Leader of ELCA Higher Education and Schools to Retire

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. W. Robert Sorensen, executive director of the Division for Higher Education and Schools of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), announced his retirement at the division's board meeting here Sept. 24-26. Sorensen will retire at the end of the 1999-2000 academic year.
"It has been a great privilege, an honor, to have been the leader of this division, elected three times by you and affirmed by our presiding bishops, through all the years of the ELCA," Sorensen told the board.
Sorensen is responsible for the church's educational mission in 28 ELCA colleges and universities, in 2,100 ELCA congregations that operate early childhood centers, elementary and secondary schools, and in 144 campus ministries.
"The number of those in ELCA early childhood centers, elementary and secondary schools, campus ministries, colleges and universities has grown to about 500,000 children, youth, young adults and non-traditional learners since the beginning of the ELCA in 1987," Sorensen said.
The ELCA's Division for Higher Education and Schools "is a very strong division," said Sorensen.
"I can tell you no other denomination that has the strength in campus ministry as does the ELCA. I can tell you no other area of the church is growing more rapidly than that of our educational ministries through early childhood centers and schools. And no church body has the kind of relationship with its colleges and universities as do we. I know of nothing like it," Sorensen told the board.
Sorensen said the ELCA Division for Higher Education and Schools supports the highest quality of education for all students in both public and independent schools. "Lutherans are no enemies of secular education, but we do think it can be too narrow and lack intellectual freedom," he said.
"No education that probes only the deep things of the mind and ignores the deep longing of the human spirit, is an adequate education. No secular education that rules out questions about values and virtues, God and religion, the Spirit and service to others, is sufficient," he said.
"I have wanted to build a division with a second mark upon it, which is to integrate the Christian theological heritage rooted in Word and Sacrament into academic settings in order that the Christian story, and reflection upon it, will be a part of the learning experience in the institutions and ministries we serve," Sorensen added.
A graduate of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn., and Luther Northwestern Seminary (now Luther Seminary), St. Paul, Sorensen studied at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, from 1959 to 1960. He served as pastor of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Tabor, Minn., from 1960 to 1962, and pastor of St. James Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minn., from 1962 to 1966.
Sorensen was chaplain and adjunct professor of religion at Augustana College, Rock Island, Ill., from 1966 to 1973. From 1973 to 1979, he was campus pastor and adjunct professor of religion at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks. From there, Sorensen accepted a call as senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, Davenport, Iowa. In 1987, he was elected the first executive director for the ELCA Division for Education.
"I have reached the point where I want the freedom to do other things, including spending more time with my family. I may do some teaching. I may do some work in campus ministry or with schools. I may do something with other expressions of the church," Sorensen said.
"I may do some consultation or something entirely outside the church. I may live in Germany for a time. This two-world approach I have taken in my life leaves open a lot of options, but I want to do these things on my own schedule," he said.
Sorensen and his wife, Gwen, are the parents of three children -- Nicholas, Christopher and Katherine. They have four grandchildren -- Kendra, Jamial, Lindsay and Chelsey.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html