My congregation voted successfully to leave the ELCA in 2023.  Reflecting on the past three years, here are three things I would encourage you to keep in mind if you choose to follow suit.

First of all, remember that, whether you stay in the ELCA or not, the priority is Christ.  He is the center.  The mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation in Jesus Christ.  We voted to leave the ELCA because we came to believe that preaching the Gospel was no longer the priority.  Instead, we believed that another gospel, or other gospels, had taken the place of the true Gospel in the mission and ministry of the ELCA. 

One of the dangers of remaining in the ELCA and “continuing the fight” was that, in doing so, we would be distracted by the ongoing culture wars in our country and in the world.   Don’t assume that the temptation to focus on the culture wars will dissipate if you leave the ELCA.  The same forces that worked against the Gospel from within the ELCA, still do so from the larger culture.  The key is not to try to win the cultural wars, but not to let them distract us from the mission of the Church.

A second thing to remember is that the political right is not automatically an ally of the Gospel.  Several members of my congregation assumed that with a successful vote to leave the ELCA, we would begin to openly embrace the causes of the political right.  There is an old saying among progressives that says, “No enemies to the left.”  Don’t be tempted to turn that around by saying, “No enemies to the right.”  While we are disgusted by the antisemitism, gender and identity politics of the left, we should not forget that there are equally loud voices of antisemitism, misogyny, and identity politics on the right.  There really is a movement calling itself Christian Nationalism that is racist and sexist.  There really are popular voices like Nick Fuentes that encourage your people to embrace antisemitism.  Guard your congregation against these trends. 

There was an earlier split within Lutheranism in the 1970s.  In that case, it was people on the left who departed and formed a new denomination.  Eventually, they helped form the ELCA.  One of the mistakes that they made, in my opinion, is that they tended to assume that if their old denomination was against something, they should embrace it.  Many seemed unable to recognize that it is also possible to go too far to the left. 

My third warning has to do with the reality of spiritual warfare.  The devil loves to sow division.  Even on the human level, it can be observed that once a congregation experiences a division, it becomes easier for new divisions to arise.  The devil certainly knows that.  He will seek any opportunity to make small disagreements into church dividing ones.  He is also alert to any spiritual vacuum.  When a congregation leaves a denomination it is alone until it becomes part of a new denomination.  Mutual support among clergy and congregations, as well as ecclesial oversight take time to grow.  Beware of unexpected spiritual forces that may arise causing chaos and division. 

Whether you stay in the ELCA or seek to leave, remember that a successful vote one way or the other does not solve all of your problems.  You live in a sinful world.  Your mission is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Pray that God will help you to keep steadfast in His Word, amidst the trials and temptations that will inevitably come your way. 

“I don’t want to offend anyone or lose my friends.” That was the reason one of my church council members gave as to why she holds back from talking to her close friends about faith.

Her response came from a discussion we were having about the importance of building intentional relationships with friends and neighbors with whom we can talk about what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. It’s reasonable to understand her hesitancy. Yet, simultaneously, sadly, this is an excuse many believers fall back on because they don’t know how. Admittedly, I have not been exempt from using it myself, that was until one day, I was moved to change.

I had been invited as a guest to attend an NALC Regional Convocation. During one of the breaks, I had an engaging conversation with four individuals from the same church, who were attending as a group. They had asked me about my seminary experience. Up to that point, I had had difficulties with the ELCA candidacy process and I was contemplating leaving to join the NALC.

Throughout our exchange, I noticed how easy it was to talk to them. Even though I was a fish out of water, so to speak, they never made me feel uncomfortable. Their questions were genuine, not attacking or forceful, all while respectful. As we neared the end of the break, they asked if they could pray for me. As I told them that I would appreciate it if they would, they did something quite unexpected; rather than going on their way, they surrounded me, each placing a hand on my shoulder or arm, and began to pray for me, right then and there. It caught me by surprise because I had never had someone not only offer to pray for me but to do it! Over the next few minutes, each of them took a turn praying over something they had picked up on as they listened in, praying for God to give me the insight I needed to make my decision, whatever it was to be, for strength and guidance to go wherever He called me. As they ended, I opened my eyes to find that there were no longer four people surrounding me; passersby had also stopped to pray, placing their hands on those around me.

That day, I witnessed a group of believers demonstrate what following Jesus looks like, and I saw that conversations about life and faith don’t have to be divisive, inspiring me to do the same.

When our Lord encountered someone who was spiritually and/or physically hurting, he didn’t attack them. He didn’t simply offer to pray for them and then continue on his way. Instead, he stopped and prayed over them at that moment.

In the years since, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and offered to pray for strangers—even even someone who struck up a conversation with me on a flight home from Texas.

The feeling I have after praying for someone is that of joy. Doing so reminds me of Luke’s Gospel, where Jesus sends out his disciples ahead of him. As Christ told his disciples (I’m paraphrasing), “If you meet someone receptive to the Word, have a conversation; if they are not, don’t force it and go on your way.” However, I have never encountered anyone who refused my offer of, ‘Can I pray for you?’

Yet, encouraging her and telling her how to do it—based on scripture—only goes so far. While I have had such a positive experience, I find myself asking how I can help empower my councilwoman to set aside her fear and step out in faith.

Her fear is reminiscent of the disciples when Jesus told them to feed the five thousand. They had no clue how, and they certainly didn’t believe they had what it took to get the job done until their shepherd showed them the way. Their reaction was evident; they needed more time to be equipped and empowered.

After they had spent some time watching and learning how Jesus ministered to others, he released his disciples to try it for themselves. That’s when he instructed them how to minister to those receptive to the Word of God and to those who are not. When they came back to him, they reported incredible joy. As her earthly Shepherd, I can see how God has prepared her to spend time with me to learn how to follow Jesus.

Every two years, youth and their leaders from across the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) will  gather for four days of worship, teaching, and service at the Continental Youth Gathering (CYG). What began as a hopeful experiment in 2024 has already grown into a vital tradition where young people encounter Christ, deepen their faith, and discover what it means to live as His disciples in the world.

The first CYG – WE BELONG, was held in Boerne, Texas, in 2024 and brought together youth, adult leaders, and volunteers from across the United States and Canada. The next CYG – REJOICE, will take place July 7–10, 2026, at St. John Lutheran Church in Roanoke, Virginia, where organizers are planning for approximately 400 youth, leaders and volunteers. While the event is hosted by the NALC, its reach and impact extends well beyond. It includes partner agencies and the local community who play significant roles in making it possible.

At its heart, the CYG is not a “conference” or a “camp,” but a gathering built around Word, worship, and witness. Each day centers on Scripture, with teaching that is deeply rooted in the Gospel and the Lutheran confessional tradition, yet accessible and engaging for today’s youth. Large-group sessions combine solid biblical preaching with practical application, helping young people connect Christ’s finished work on the cross to the very real questions and pressures they face in daily life. Bible studies invite youth into smaller communities where they can dig deeper, share their own experiences, and learn to read Scripture not just as a story “back then,” but as God’s living Word for them today. And Worship is part of the daily rhythm, not a side event. Through song, prayer, and proclamation, participants are invited to bring their whole selves to the Lord—joys, doubts, anxieties, and hopes. By celebrating the Lord’s Supper with the wider church, participants are reminded that we belong to something larger than a single local congregation; we belong to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church and that is a reason to rejoice.

A key aspect of the 2026 gathering in Roanoke will be mission projects throughout the local community. Youth will step beyond the walls of the host church to serve alongside local organizations—supporting shelters, food ministries, neighborhood projects, and other community partners.

These mission experiences are not simply “volunteer hours” to be logged. They are framed as an extension of the Chrisitan life: a lived response to the grace participants have received in Christ. Throughout the CYG youth are guided to reflect on why Christians serve, how Christ is present in the margins, and what it means to be a witness in everyday life.

For local agencies and ministries, CYG offers an influx of energetic volunteers and an opportunity to build longer-term relationships with congregations across North America. Many youth will return home eager to continue serving in their own communities, inspired by what they experienced together in Roanoke.

