattauer, Wartburg Theological Seminary
• Ordination and Scripture 
  - Sarah Henrich, Luther Seminary
• Ordination and Scripture — Addendum 
  - Sarah Henrich, Luther Seminary
• Ordination from the Perpective of Mission 
  - Maria Erling, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg
• Ministry and Lay Presidency from a Mission Perspective 
  - Maria Erling, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg