ELCA Consults Young Adult Lutherans of African Descent

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA) brought together 32 young adult Lutherans of African
descent from across the United States here Jan. 6-7 to encourage
them as church leaders and to seek their advice on attracting
more young adults and more people of color to the ELCA.
ELCA Multicultural Ministries hosted "Breaking the Barriers:
An African Descent Young Adult Consultation" at the Lutheran
School of Theology at Chicago with funding from Thrivent
Financial for Lutherans and the ELCA Leadership Initiative.
Participants were between the ages of 19 and 35.
The Rev. Julius Carroll IV, director for African American
ministries, ELCA Multicultural Ministries, said ELCA
congregations, the majority of whose members are of African
descent, were asked to nominate young adults for the
consultation. He said the purposes of the consultation were to
introduce them to the churchwide structure and opportunities for
ministry in the ELCA and "to hear from them what barriers prevent
them from being active within their congregations."
Participants said the older members of their congregations
tend to hold on to their roles in the congregations or insist
that those roles not change, Carroll said. Many congregations
are not open to new things, like a Sunday afternoon "hip hop"
service, he said. Participants also said they were unaware of
all the ministry opportunities in the ELCA.
Carroll said participants wrestled to recognize their gifts.
"They realized that everybody doesn't have every gift, and
everybody has at least one. They celebrated that," he said.
One goal for the consultation's organizers was for at least
five young adults to say they would consider ordained or lay
ministry in the ELCA, Carroll said. Eighteen of the 32 said they
would consider professional church careers, he said.
Carroll said several of the young adults formed a planning
team that will work to involve more young Lutherans of African
descent in similar discussions.

Culture-Specific Church Wants to be Multicultural
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, spoke to the
group about the challenges of leading a church that is
approximately 97 percent white and has an expressed goal of being
multicultural and antiracist.
"I try to be with young adults whenever I can because I come
away with a sense of hopefulness for the church," Hanson said.
"When I'm with young adults, I pick up on your restlessness with
the way things are. You know that this is not the way God
intends the church to be or the world to be," he said.
"You want to be a part of a church that's making a
difference in people's lives. I see a restlessness with
bureaucracy among young adults," Hanson said.
When three Lutheran churches merged to form the ELCA in
1988, they set a 10-year goal of having a membership that was 10
percent people of color and people whose primary language was not
English. In recent years the ELCA has set strategic directions
that committed the church to "confront the scandalous realities
of all of the 'isms' that divide us, including racism, and that
we will ardently pursue our commitment to becoming a
multicultural church and a church that reflects age diversity,"
Hanson said.
"The commitments are there," he said. "Why are we having so
much trouble achieving them?"
Hanson offered several answers to his question, saying many
in the ELCA don't understand why it has set these goals. "Too
often we white folks think we need people of color to shore up
the declining membership of a largely white church," he said.
Rather than "survival," he said the real goal is to transform the
church.
To become a multicultural church the ELCA must first
confront racism, Hanson said. "Too often we white folks say
racism is a problem persons of color must solve on our behalf,
and we put the burden of racism on your shoulders rather than
take responsibility for it," he said.
A recent restructuring of the ELCA churchwide organization
placed the church's antiracism work in the Office of the
Presiding Bishop. "I come to great power and great privilege
because I am a white male in this church and this society,"
Hanson said. "Unless I confront that white privilege every day,
I can't expect the church to confront it in its institutional
life, its congregational life, in the lives of individuals," he
said.
It will take more than a weekend of antiracism training to
dismantle endemic racism in the ELCA, Hanson said. "We're
beginning to ask what a church committed to be antiracist and
multicultural looks like, so that antiracism work is part of the
very fabric of its daily life, and that's hard work."
"Largely white congregations in a largely white church are
simply unwilling to confront the realities of how we will be
changed by virtue of the presence of persons of color in our
midst," Hanson said. Many white congregations welcome people of
color, "but if you choose to stay we expect you to become
increasingly like us," he said. "That's not a biblical view of
transformation."
The ELCA does better with "ethnic, cultural, language-
specific congregations than we do at becoming truly multicultural
as a church," Hanson said. "It's sociologically understandable,"
he said. "We don't want to acknowledge the sociological function
that religion plays in our lives -- that it preserves culture and
identity."
Hanson used new immigrants from Africa as an example,
needing to preserve their culture, identity and traditions by
proclaiming the gospel in their mother tongue. "We are called to
be multicultural, multi-lingual, a Pentecost people each in their
own language proclaiming the mighty deeds of God but each hearing
the other in that proclamation. So, the step from being culture-
specific to multicultural is a huge and difficult step."
Hanson cited Dr. Justo Gonzalez, former director, Hispanic
Summer Program, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, saying
the ELCA's motivation to become multicultural must be "the
realization that we are not fully whole." The ELCA will not
experience the complete body of Christ without "the other," he
said. "As the other comes into our midst there we meet Christ,
often for the first time or often again."

The Realities of Leadership in the ELCA
"Who will be America's next top model?" the Rev. Lamont A.
Wells, Lutheran Church of the Atonement, Atlanta, asked during
opening worship. He referred to a popular television program,
suggesting that young adults find their models among those who
serve God in church and community. Wells challenged the
participants to serve as those models for others.
"Doing God's will will usually involve a risk," he said.
"What are you going to do, even if you must stand alone, to
answer God's call at this hour?"
The Rev. M. Wyvetta Bullock, executive for leadership
development, ELCA Office of the Presiding Bishop, presented data
that illustrated the church's need for greater involvement of
young adults of color. "Your generation has come of age at a
critical time in the life of the church," she said.
Bullock said less than three percent of the ELCA's clergy
are people of color, and the church of 4.85 million members has
fewer than 170 people of color in the process to become clergy.
"You are already called" to be leaders, Bullock told the
participants, and she invited them to explore leadership roles in
the church. She outlined several qualities of a leader,
including being Christ-centered. "If you are not grounded in who
and whose you are, it will hurt," she said.
Bullock said clergy of color tend to be paid less than
church compensation guidelines in the ELCA, take little vacation
and work long hours. Part of their work is to break down
cultural, gender, socioeconomic