ELCA chaplains convene for education and training

CHICAGO (ELCA) – Traveling from as far away as Hawaii and Germany, 70 chaplains from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) convened in Chicago for the annual Chaplain Education and Training Event July 26-30. The chaplains, some of whom have recently returned from deployments in Afghanistan, Colombia and Djibouti, serve in the U.S. military, Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals and federal prisons.
“One strategic aim is to deepen connections between chaplaincy ministries and congregations, synods, ELCA churchwide colleagues, agencies and institutions,” said the Rev. Eric Wester, assistant to the ELCA presiding bishop and director of ELCA federal chaplaincies.
“Our chaplains bring word and sacrament ministries into isolated and restricted places – whether deployed or afloat with military personnel, at VA hospitals or in federal prisons. This gospel ministry extends the witness of congregations and all expressions of the ELCA.”
In her opening remarks to the chaplains, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton said the church could learn a lot from the chaplains and their ministry among people of different faiths and cultures.
“My guess is that every single one of your ministries is a multicultural ministry, in that the people whom you serve are not mono-cultural. But our church is now 94 percent white,” said Eaton. “Maybe the first step is, how do we start to have a conversation about race in this church? You do it all the time. And we need your help to help our folks open our eyes in new ways and find ways that we can actually get to know people who are not looking just like us.”
Eaton stressed to the chaplains how their ministry is connected to her four emphases for the ELCA: “We are church, we are Lutheran, we are church together, and we are church for the sake of the world.”
“When we think of ourselves as church, we are the people of God gathered around word and sacrament. We are the baptized body of Christ. We’re not just a social service agency with sacraments,” said Eaton. “How are we able to say that my life makes sense because of the love of God I’ve experienced in Jesus Christ? Maybe that’s something you can help us with as well. Because my guess is when someone is sitting in the prison cell and the chaplain comes by, they might want to be talking about Jesus. And when you’re talking to soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast Guard personnel, especially in Afghanistan or other places around the world, they probably want to talk about Jesus and not just other things we do as a church.
“People in the parish cannot be in the places where you serve, so we’re counting on you to do that for us. And you need to count on us to be giving you support from the places where we are. And we’re not just congregations, or conferences or synods but a churchwide expression. We also have agencies, institutions, universities and seminaries. We do this together,” said Eaton.
Maj. Gen. Howard Stendahl, U.S. Air Force chief of chaplains and an ELCA pastor, said he is “proud to be a part of this community of faith.” In an interview, Stendahl spoke of Eaton’s leadership, saying the bishop “nurtures a culture of fidelity and faithfulness to the gospel.” Stendahl said he views that faithfulness as “a hospitality of the soul of every person that celebrates the gospel, in a way that shows a hospitality as opposed to judgment (or) fear or exclusion.”
“Over the years I’ve worked with vastly diverse clergy and audiences and people of no faith. No threat comes to me from someone who has a different faith. Sometimes people or a religious faith can insist or even demand their own way and look at others with judgment in hospitality. I never saw Jesus do that. When there was a need, he fed them, healed them, whatever their needs were at that time,” said Stendahl.
During the event, workshop sessions focused on important ministry responsibilities for the chaplains. Topics included leading worship in public and institutional settings, pastoral care for those navigating moral injury, innovative use of the ELCA’s Book of Faith initiative, ministry to same-gender families and engaging young adults.
Wester said the chaplains also celebrated their commitment to the chaplaincy scholarship with the ELCA Fund for Leaders.
“In our first year, chaplains offered over $60,000 toward our five-year goal of $300,000 as part of the Always Being Made New: The Campaign for the ELCA,” said Wester. “We expect to present our first seminary scholarship in 2016.”
The ELCA Fund for Leaders is an ELCA initiative to build an endowed scholarship resource to provide tuition assistance for qualified candidates studying at ELCA seminaries and is one of 10 priorities of The Campaign for the ELCA, a five-year comprehensive effort.
“I think it’s a very exciting time to be in chaplaincy and serving the church,” said Col. Michael T. Lembke, an ELCA pastor who serves as chaplain at the U.S. Southern Command in Doral, Fla. “I’m perfectly able to go back to my place in Florida to tell the story about what the ELCA is doing. I understand where the bishop wants to go.
“The fact [is] that we can be who we are in our tradition, with liturgies and lectionary, to use the word and means of grace and to understand the context in which we are,” said Lembke. “And that’s where the mutual feeding between the churchwide and the chaplaincies is great because there are plenty of commonalities and there are also some unique (aspects of ministry) that we learn from each other.”
Recruiting the next generation of chaplains is another strategic aim for the chaplaincy ministry and was a major topic of discussion during the event.
“Twenty years ago, over 400 practicing chaplains served in the military, VA hospitals and federal prisons,” said Wester. “Now the ELCA has barely 200 pastors serving in chaplaincy, and we need more. Lutherans are going without Word and Sacrament ministry due to insufficient numbers of pastors serving in federal chaplaincy. For pastors open to serving in a public, global, institutional ministry and interested in young adults – chaplaincy is a great path of service.”
For Chaplain Maj. Kerstin Hedlund, an ELCA pastor and army reservist who serves at Lake Park Lutheran in Milwaukee and also at chaplain school in Fort Jackson, S.C., the event illustrated how the ELCA “affirms and encourages” the chaplaincy ministry, “not making it seem like a lesser route to take or less Lutheran route to take. That it’s a very Lutheran route to take, a very enriching and positive thing for the world and for the military and for people who really need a Lutheran voice in a place where they don’t have it.”
“The ELCA is a treasure for those of us who are in specialized ministry,” said Stendahl. They don’t abandon us or send us off. But events like this keep us rooted in our lifelong fidelity of the church ... it’s priceless.”