Events like the Continental Youth Gathering do not happen in isolation. They rely on a web of partners—congregations, local ministries, prayer supporters, and agencies that share a commitment to forming lifelong disciples of Jesus.

You can support the CYG in a variety of ways:

• Pray and give encouragement to youth, leaders, organizers, speakers and those volunteering.
• If you are a local mission in Roanoke reach out to the Director of Youth and Family Ministries to see how we can partner.
• Financial support—through designated gifts, sponsorships, or grants—helps keep registration costs accessible, provides scholarships for youth from smaller congregations, and underwrites the local mission projects we are able to offer in Roanoke.
• Help spread the word so that more congregations can send youth and leaders.

In a world where many young people feel disconnected from church, the CYG offers a hopeful counter-story: a living picture of the Gospel at work, drawing together youth, mentors, and congregations around Christ and His mission.

For more information contact Pastor Teresa Peters at tpeters@thenalc.org

If you would like to register you can do so here: https://thenalc.org/en-us/our-work/equipping-disciples/families/

The NALC Life Ministries team is once again preparing for the March for Life in Washington D.C. this January, but our plan is a little different. Instead of holding a life conference, NALC Life has decided to team up with Lutherans for Life (LFL) and participate in their events at the march! Their youth conference, Y4Life, will be held at the Hilton Arlington Landing Hotel (2399 Richmond Highway, Arlington, VA 22202) from Thursday, January 22rd, 2026 through Saturday, January 24th, 2026 and it has over 400 kids already registered – register at https://y4life.org/events/ We encourage all our NALC youth to participate in this free conference.

On Friday, January 23rd we will be once again participating in the March for Life under the NALC banner, and I hope you can join us at 12th and Madison Sts., N.W at noon as we march to the U.S. Capitol.

Before the march there is a prayer service at DAR Constitution Hall 1776 D St. NW (18th and D St.) Washington, DC 20006 starting at 8:30am. The service will be in celebration of America’s 250th birthday, celebrating the Right to Life as recognized in our Declaration of Independence and honoring the memory of Charlie Kirk. The special speaker will be Liche Ariza, who plays the role of Gedera, a Sadducee in Jerusalem and a member of the Sanhedrin in The Chosen.

All our NALC members are invited to attend this service and our clergy are invited to participate (stoles are white). If you have any problems at the march, please contact Pastor Dennis Di Mauro at (703) 568-3346. Pastor Di Mauro can also host you in his home if you would like to stay overnight in DC. We can’t wait to see you in our nation’s capital this January!!

Many thanks to Brian Hughes for his review of “The Jesus Shaped Way” by Bob Rognlien.  Brian is a dual rostered NALC and retired ELCA pastor and vice president of the board of Lutheran CORE.  A link to Brian’s video can be found HERE. 

Brian writes – “Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered, “I am the Way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  John 14:5-6

Lutheran Pastor Bob Rognlien has released his latest book on discipleship, “The Jesus Shaped Way, six steps to being and making disciples the way Jesus did,” and is IMHO, a must read for anyone seeking to launch a discipling culture movement in their congregation.  For most of its recent life the church has concentrated on two words from that text: Truth and Life.  What does Scripture teach us that is True and how do we Live in response?  What if HOW Jesus made disciples, The Way, is equally important?   Drawing from decades of leading two-week pilgrimages to the Holy Land and years of building disciples who can make disciples, Pastor Rognlien brings together those experiences in profound ways.  You can purchase the book and the video training course in the Store at www.bobrognlien.com. 

Once the endless meetings, insulting slurs, character attacks, hurt feelings, and procedural difficulties involved in leaving one ecclesial community and entering another are over, the remaining congregation members are often fatigued. Yet they are often galvanized by the process’ inevitable conflicts and are more committed as disciples of Jesus Christ than ever. They hope that the Lord will reward their faithfulness by swelling their ranks, securing their sometimes-tenuous finances, and allow them to return once again to whatever is identified as the golden age of the congregation’s life.

