CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The response to "Dial Bishop Anderson," recorded telephone messages from the Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), "reached beyond our expectations with an overwhelming average of 4,000 calls each month," according to the Rev. Eric C. Shafer, director for communication.
The brief messages are seasonal and devotional and contain "updates about what's hot in the church." Anderson's messages are changed on the first and 15th of every month on a Chicago number -- (773) 380-2930. The service began last year on May 1.
In a message on volunteerism Anderson said, "In conversations with pastors and lay leaders I often hear that nobody is volunteering any more. Yet statistics show that 93 million Americans give over 201 billion dollars' worth of time every year. What's going on?"
Anderson continued: "We could argue that people have more causes bidding for their time these days, so religion is losing out. But whatever the trend is, religion is by far the largest beneficiary among the more than one million independent sector institutions in this country.
Our church has seen the power of volunteers in many areas. More than 90 people are serving overseas in projects of our Division for Global Mission. At home dozens of Mission Builders volunteer their construction skills for church buildings. Domestic Disaster Response benefits from thousands of volunteers each year, and hundreds of young people join Lutheran Volunteer Corps or similar organizations. We are just beginning to discover the talents that our members are willing to share," said Anderson.
This month Anderson thinks about "battleships and missionaries." He says, "... we can't judge the strength of our global mission by the standards we used to have. It's like naval power. We used to judge the naval strength of a country by the number of battleships it had. But airplanes and missiles have changed the strategy of naval warfare, just as developments on the mission field have changed the strategy of world mission. The fastest-growing areas of Christianity today are those former mission fields where local converts have taken over spreading the message of Jesus Christ."
In other messages Anderson has talked about worship in the ELCA, the loneliness of Christmas, and high school students in the "real world." In May the bishop shared highlights from the mail that crosses his desk.
"Members of the ELCA like the personal message and they can hear Bishop Anderson's thoughts at any hour, day and night," said Shafer.
Audio recordings and printed text of the bishop's messages are also available on the World Wide Web at http://www.elca.org/ob/dial.html.
For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director 1-773-380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html
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About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
For information contact:
Candice Hill Buchbinder
Public Relations Manager
Candice.HillBuchbinder@ELCA.org
