ELCA Board Reviews African American Outreach Strategy

MUNDELEIN, Ill. (ELCA) -- Since 1993, when the Division for Outreach of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) began developing ethnic-specific strategies, a team of African American Lutherans has been crafting an African American Outreach Strategy. The division's board reviewed the strategy when it met here March 3-5.
Lutheran church bodies have developed 11 African American strategies over the past 50 or 60 years, said the Rev. E. Taylor Harmon, associate executive director of the ELCA Division for Outreach (DO). "We found them covered by dust," he said.
Harmon told the board the African American Outreach Strategy is not a report nor a five-year project but a work in progress. He said many of its recommendations will become part of the division's regular programs in 2001.
The African American Outreach Strategy is "to provide a vision and plan of action that guides the Division for Outreach in its efforts to provide leadership and support to synods and congregations as they reach out in witness to the gospel with and among African Americans in diverse socioeconomic contexts," stated the strategy. The ELCA's 11,000 congregations are organized into 65 synods.
The strategy is meant "to provide a framework for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the division's programmatic activities in developing new congregations and supporting existing congregations in the African American context."
Harmon said a significant element of the strategy is that it is the work of African American Lutherans. "This board said you take the lead, and we'll take the risks together," he said. The team has met twice a year.
The team gathered statistics and other information about African Americans -- population spread and growth, economics, education, religious affiliation, and church and unchurched analyses -- to begin with a clear picture of the context in which they were to work.
One-third of the 230 Black ELCA congregations are without a pastor, Harmon told the board. Most of those have no hope of paying a pastor under their current economic conditions, he said.
Team members are now working in three groups to address leadership issues, as well as issues concerning new and existing congregations.
The Division for Outreach administers capital funds for loans, real estate acquisitions and building programs in support of new ministries and congregations in areas served by ELCA synods.
"The myth is that, if you are a Black congregation, you're on the dole to DO. That's not the case," said Harmon. A third of Black ELCA congregations receive the division's assistance.
"Most of these congregations are not going to make it, even with DO dollars," he said. "It's going to take a radical new direction."
About 98 percent of the ELCA membership is White. Although African American Lutherans have taken the lead in developing the strategy, Harmon reminded the board that the whole church must be involved in carrying it out.
"Black folk are at the table, but that doesn't mean you can get up and go do something else," he said. "It can change if we work together ... if we're clear about our direction ... strong new and existing congregations."
"This church really wants to be a multicultural, inclusive and diverse church," said Harmon. It has begun thinking with people -- not about people -- engaging everyone in making decisions. "It's risky business. It's bold business," he said.
Harmon referred to another report the board received on Theological Education for Emerging Ministries (TEEM) from the Rev. Gregory J. Villalon, director for multicultural leadership development, ELCA Division for Ministry. Harmon called TEEM "a small step but a major breakthrough."
Villalon said TEEM recently changed its name from "alternate route." It was seen as a 'quickie route' because we need a body in an ethnic ministry," he said. The new name more clearly describes the program as providing theological education on and off ELCA seminary campuses to prepare leaders in new ELCA ministry settings for ordination, he said.
"How do we educate people without pulling them out of their context and then putting them back after they've forgotten what they were doing?" Villalon asked.
The TEEM program allows some seminary requirements to be fulfilled through "distance learning," through mentors and through church institutions near the new ministry, he said. Candidates devote a similar amount of time to TEEM as those who attend a seminary full-time.
TEEM candidates do not volunteer to be part of the program, said Villalon. They are usually identified by bishops or ELCA mission directors.
"I am excited. Although the steps are small and the journey long, the church is at a place where the units are working together, and we're beginning to see things happening across the country," he said.
Harmon told the board about another project, "Proclaiming the Power 2000," sponsored by the African American Lutheran Association, the Commissions for Multicultural Ministries and Women, and the Divisions for Church in Society, Congregational Ministries, Global Mission and Outreach.
Proclaiming the Power is meant to "strengthen African American/Black, Caribbean and African ministries in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America."
Seven two-day conferences are being planned across the United States this year, and one is planned for 2001 in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The first three will be held May 5-6 in Los Angeles, May 12-13 in Chicago and June 2-3 in Toledo, Ohio.
The African American Outreach Strategy team includes Josselyn Bennett, ELCA Division for Church in Society, Chicago; the Rev. M. Wyvetta Bullock, ELCA Division for Congregational Ministries, Chicago; Valora Starr Butler, Women of the ELCA, Chicago; the Rev. Eric Campbell, ELCA Commission for Multicultural Ministries; the Rev. James Capers, Southeastern Synod, Atlanta; the Rev. Joseph Donnella, Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pa.; the Rev. Will Herzfeld, ELCA Division for Global Mission, Chicago; the Rev. Sherman Hicks, First Trinity Lutheran Church, Washington, D.C.; the Rev. Raymond LeBlanc, First Lutheran Church, Carson, Calif.; the Rev. Craig Lewis, Central Lutheran Church, Minneapolis; Sylvia Pate, Dayton, Ohio; James Sims, Vallejo, Calif.; Gaylord Thomas, ELCA Division for Church in Society, Chicago; the Rev. James Thomas, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Bronx, N.Y.; the Rev. Booker Vance, St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Chicago; and the Rev. Joseph Walker Jr., Spirit of the Living God Ministries, Birmingham, Ala.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
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