Moving into a second term:
Post-assembly reflections from Peter Rogness

By Peter Rogness

I’ve been elected and re-elected before, but I’ve never been re-elected in a process that got started before the assembly. So I’ve had more time to consider: If a second term, how would it be different? What have I learned, and what would the next chapter be for?

I arrived here in 2002 already familiar with the Twin Cities. I grew up here and it has been home for my extended family. But I came to the church life of this synod much like a pastor comes to a new parish, knowing something about how to do pastoral ministry—in this case how to minister as a bishop—but not knowing the people, the stories and histories of each parish, or, for that matter, having a first-hand feel for the church culture of this synod. Just as every parish is different, every synod is different also. I had some learning to do.

What I’ve learned in six years
So what have I learned? The congregations of this synod are gifted, creative, varied. Embedded within many congregations lies a free-wheeling spirit to go its own way, not to wait for permission or approval, but a “just do it” attitude. This sometimes results in innovation that creates excitement and spreads throughout the synod.

The flip side of this tendency has led to a widespread disconnectedness with one another and the larger church. Large congregations often feel overlooked by “synod” and a culture of disconnectedness leaves the smaller congregations feeling unsupported and on their own.

Many have not let me forget that when I was elected in 2002, I called this a “feisty” synod, a synod which felt the freedom to be opinionated and voice it! Yet I have found also a broad willingness to express respect for the “other.” I choose to characterize this now as a “respectful and appreciative feistiness!”

So what’s next?
So now, six years later, how do I answer the question: If a second term, what for?

I think there’s opportunity in what could be done here if we link arms bega kwa bega—shoulder to shoulder. Our bega kwa bega partnership with the Iringa Diocese in Tanzania has become the benchmark for all other companion synod relationships throughout the ELCA, and it’s all been based on relationships, becoming part of one another’s ministries. It has empowered and transformed all who are a part of it. I don’t know why it can’t happen within our borders as well. We have one of the most rapidly diversifying metropolitan areas in the country and the most heavily Lutheran. Being Lutheran here counts. We can be a church that matters, and we become more powerful when we come out of our doors and become part of each other’s ministries.

What I want to suggest about these next years will not be a program, a platform, or a set of expectations, but a set of values that undergirds how we will move into the future to which God calls us. In this time and place, the particular shape of our ministry efforts may change, but we need to be clear about our basic posture and values.

I’d like us to be in conversation about core values that shape how we tell the story of Jesus, walk with the poor, and exercise the leadership gifts God gives us.

Thinking broadly about our mission
Broadly, our mission as staff serving this synod is defined in a number of places:

• We are one expression of a three-expression church, each church, each interdependent with the other two (congregation and churchwide).
• The constitution provides us with both a foundational statement of faith and a statement of purpose.
• Our synod has in addition adopted a threefold vision for the first decade of this century. The churchwide expression has developed five strategic directions.
• The governing documents also provide an extensive list of responsibilities of the synod bishop, essentially responsibilities of the synod staff and office.
• All of this finds expression in a myriad of expectations and requests that come to us: support for congregations and leaders, mobility, conflict resolution, problem solving, maintaining good order, and an array of others. Underneath these tasks are the values that lie at the core of what we do and how we go about doing it. To bring this into focus, here are what I consider to be the core values that are at the core of my work and our work. (The my/our is intentional because the constitution makes clear that the responsibilities of the bishop become synonymous with the responsibilities of the entire office and staff.)

Summarizing our collective work
I will name four values and I summarize them with this:

We are partners and catalysts for building the body of Christ for the sake of the world.

The synod is not an entity unto itself, but is the web of connections and interdependent relationships that make up the church’s life in this place. As staff and synod presence, everything we do seeks to move in the direction of building up this part of the body of Christ for the sake of the world—especially this part of the world.

We recognize we are increasingly a missionary presence in a secular society and decreasingly the religious expression of the dominant culture. The synod has a partnering presence in the life of congregations and other ministries, both in an ongoing way and particularly when ministry is in transition or in question.

