Fresh Approaches to ELCA Training
When the Rev. Carla Christopher is asked why she is effective at serving the Lower Susquehanna Synod in Pennsylvania, she does not mention her theological training. Rather, she points to a range of other experiences, skill sets and studies, including community organizing, poetry and psychology.
Christopher, an assistant to the bishop, embodies a crucial theme that emerged from the interviews Fuller Theological Seminary and the Barna Group conducted to inform the work of God’s Love Made Real: In the ELCA, leaders need more holistic education to meet the present moment. It’s time to rethink, refocus and reorganize educational systems and structures.
Though many rostered ministers in the ELCA report strong personal well-being, Barna’s research also finds they are showing signs of strain and a sense of being ill-equipped. Rostered ministers and lay leaders alike often don’t receive substantial instruction in some of the most-needed skills for a thriving ministry today, such as change management, volunteer training, cultural competencies, partnership building and more.
Christopher asserts, “The future of the church is in trauma-informed practice.” She notes factors such as the rise of gun violence that make young people feel unsafe and require ministers who can offer them more than just “niceness.”
Pillars of ELCA education could exist alongside new and innovative forms of training that address the ever-evolving needs of the denomination and of the people it is trying to reach. Deacon Ross Murray, whose LGBTQ+ advocacy ministry finds him at GLAAD, notes that other current priority areas of the ELCA (such as becoming more welcoming and inviting) will also be challenging if they are not addressed early through education. “Unlearning culture or theology is very difficult,” he says.
A helpful perspective comes from Sister Noreen Stevens, who recently retired as directing deaconess of the ELCA Deaconess Community. She speaks of education as two layers: understanding what is going on and understanding how to enact change. Both are needed, she believes, in that order.
Growing in the “how” could occur through apprenticeship-based or mentoring models, field learning and other experiential forms of engagement that go beyond intellectual training alone.
Whether speaking of seminaries and universities, or microcredentials and nondegreed training, a new understanding of ELCA educational systems could help to strengthen the competency and reinforce the longevity of leaders — allowing them to be more effective and resilient in the work to which God has called them.
