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Transforming Church Initiative: a Leadership Learning Community gains support
Gregg Burch
At the end of February, we held a Stakeholder Summit at ELCA Headquarters in Chicago. At the summit, we had representatives from Seminaries, Thrivent, ELCA Churchwide, the ELCA Larger Church Conference and our Board. , the Bishop Hanson’s Executive for Leadership Development, and Dave Daubert, EOCM Director for Congregational Renewal hosted the event.
The Summit was part of our effort to build partnerships with Churchwide, Seminaries, Larger Churches and Grantors. The conversations held that day were a good first step. Steve Wagner, the Executive Leader of the LCMS Pastoral Leadership Institute, joined us to tell of their journey since starting their Institute in 1999. At the end of the day, Steve remarked that this idea had much broader and stronger support from across the church than they did when they launched their Institute. The leaders present agreed we would work to find a way to make this project happen.
An Idea whose Time has Come.
Presiding Bishop Hanson stopped by for a few minutes. I was most encouraged by his remarks, “I have a lot of expectation for what will come of this, it’s core and key to what God is calling us to.” Wyvetta Bullock called this an “idea whose time has come.” She reaffirmed the support of the Bishop’s office for the project, and agreed to seek money to support scholarships to ensure there is no financial obstacle to participation.
Since the Summit, we have continued our work, defining our next steps and broadening the collaboration. Bob Driver-Bishop and have been working to grow support among the churches of the ELCA Larger Church Conference. That group holds its annual conference in early May, and a key focus of that gathering is to help think through the this idea and what will be required to launch it successfully. Mike Foss will join Bob and John at the conference to help build support and partnership with the Larger Churches.
At the same time, we have been reaching out to Bishops to share this idea and gather their input. We have had meetings with the Bishops of the Nebraska, Virginia and Southeastern Synod already. Dave Daubert and have agreed to help us initiate a meeting with a group of Bishops representing the Conference of Bishops. We hope to hold that meeting in June.
We also continue to follow up on meetings with Seminaries. So far, we have met and continue in dialog with Luther, Chicago and Gettysburg Seminaries. I will have a meeting in April with Southern Seminary. Partnerships with seminaries, ELCA churchwide, the Larger Church Conference and the Conference of Bishops are critical to our efforts. Continue to pray for us that God might move us forward towards the realization of this Spirit-Inspired vision.
Transforming Church Initiative: a Leadership Learning Journey and Transformational Leaders Initiative are copyrighted by TransformingChurch.org.
To see and learn more about Transforming Leaders Initiative on its home website, click here.
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