The Lord, in His mercy, rarely does this, at least in any easily recognizable, straightforward way.  The process of reaffiliating for the local congregation is always, to a larger or smaller degree, a traumatic one.  Before a congregation is ready to properly disciple a significant number of people, there is usually work the Lord needs to do within us first.  There is a gap between what we were and what we will need to be for the mission the Lord has planned for us.  I want to encourage anyone facing this to GO intentionally into that GAP:

Go deep with God:  Lutherans confess that the Spirit uses God’s Word and Sacraments to create and sustain saving faith in the hearts of people and thereby constitutes the Church.  As Luther avers, it is only in this way that we are “called, gathered, enlightened and sanctified.”  Don’t do generic Bible studies but do some focused on God’s promises and power related to healing, mission, and yes, even vengeance upon those who persecute His people (having one’s character assassinated by people you love is a real, though mild, form of white martyrdom).  Let the Lord’s Word be a branch thrown into the oft unspoken tension, pain, and ennui of the bitter waters of church hurt and make them sweet.

Open your heart to the new thing the Lord wants to do:  Paul’s ministry changed radically after he was called by Jesus.  Your congregation has been called by Jesus too, and it is not likely that He has called it to do basically what it has done in the past, just with purer doctrine.  This is not because local traditions are bad or change is good, but because if Jesus has called you into a new denominational affiliation, it is for the purpose of mission, and the mission field is always in flux.  Indeed, learning that the mission field lies at our doorstep rather than in other countries is a radical thing for many long-established congregations.  Please note that what I am issuing here is not a call to radical change, but rather to radical openness to God’s leading.

Get to know your mission field: Don’t assume you know your community’s spiritual needs.  Remember, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME.  As a Gen X’er I typically assume that Christianity’s chief rival is atheism.  For those under 40, it is paganism.  Does your congregation’s ministry take this into account?  What are the socio-economic pressures with which your visitors are dealing?  What are the most common family dynamics and dysfunctions?  Learn what people will need in your context to become good Christian disciples apart from orthodox doctrinal commitments.

Align yourself with what God is already doing: Ministry changed for me and my congregation when we stopped having a plan to reach people and started recognizing what the Lord was already doing with those He was gathering, then putting our time, talent, and treasures behind that.  “Unless the Lord builds the house, the laborer works in vain.”

Patiently wait for God, then move decisively: Don’t let anxiety about the future push your congregation to waste energy on mission to which the Lord is not calling you.  The Church’s only mission is the Great Commission, but your congregation is not the Church.  Your congregation is a church, and God is not calling you to do everything.  Instead of trying to reach some group or create some ministry that leadership thinks is essential to the congregation’s long term survival, trust the Lord with your future.  It may be that the ministry everyone thinks critical must have the foundation the Lord wishes to provide now.

GO into the GAP without fear, for it is not the valley of the shadow of death, but rather God’s way of teaching you trust on the way to the green fields and still waters for which He has claimed you.

Note from our Executive Director: Many thanks to Paul Borg, LCMS pastor and friend of Lutheran CORE, for his report on the recent gathering of the Global Confessional and Missional Lutheran Forum (Global Forum) in Nairobi, Kenya.  This is an international gathering of Lutheran church leaders and representatives of Lutheran reform and renewal communities throughout the world.  Many of them are from Western Europe and Africa.  The NALC was very instrumental in the formation of the Global Forum.  On several occasions the Forum met in conjunction with the NALC’s Lutheran Week.  More recently it has met in Africa.  We are very grateful to hear from Paul about how the Spirit of God is moving mightily in the Lutheran Church throughout the world. 

Pause and ponder with me for just a moment. There has never been a time in all of civilization when so many unbelievers are discovering and embracing the Creator of the universe, Jesus. Never. And because of the financial support of CORE, I was gifted with a wonderful five day opportunity in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa. I lived with, listened to, and learned from many global Christian leaders. They are being empowered and used by Jesus to reach those who do not yet know Him.

Many of us know the statistics of this unique moment of Christian history: a greater number of people are coming to know Jesus as Lord, than centuries past. Therefore, during this week, we sat together, ate together, became friends with each other and prayed with so many of these leaders whom Jesus is using to reach the unreached.

