May 25, 2007 

Dear Partners in Ministry,

Cacophony is the theme of this assembly, and to sort out the various happenings, I decided to send some observations and reflections in anticipation of these two days together.

The Reminders
Registration More than 500 of you are registered, but for about 100—well—lots of the workshop sessions are full and the meals are about to be ordered!!! Please register now!
Offering from the opening worship is for Lutheran Campus Ministry, by vote from last year’s assembly. This ministry celebrates 100 years and is being celebrated throughout the ELCA this year.

Cacophony of the Generations: A Pentecost Gathering is the theme of the assembly. The Pentecost theme of Spirit presence—“your young will dream dreams, your old will see visions”—and the often bewildering confluence of different generations, traditions, nations, and experiences in the church will surround us. Cacophony? Or something else?

Dr. Diane Jacobson (Old Testament, Luther Seminary) will anchor us in Scripture on the first day. Diane has recently been asked to serve as director half-time of the ELCA’s “Book of Faith: Lutherans Read the Bible” initiative, assuming its launch at the August Churchwide Assembly.

The Rev. Hal Weldin will give the keynote address the next day. Hal is also on the faculty of Luther Seminary, serving as director of the Children Youth and Family Ministry degree program and director for the Exemplary Youth Ministry research team.  

So not only will we explore “cacophony” in the mix of the generations in our church, we will add to it an unprecedented presence and experience of...

The Global Church!
Guatemala For nearly a year we have been planning that this assembly would provide the occasion for the people of this synod to become acquainted with our newest companion synod, the Augustinian Lutheran Synod of Guatemala, and its president, Padre Horacio Castillo. He and his wife, Pastor Esther de Castillo, will be with us in plenary and workshop. Iringa, Tanzania  Then we learned that at a board meeting early this spring, the leadership of Tumaini University-Iringa determined to come and say thanks to this synod in person, namely, in the person of Bishop Mdegella and the provost of the University, Dr. Bangu. The number of voices at this assembly grows!

A Global Ordination!!
You may have noticed in News and Information, the weekly e-newsletter of the synod, that a few weeks ago the announcement came that there would be an ordination at our opening worship service. Here is the rest of the story.

Those of you who have been to Guatemala have met Amanda Olson de Castillo. Amanda was a 2003 graduate of Luther Seminary and was awarded the Preaching Fellowship, given to one graduate annually to spend a year anywhere in the world to expand preaching skills. She went to Guatemala, learned Spanish, and became immersed in the life of the new Lutheran synod in that country—the Augustinian Lutheran Church of Guatemala (Iglesia Luterana Agustina de Guatemala or ILAG). She didn’t return, stayed, became more involved, and along the way wed the son of the president of that church, Horacio Darynel Castillo They were married in her home church in Northfield.

It became clear that she was playing an increasingly important pastoral role in that place, and ordination was the obvious next step. There were considerable conversations and negotiations about whether this would best be done as an ELCA ordination as a missionary or an ordination of the Guatemalan church, accompanied by a commissioning by ILAG’s ELCA partners. The latter route was chosen.

So we will have an ordination—Amanda will be ordained by Padre Horacio Castillo, with both Bishop Mdegella and me participating, along with a representative of the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA (ILAG’s other companion synod), and ELCA’s Global Mission director of the Latin America/Caribbean Continental Desk, Pastor Raquel Rodriguez. Unlike some ordinations you’ve been at, we aren’t inviting all clergy to vest (I’d never get the plenary started!!), but we are inviting the clergy from those congregations in relationship with ILAG to vest.

Observation: Most ordinations have a clear presence of the wider church body, which calls people into ministry and to whom the act of ordination finally belongs. In parts of our church, ordinations have regularly happened at synod/district assemblies, again symbolizing the whole-church nature of the rite. But seldom will any of us have seen as global an expression of the act or ordination—which is as it should be, reflected in the words spoken by the ordaining minister, “Amanda Olson de Castillo is ordained a pastor of the Church of Christ…” 

An added word, apart from the assembly
Many of you watched the reports of the Gunflint Trail fire with a pit in your stomach, knowing those lakes and trails. Some of you—like me—learned of the fire sweeping through Wilderness Canoe Base on Seagull lake, a 50-year old ministry of our church.  I spent five summers in the 1960s on staff there, formative years for me which shaped the life that followed. It was that kind of place for many over the years; others of you have had similarly formative time at other outdoor ministry settings. You know the value of these places.

 So you can imagine both the sadness and the resolve to see the ministry continue. In recent years, Wilderness has programmatically been related to the several camps under the Wapogasset umbrella. Dave Holst from Wapo will be at our assembly in the display area; for updates you can check their website.  

Thank you for your partnership! I look forward to seeing you at the assembly

Peter Rogness