ELCA Higher Education, Schools Board Continues Strategic Planning

KENOSHA, Wis. (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has a "precious" understanding of the connection between faith and education, said Dr. Leonard G. Schulze, executive director of the ELCA Division for Higher Education and Schools (DHES). It is the division's responsibility to lift up that understanding, he said following the DHES board meeting March 9-11 here at Carthage College.
Schulze, who was elected executive director in 2000, and DHES staff are working with the board on strategic planning for the division. The basis for the process is understanding the connections between the church and education, he said.
DHES provides programs and support for the ELCA's education ministries, including affiliated colleges and universities, campus ministries, early childhood education centers, and elementary and secondary schools. There are 200 elementary and 30 secondary schools operated by ELCA congregations throughout the United States and the Caribbean. About 2,000 congregations operate early childhood education centers.
Last fall the board and staff discussed the division's mission. The March meeting focused on the changing environment in which the division is called to serve, Schulze said. Later, the board and staff will discuss the resources available and those that need to be developed to achieve the mission, he said.
Among the items the board discussed was a possible new mission statement which should drive the division's work, Schulze said.
"We're sharpening our sense of the purpose that the church has in supporting this division," Schulze said. "I think this is a faithful approach to our work."
In a presentation on societal trends, Kenneth W. Inskeep, director, ELCA Department for Research and Evaluation, said enrollment in grade schools is increasing significantly in the western United States and the number of ELCA campus ministry settings declined during the last decade. These and other environmental factors identified by Inskeep, along with a refined mission statement, will define the division's agenda, Schulze said.
The board also heard a report on the church's history in homosexuality issues from the Rev. Joseph M. Wagner, executive director, ELCA Division for Ministry. Wagner's appearance resulted from a board action last September, in which members said they would devote agenda time to "serious discussion" of issues of "rostering sexual minority persons in ministry." The ELCA maintains official rosters of its ordained and lay ministers. The church expects gay and lesbian ministers to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships, according to its policies. In recent years some people in the church have questioned these policies, suggesting they discriminate.
The Division for Ministry is promoting conversation in the church on a wide range of issues related to homosexuality, Wagner said.
"What we are trying to do is have moderated, even-handed, non- judgmental conversation in our church on this issue," he said. "We want to be very careful this conversation involves as much of our church as possible."
In a discussion that followed, Wagner said the division's strategy is to be deliberate and careful. The strategy is "not a strategy of delay," he added.
Board members expressed concern that the church's language may discriminate against gay and lesbian people by putting issues in "us vs. them" terms, and that some of the church's educational resources include so-called "ex-gay" ministries.
Later in the meeting the board adopted a resolution suggesting possible revisions in the church's policy document for ordained ministers. The wording may be considered if the ELCA permits ordination of gay and lesbian people in committed relationships, the resolution said.
The board resolution suggested that gay and lesbian ordained ministers must be in lifelong committed relationships. These pastors "are expected to live in fidelity to their partners, giving expression to sexual intimacy within a lifelong committed relationship that is mutual, chaste and faithful," the suggested wording said.
In other actions, the DHES board:
+ reviewed a request from Trinity Lutheran College, Issaquah, Wash., to become affiliated with the ELCA. Twenty-eight colleges and universities are presently affiliated with the ELCA. It has been nearly 40 years since a college or university sought to be affiliated with the church, and criteria need to be developed, said David L. Wee, board member, Northfield, Minn. The ELCA Church Council will make any final determination on Trinity's request, said Wee, who chairs the board's colleges and universities committee.
+ adopted a resolution thanking the Rev. Patricia J. Lull for her service as director for campus ministry, DHES. Lull recently accepted a call to serve as dean of students at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn. Luther is one of eight ELCA seminaries.
+ elected Raymond L. Bailey, Fort Collins, Colo., as board chair. Bailey succeeds the Rev. John G. Andreasen, Fargo, N.D., as chair. Andreasen's term on the board will expire at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August. Kristine F. Hughey, Wallingford, Pa., was elected vice chair and Dean Baldwin, Erie, Pa., was elected secretary. Other members elected to the executive committee are Jennifer Peterson, Austin, Tex., and Rod Schofield, Colorado Springs, Colo.
Carthage College is a college of the ELCA. ELCA churchwide offices are in Chicago.

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