2009 to 2011: My Congregation’s Disaffiliation Journey
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.
