Lutheran Seminaries, Colleges and Services Discuss Connections

ST. PAUL, Minn. (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is related to eight seminaries, 28 colleges and universities and 280 social ministry organizations. About 100 representatives of those institutions, bishops and staff of the churchwide organization discussed their relationships with each other and the church -- and what those relationships could be -- at "Connecting Institutions," a conference held March 18-20 at Luther Seminary.
"This conference is about relationships," the Rev. Kenneth C. Senft, president, Mission Resource Institute, Gettysburg, Pa., said in opening remarks. "There will be a continuing need to consult with each other," he said.
The purpose of the conference was not to create new official relationships nor to draft amendments to the ELCA Constitution, said Senft, but to explore the content of those relationships and to study current and possible informal relationships.
Three ELCA divisions initiated the "Connecting Institutions" project and engaged the Mission Resource Institute to implement it. The Division for Church in Society relates to social ministry organizations; the Division for Higher Education and Schools relates to colleges and universities; and the Division for Ministry relates to seminaries.
For two years the institute has been "gathering information about the hopes and concerns, present experience and some of the issues important to many," said Senft, which he compiled into a written report. He called the conference "part two" of the project. The third and final part would be what comes from the conference -- "building the partnership," he said.
Participants engaged in a series of small group discussions based largely on the geographic regions in which they serve. They reported back with various suggestions on how the church's institutions can interrelate.
They said the colleges and seminaries can work with social ministry organizations to understand their workforces and to arrange internships. Colleges and outdoor ministry sites can act as retreat centers for "exhausted leaders," with courses related to the needs of social ministry organizations.
The ELCA's clergy and lay leaders can get more "face time" or exposure to the church's institutions if institutions design educational opportunities for those leaders. Institutions can connect through the offices of synod bishops. The ELCA's 11,000 congregations are organized into 65 synods.
Meetings related to the colleges and seminaries could coincide with those of Lutheran Services in America -- social ministry organizations of the ELCA and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. At such meetings, participants could develop plans to recruit, train and maintain the church's leaders.
The Rev. Thomas W. Hurlocker, retired executive director, Tressler Lutheran Services, Mechanicsburg, Pa., challenged the participants to examine the roots of their relationships and take concrete actions to improve them.
"The synods elect most of the members of our boards, but there is no model of how to do that," said Hurlocker, but there is no method for those members to report back to the synods.
Seminaries require those training for the ordained ministry to complete a year's internship in an ELCA congregation. Hurlocker asked them to consider meeting that requirement through an internship in a social ministry organization or hospital chaplaincy. "Sometimes Word and Sacrament ministry gets confined to just Sunday mornings behind the altar," he said.
"We are, in this country, in a crisis of biblical proportion," with children starving in one of the world's wealthiest nations and "with the gap widening between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots,'" Dr. Sara Melendez, president, Independent Sector, Washington, D.C., said in her keynote address. She said church institutions will need to collaborate as much as possible to be effective.
"First figure out where you want to be, what you want to do," she said. "Sometimes you find you are not able to do it alone."
"Collaboration is not an end; it is a means to an end," said Melendez. "What we should not do, in our rush to be more businesslike, is lose sight of our mission. Look for organizations that have missions compatible with yours."
Collaboration must begin with a clear idea of its outcome and time frame, and responsibilities of both parties must be clearly defined, she said. "If they both don't win, don't do it."
"The problem is not the will to collaborate," said Dr. Baird Tipson, president, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio. "The problem is that we have to find things to collaborate on in which our missions overlap."
"We don't think we can train pastors better than seminaries can. We don't think we can serve people better than social ministry organizations can," he said.
Tipson suggested that ELCA colleges create "social capital" from which the other institutions benefit. Graduates of ELCA colleges more closely relate to Lutheran institutions than graduates of public universities, he said.
The Rev. A. Donald Main, bishop of the ELCA's Upper Susquehanna Synod, said each of the church's synods has a unique perspective of how it relates to Lutheran schools and agencies. In spite of that diversity, synods and other institutions share a common mission, he said. "We are brothers and sisters, and our parent is the gospel."
"We need to have intentional conversations from time to time to look at what is happening in our part of God's world," said Main. He suggested that synods could assume the role of initiating those conversations and that the church's camps and retreat centers be included.
"I'm suffering from collaboration fatigue," said the Rev. Timothy F. Lull, president of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif. He estimates that already he spends 20 hours each week maintaining collaborative relationships.
"Collaboration is labor intensive and resource draining," said Lull. "Let's collaborate when it is really in our mutual best interest."
"The central question for us is what does it mean for the Lutheran church to be in mission," he said. "What does our church need of us? What does the world need of us?"
"The Lutheran church has a churchly mission and a worldly mission -- a mission beyond preaching the gospel and administering sacraments," said Lull, adding that the Lutheran church can play a part in teaching society greater tolerance and mutual respect.
In his presentation, "What in the World Can Institutions do for the Church?" the Rev. David L. Tiede, president of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., said the different institutions of the church are similar in mission.
"They read the Book. Jesus said preach the gospel, teach and heal," said Tiede. "We are connected in the Body of Christ, and each is a member of it."
"Our institutions are the embodiment of the Lutheran argument of 'the priesthood of all believers,'" Tiede said. "You are the ELCA in higher education. You are the ELCA in social service. You are the ELCA in financial services. We all have a huge stake in who your successors will be."
"What does it mean for the Lutheran church to be in mission? We have to ask that question in every congregation," said Tiede. "The church's public mission is at the door of every worshiping community."
"Our public mission is about to enter a dramatically new realm," he said. "We will argue about what is real, and perhaps we should."
In the past, the church saw a need and created an institution to meet it, said Edith M. Lohr, executive director, Lutheran Social Services of New England, Natick, Mass. "The institutions were emotionally owned by the people in the congregations. That natural connectedness no longer exists."
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