LIFT: Renewing the Ecology of the ELCA Living Into the Future Together

Here are the presentation slides that will be used at synod assemblies in upcoming weeks.  Feel free to use it in your context to introduce some of the concepts found in the LIFT Report & Recommendations.

Download Powerpoint presentation

Here are some resources to supplement the LIFT Report & Recommendations.

• Sixteen key talking points of the LIFT Report
• More frequently asked questions about the LIFT process
• Discussion starters for small groups, councils, committees, etc.
• Invitation sent to Synod Assembly planners

How do you envision incorporating the LIFT materials and process in your context?

The LIFT Task Force recently signed off on a report and recommendations that were given to the ELCA Church Council.

LIFT Report (April 11)

Church Council Action (April 18)

Additionally the Church Council took a separate action on Social Statements as an outgrowth of the task force’s work on Communal Discernment.  You can read about that separate action via the ELCA News Service.

Soon after it was formed the LIFT Task Force realized that their job was to guide a conversation about what it means to be church and how we, the ELCA, might be faithful to God’s mission in the world. We knew that this conversation needed to happen not only within the task force but across the whole church and beyond. Early on, the task force began to wrestle with basic questions like what it means to be church and the value of being a denomination. Those conversations spread across the church in the form of focus groups, surveys, interviews, blogs, meetings, and synod assemblies. We talked with lay people, experts, pastors, lay leaders, congregation members, volunteers, staff, global partners, ministry partners, Bishops, and Synod Vice Presidents. Each perspective added a layer of vibrancy to the conversation to create a rich fabric.

Like a wide canvas, a clear message emerged when we stepped back and looked at the whole body of information. We came to understand that while the mission of the church hasn’t changed much since it was founded over 2,000 years ago, the approach to that mission needs to be lived out very differently everywhere two or three are gathered together. We recognized the value each part of the church plays in God’s mission, sometimes to support each other and sometimes to reach out in to the world. We could see clear areas of strength faithful to God’s mission and other areas where weak ties, a lack of coordination or strained relationships have blurred our focus as a church.

Now the LIFT Task Force is preparing recommendations that reflect what we heard from you. Over the next several months these ideas will be shared across the church and a new conversation will begin. A conversation about how to more clearly focus on God’s mission as a whole church. A conversation about what to do more of and what to do less. A conversation about how we can strengthen each other and work together in new ways that build each other up so that God might better use our hands in the world. God’s work – our hands.

Linda Bobbitt

Vice President, Rocky Mountain Synod

LIFT Task Force member

Dr. Craig Van Gelder, Luther Seminary, offers a description of innovation in farming practices that has inspired members of the LIFT Task Force.

“Growing up on a farm in rural Iowa provided me with an object lesson for understanding the church’s being missionary by nature. Each county in the state employed an extension agent to work with farmers. These extension agents were usually university graduates with degrees in agriculture. As new farming technologies, seeds, and fertilizers became available, the extension agents introduced these to farmers. My dad, like many farmers, was often hesitant to accept the innovations. One of the methods extension agents used to gain acceptance of these innovations was demonstration plots.

A strip of land, usually along a major roadway, was selected as a demonstration plot, where a new farming method, seed, or fertilizer was used to raise a crop. It was not uncommon for farmers to remain skeptical throughout the summer as the crops grew. But there was always keen interest in the fall when the crop was harvested. Invariably, the innovation performed better than the crops in the surrounding fields. By the next year, many farmers, including my dad, would be using the innovation as if it had been their idea all along.

The church is God’s demonstration plot in the world. Its very existence demonstrates that his redemptive reign has already begun.”

Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000.  p. 99-100.

May God use our common efforts at plowing, planting, watering, nourishing, weeding, and cultivating for new growth and beautiful produce – maybe even a bumper crop.  ~ Rev. Dee Peders0n

Bob Bacher’s opening devotions for the task force’s final in-person meeting focused on occurrences of the word “lift” in Scripture.  Here are the verses we reflected on:

* * * * *

The Lord LIFT up his countenance upon you and give you peace.  ~ Numbers 6:26

If I am wicked, woe to me! If I am righteous, I cannot LIFT up my head, for I am filled with disgrace and look upon my affliction.  ~ Job 10:15

LIFT up your heads, o gates! and be lifted up, o ancient doors! that the King of Glory may come in.  ~ Psalm 24:7

To you, o Lord, I LIFT up my soul.  ~ Psalm 25:1

I LIFT up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come?  ~ Psalm 121:1

LIFT up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.  ~ Psalm 134:2

Get you up to a high mountain, o Zion, herald of good tidings; LIFT up your voice with strength, o Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, LIFT it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”  ~ Isaiah 40:9

LIFT up your eyes on high and see: who created these?  ~ Isaiah 40:26

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even LIFT up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  ~ Luke 18:13

And just as Moses LIFTed up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be LIFTed up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.  ~ John 3:14

And I, when I am LIFTed up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.  ~ John 12:32

We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever.  How can you say that the Son of Man must be LIFTed up?  Who is this Son of Man?  ~ John 12:34

When he had said this, as they were watching, he was LIFTed up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  ~ Acts 1:9

I desire then, that in every place they should pray, LIFTing up holy hands without anger or argument.  ~ 1 Timothy 2:8

Therefore LIFT your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.  ~ Hebrews 12:12

Questions for thought:

1. Is LIFT important in Scripture?
2. What is being LIFTed?
3. Who does the LIFTing?
4. What is the purpose of the LIFTing?

Nice article on the Living Lutheran site, featuring LIFT members Kathleen Elliott Chillison and Erik Ullestad.  Check it out.