This particular gathering includes close to 50 Lutheran pastors and leaders from 14 different countries. We, in the global North, asked those from the global South, to teach us and be missionaries to us. There were many fascinating revelations that were, in the end, a call back to the basics: the core of sacred Scriptures, the essential act of reaching the lost, and prayer as a constant, life-sustaining heartbeat.

Here are three examples of their encouragement. They lovingly said to us:

1) Hold on passionately to the power and authority of sacred Scriptures. It is indeed “True Truth,” accurate and true as it describes history, life and faith. This is what the missionaries taught us! The Bible brings us out of darkness and evil, into light and into the presence and joy of Jesus. Maybe we simply need to remind you of what you, in the past, had profoundly taught us: Many of you in the North are diminishing that power of The Scriptures. 

2) Ask Jesus for a passionate zeal to reach the lost. May that zeal not be a part of, but the very heart of every breathing moment of life. This is more than reading books and listening to lectures. And always have a couple of unbelievers as personal friends. Those growing relationships with unbelievers empower not only growth in faith but transformation of all of life, both for the Christian and for the one who may not yet know Jesus.

3) Personally talking with our Creator of the universe, Jesus. Consider prayer as more than quick sentences for appropriate occasions. Instead, consider prayer as breathing. That intimate personal conversation becomes life giving, like a courtship with our Creator. Such intimacy results not only in profound joy but also in profound power. Jesus asks us to do what Jesus did. His miraculous life was empowered by His intimacy and continuous prayer with His Father.

Finally, I thank you for your investment in me and the leaders of God’s church. Your generosity has brought about much encouragement, strategic planning and purposeful connection between the Lutheran leaders, globally. Thanks in part to your support, we are bringing forth the Kingdom of God back into the dry bones of the Church. Amen!

Many thanks to LCMC pastor Daniel Ostercamp for his video review of “The Big Relief” by David Zahl.  A link to Daniel’s video can be found HERE.  A link to our You Tube channel, which contains sixty-two reviews of books and videos on topics of interest and importance, can be found HERE.    

Daniel writes – “The Big Relief” is a helpful reminder that our congregations and our lives need to be centered upon the wondrous grace of Jesus Christ.  This difference sets us apart from the cacophony of so many religions and voices that do not set us free from the desires and schemes of our hearts to justify and prove ourselves.

David Zahl is a licensed lay minister at Christ Episcopal Church in Charlottesville, VA.  In 2007, he founded Mockingbird Ministries, an interdenominational parachurch organization that aims to reach out to younger adults who have become alienated from the institutional church.  The endeavor has grown to include a robust website and two annual conferences.

As church people, we may have fewer and fewer opportunities to preserve our heritage.  David Zahl confesses that if he had time to rescue just one thing out of the edifice, “Grace is what I would grab every time.”

Rev. John Lomperis is Director of Education and Development for Petros Network

Amidst Lutheranism’s many recent challenges, we must celebrate where faithful Lutherans continue making a great difference for Jesus Christ. 

The world’s largest, reportedly fastest-growing Lutheran denomination is the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY).  Its membership of 12 million is roughly twice as large as all American Lutherans and many more than all Lutherans in the historic strongholds of Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Iceland, and Latvia combined. The EECMY, also known as the Mekane Yesus Church, is in full communion with the North American Lutheran Church, and hosted the 2018 Global Confessional & Missional Lutheran Forum, where leaders of the EECMY, NALC, Lutheran CORE, and other faithful Lutheran bodies developed a declaration of shared orthodox Lutheran faith.

Meanwhile, Petros Network has developed a proven methodology of working with theologically orthodox Protestant denominations in Ethiopia to train and equip their church planters to make disciples and establish denominationally connected, financially self-sustaining congregations, entirely in “unreached” areas.  These are often places where people have never heard the Gospel.  On average, these new churches each plant 2.5 additional “second-generation” new congregations within a few years. 