Four core values undergird our work
I believe there are four values—the language of our life together—that undergird everything we do and move the church toward that goal of being partners and catalysts for building the body of Christ for the sake of the world.

1. Relationships are more life-giving than programs or structure.

• We are stronger together than in isolation. “Synod” means a gathering of church leaders, and we understand ourselves to be the connective tissue in the body of Christ.
• Programs and structure are ways to invite people in, but they have vitality because of the relationships that serve as both foundations for and products of the programs and structures.
• The ability to convene is a key asset of the synod staff and leadership. We are positioned to bring about mutuality in mission strategy and effort. As staff, nothing we do is more important than the relationships we build with leaders and congregations. We set the tone and priority for these relationships and call on others to bring about stronger collaboration as well. In these relationships, we foster networks of support, accountability, and zeal for ministry. The missional and programmatic work we do is given substance and power through relationships, not apart from them.
• The policy, governance, and accountability functions of the synod as middle judicatory are essentially those ways we define what is expected of us as we are in relationship with each other within this church.

2. Outreach is fundamental.

• The church can never be healthy if it exists only for itself. We exist for the world, the community, and our neighborhood; the poor and the stranger; for the non-believer who is unaware of the grace of God as it comes to us in Jesus Christ.
• There is not a tension between care of the inner life of a congregation and an outward mission; no congregation can be healthy internally without a strong outward orientation.
• As staff we assist congrega- tions in clarifying their mission focus; we open possibilities for outreach collaborations.

3. We are “repairers of the breach.” (Isaiah 58)

• Existing “for the sake of the world” means facing a badly fractured world. We are to be healers and reconcilers. n We seek to bring about reconciliation of the fissures in the body of Christ within the church ecumenically and interfaith.
• Our ministry needs to attend to the divisions in our world—between rich and poor, north and south, races and ethnic groups, gender, age—and to foster reconciliation and building unity.
• As did Jesus and the prophets and the early church, we give special care for the poor and forgotten, the ostracized, and the stranger.

4. Being Lutheran is an asset.

• We build on a theology centered on the grace of God as it has come to us in Jesus Christ, not on our own solutions. This frees us from participating in the fractious religious battles over hot-button issues. The world is dividing between judgmental and exclusive claims by some and a watered-down tolerance from others. We are free to be unabashedly evangelical and at the same time respectfully dialogical. This reliance on the centrality of God’s activity frees us to participate in the world’s diversity, ambiguities, and mystery.
• It is an asset to be a church that is neither hierarchical nor independent. There is value in living out an interdependence between local congregation, synod, and whole church.
• The biblical and confessional center of our identity does not make us an anachronism, but positions us to be a reforming, missional church for the sake of the world.

A church that gives vibrancy and meaning to people’s lives
I want this to be a church that matters, that isn’t just an old, empty order, but engages people and gives vibrancy, meaning, and energy to their lives.

I want us to be a church together, yoked to one another here in this place as we are linked to our partner congregations in Tanzania and Guatemala. I don’t want Local Mission Partners to be one table in a roomful of displays at a synod assembly, showcasing a few congregations linked to a few others. Rather, I want local mission partners to be the way we live our being the church together in this place. Local partners, in mission together. We go to Iringa and Guatemala to be enlivened by forming global relationships that broaden us and others—and we form those same kinds of relationships here, right in this synod.

The world is now among us. Street people are a regular presence at First Lutheran, the oldest Lutheran church in the state. Chinese, Spanish, and Hmong congregations have been launched in neighborhoods once filled with Swedes and Norwegians. One in the Spirit is launching work among Native Americans on the East Side. Spirit of Truth is reaching into the Midway area with a street ministry.

The possibilities loom for us all for ministries to be enriched as we come in closer relationship to each other in our outreach, in healing breaches, in going about as the Lutheran church in this area.

That’s what gets my juices flowing. I’m excited to be in ministry with you all in these years ahead.