Determined to do God’s Work

LIFT chairperson, Rev. Dee Pederson, offers some reflections on the work of the task force in the past few months.

During the spring and summer, 2010, the LIFT task force initiated a conversation across the ELCA to focus on internal and external factors impacting congregations, Lutheran identity, relationships across the church, and expectations of the various partners in our ELCA ecology. This grassroots conversation included studies conducted with individuals, congregations, synods, the churchwide organization, and partners.

• Over half of the 2010 synod assemblies devoted time in their agendas to LIFT conversations and forums; responses from those conversations were received and analyzed.
• This summer a questionnaire was fielded to a random sample of pastors and congregational lay leaders. Research data were analyzed and then summarized by ELCA Research and Evaluation and by LIFT. Full summaries were posted on the LIFT Web site.
• Numerous groups and partners participated in surveys, focus groups, and interviews.
• In August, LIFT brought together bishops, leaders from institutions of higher education, pastors, ecumenical partners, and leaders from various partner agencies to consider mission capacity and funding.

These extensive research components from people across this church provided the churchwide organization design team with current insights about priorities for ministries. In addition, the LIFT planning team consulted with the design team on a conference call in August and during a face to face meeting in September. The perspectives and ideas generated through LIFT were foundational to the deliberations and shaping of the proposal developed by the design team.

Thanks to all who submitted scenarios to the LIFT Task Force.  Feel free to read them under the scenarios tab and continue the conversation in your part of the eco-system!

The members of the LIFT Task Force are seeking insight and help from the members and friends of the ELCA. The LIFT Task Force is the group called together to help renew the ecology of the ELCA by offering ideas about ministry in the next 5 to 10 years. The task force has written a document that asks for scenarios of what could be or should be, based on experience and history, hopes and dreams. Get back to us with your vision of a plausible future for this church. Responses will be most helpful to the task force if they are received by September 10.

LIFT Scenario Request – PDF

LIFT Scenario Feedback Form – Word Document

LIFT Scenario Feedback Form – Online

The ELCA’s task force on renewing the church, the LIFT Task Force, is asking this church’s members and friends to visualize the future of the ELCA. Specifically, the LIFT Task Force is asking for help in creating a set of scenarios that describe what might be, what could be, what should be. We want to know your dreams for our whole church, for all the ways the members of the ELCA can express the life of Christ within them.

Imagine how the ELCA’s mission will be accomplished in the next 5-10 years. Three scenarios are proposed as possible starting points. You can respond to one or all of them, or you can make up something of your own. You may find yourself imagining the ELCA changing only a little bit, or changing a great deal. Background material that may be helpful includes recent research, available on the LIFT Website, about what members of the ELCA believe and how they behave. The ELCA Website is also a good source for information about current patterns of life, mission, and organization.

This is much like the work the LIFT Task Force itself is doing. The task force is looking for your ideas to help shape its own.

1.     What should be the mission objectives of our church?

2.     What are necessary structural components?

3.     How should the parts of our church relate to each other and what kind of mutual accountability should there be?

4.     How should decisions be made and how could money be shared?

With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, tell us what you imagine. Think outside the box, but base it on real world experience. Describe changing our church so that we remain faithful servants of God as the world changes around us. Please be as specific as possible. There is no prescribed length or format for responses. The LIFT Task Force will profit from some common information in any response that you choose to make, no matter where you start. Try to help us know what you think. Responses would be most helpful if received by September 10. Identification and contact information for the author is helpful but not required.

The members of the LIFT Task Force believe that the Holy Spirit will work through the imaginations of many people to show us ways that the ELCA’s mission will be accomplished in the next 5-10 years.

Three Scenarios

One possibility:

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America does its work in three expressions – congregations, synods, and churchwide organization. The ELCA presently has 4.5 million members and 10,000 congregations. There are 65 ELCA synods. The ELCA has a churchwide organization that accomplishes its ministry through a system of programmatic units with advisory committees. There are 8 seminaries, 26 colleges and universities, and other agencies and institutions. This structure was originally designed to create organizations of interdependent responsibility and accountability.

Write a scenario based on what you know about the ELCA and what you see in the world around you. Which ministries and activities of the ELCA need to be strengthened and renewed? What could we let go? How could our life be energized and integrated for present tasks and for what you think lies ahead? How could the ELCA be reshaped to be more effective in its work in the future?

Another possibility:

The ELCA accomplishes God’s mission primarily by being centered in partnerships at all levels. Members, congregations, synods, and the churchwide organization do their work through partnerships with each other, and with social ministry organizations, educational institutions like colleges and seminaries, and with ecumenical partners and companion churches in this country and all over the world.

Write a scenario that gives major importance to all the partnerships that the ELCA enjoys. What faithful and efficient ways could the work of the gospel be divided and shared? What kind of framework should hold ministries and missions together? What would be the ELCA’s unique role among the layers of partnership and sharing that you see in the world around you today? What form and structure would sustain a church body that thought of itself primarily as partnerships?

A third possibility:

Share a scenario that starts with Christian people and their relationships. What sort of networks and structures should hold the members of the ELCA together? How could these networks be strengthened and made more resilient? What institutions and forms of community life does the ELCA need in its networks? What covenants or forms of accountability and support do the ELCA networks require?

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These possibilities are proposed to inspire your thinking, not limit it. We seek scenarios that grow from your experience and your faith journey. We want to know what you think the ELCA should look like, should do, and should stand for. We want to know what you think the Holy Spirit is calling us to now, and in the future as you imagine it.

May God’s will for us be revealed as we pray and imagine together. May the Son of God be glorified as we share our hopes and dreams with one another for the sake of the world.

In Jesus Christ,

The Members of the LIFT Task Force.