Petros Network has launched some 200 church planters with the EECMY, one of our strongest early partners.  Together, we are seeing many members of Ethiopia’s large Muslim population come to Christ and become Lutherans.  Some Mekane Yesus church planters are themselves former Muslims.  One of this partnership’s female church planters, Kutebe, lost everything when she left Islam.  But she boldly spread the Gospel in a very difficult location, dominated by Islam and devastated by civil conflict, so that her Lutheran church plant grew from zero to 18 baptized members within just two years! 

The Mekane Yesus Church requires all of its church planters to affirm standard Lutheran doctrine (the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds plus the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, Book of Concord, and Martin Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms). 

Bringing the Gospel into long-unreached areas means working in contexts of extreme poverty, malnutrition, isolation, and civil unrest.  Petros Network’s holistic approach alleviates both spiritual and physical poverty.  Through sustainably productive gardens and livestock projects, church planters are trained to multiply food security and income, training others and transforming entire communities.  For example, one Mekane Yesus church planter has led neighbors to start 16 new community gardens, through which 14 men, 18 women, and 11 children are now being trained in sustainable farming practices.  With the Mekane Yesus Church and other partners, Petros Network has trained over 17,622 individuals in sustainable farming, bringing holistic uplift that ripples through impoverished villages.

Church planters work in close connection with Petros Network’s humanitarian initiatives bringing micro-economic development, sustainable agriculture, health care, clean water, and provision for children in areas of desperate need.  One EECMY church planter helped establish a benevolent association to provide for elderly neighbors who often have no means of support.  One Petros Network women’s economic empowerment program meets in a church of the EECMY’s North-Central Ethiopia Synod.  This program benefits the whole community by equipping and training women to start successful small businesses so that they can sustainably provide for their families.  While there was much distress over the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) recently pulling back from this impoverished border region, Petros Network has remained there with our Mekane Yesus and other partners. 

The EECMY has further suffered severe financial limitations after its faith-filled decision to break longstanding ties with the national leadership of the Church of Sweden and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), over these former partners’ unrepentantly liberalized approach to Scriptural authority and marriage. 

Despite many challenges, our Mekane Yesus brothers and sisters remain eager to make the most of what resources are available to continue spreading the love of Jesus and growing confessional Lutheranism among some of the poorest, remotest corners of the planet.  As they pursue their holy mission, they welcome greater connections with North American Lutherans who have remained orthodox. 

Rev. Wagnew Andarge shares that the aforementioned North-Central Synod, of which he is president, “is profoundly grateful for our partnership with Petros Network, which has been instrumental in helping us to advance God’s Kingdom and make disciples among unreached people groups,” but that “a great need remains, especially among those who have not yet heard the Good News, including many Muslims and practitioners of traditional religions.” 

To learn more about the Mekane Yesus Church’s fruitful partnership with Petros Network and how you can get connected, please visit www.petrosnetwork.org/Lutheran

Back in the fall of 2009, shortly after the ELCA national assembly actions created so much controversy, my congregational members were already leaning toward disaffiliation.  In fact, my co-pastor and I took a quick Sunday-morning written survey in the fall of that year to confirm our sense that the majority of members disagreed with the new ELCA policies.  Sure enough, two-thirds disagreed with the national assembly’s actions.

However, the leaders of our church knew that two-thirds disagreeing was a “far cry” from eventually convincing more than two-thirds to vote—twice—to leave the ELCA.  Furthermore, we were part of the Oregon Synod, and in our synod only four out of its 110 congregations ended up even pursuing disaffiliation.  And our congregation—Our Savior’s—ended up being one of only two churches to eventually succeed in disaffiliating. 

So as we began a one-year education process on the relevant issues surrounding disaffiliation, the goal was to do everything possible to minimize our losses at our first official vote; which ultimately took place in February of 2011.  Below are the major strategies we pursued on the way to our congregational votes; both of which ended up being over 90% supporting disaffiliation.

The first strategy was to learn from the experience of other congregations that either succeeded, or failed, in their disaffiliation process during the year 2010.  For those who failed we learned the principle of not voting until you know, with a high degree of certainty, that you will have at least 80% of members supporting your exit from the ELCA.  Why 80%?  Because many of those who show up to vote against disaffiliation will in all probability eventually leave your congregation.  And we wanted to minimize the number of people we would lose due to this ELCA-instigated controversy.  Also, we wanted to acknowledge that a pre-vote guesstimate of the vote results on our part might prove to be overly optimistic.

So how did we insure—prior to the vote—that we would have at least 80% of members voting in favor?  By conducting an anonymous, mail-in survey where both members in support and in opposition would be motivated to participate in our survey.  This mail-in survey, conducted in January of 2011, resulted in 84% stating that they would, at a special congregational meeting, vote for Our Savior’s Lutheran to leave the ELCA.

And what did we learn from congregations that failed in their disaffiliation vote?  We learned that the traditional and quaint principle, “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” was applicable to this situation.  A case in point: One of the two Oregon Synod churches which had already failed in their effort in early 2010 had miscalculated in their assumption that an overwhelming percentage of their members were so upset with the ELCA that they were ready to vote for disaffiliation in January of 2010.  But this large congregation ended up—with about 400 members attending their special congregational meeting—just seven votes short of two-thirds!  In other words, the clear majority of the over 400 members voting ended up on the “losing” side!  So for us the lesson learned was the necessity for 1) an extended pre-vote education process, and 2) having a high level of confidence as to the vote outcome based on a thorough, advance mail-in survey.  (Note: for smaller churches, informal face-to-face surveys will usually suffice when it comes to an accurate prediction of your formal-vote outcome.)

A second major strategy related to our one-year education process.  We decided to focus on the centrality of Scripture in the life and teaching of the church, and not as much on LGBTQIA+ issues.  Our primary emphasis was on this fact: there was and is no scriptural support for the actions of the national assembly in the summer of 2009. 

     Our third strategy was emphasizing to our members that the ELCA national assembly actions were taken unilaterally, and without the support of a majority of ELCA congregations.  In fact, the only national survey of ELCA congregations, before the assembly vote, showed that a clear majority of the congregations were in opposition to the recommended policy changes.  And yet ELCA national church leaders went ahead and supported these changes anyway.

Our fourth strategy was—during the one-year pre-vote education process—to give those in opposition to disaffiliation opportunities to publicly share their views.  And we did this both at two annual congregational meetings, and in numerous adult forums.

     And our fifth strategy was to follow the “letter of the law” laid out in the ELCA constitution for those congregations pursuing disaffiliation.  This is especially important in those cases where congregations are putting their property ownership at risk by not carefully following those constitutional requirements.

Our disaffiliation process from 2009 to 2011 was an incredible challenge involving significant prayer—and stress—on members, congregational leaders, staff and pastors.  However, I have never, in the last fifteen years, regretted helping lead Our Savior’s out of the ELCA.

But what about ELCA churches considering disaffiliation in 2025/2026?  My sense is that the challenges of the disaffiliation process today are not quite as daunting as in 2010.  And this is true despite the fact that the current ELCA constitutional requirements for disaffiliation are even stricter than they were fifteen years ago.  Then how can I say that today this process is not as “daunting”?  I say that because of the increasing politicization of the ELCA since the assembly actions of 2009.  This politicization of the ELCA continues to alienate many of their congregations.  And this was, in my opinion, inevitable given that many if not most of the more moderate pastors and members who were part of the ELCA in 2010 have since left.  And where are they today?  Not surprisingly, most of them now belong to either the LCMC (Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ) or the NALC (North American Lutheran Church).  Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s I was part of an ELCA synod’s staff, and then eventually the national staff of the ELCA’s Division for Congregational Ministries.  In that capacity my assignment was to travel and eventually work with the synodical evangelism committees of 25 of the ELCA’s 65 synods.  In fact I ultimately worked with pastors and lay leaders from over 500 ELCA congregations.  Back then the ELCA was a national church body comprised primarily of biblical and theological moderates; the great majority of whom understood that Scripture was and should continue to be the very foundation of our national church’s life and mission.  In my humble opinion that understanding of the centrality of God’s Word is no longer an emphasis among those who currently lead the ELCA.