Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries

Happy Pride, Beloveds!

The ELM Board is excited to share that after a period of listening and discerning, we have agreed upon a job description for an Interim Executive Director. The ELM Board took into account our current financial situation, the needs and desires we have heard from the Proclaim community and our supporters, and the current political climate in North America. We plan on contracting with a suitable candidate for 18 months, during which period we will be setting specific goals for ELM, our growth, and the ministry we participate in! Priority deadline for applications is June 30th, 2025.

What can you do to help? Discern if you would like to apply for the position, share the position availability, and above all, please pray. Pray for a potential candidate, for the hiring team, and for the ministry that our creator is calling us to in the next era of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries.
Interim ED Job Description and Application Process

You can find the Interim Executive Director Job Description and Application Process Here.

Bio: Mycah McNett(She/Her) is a life-long Lutheran who hails from both Washingtons: the State and the DC Area. Being a Queer Lutheran is a major part of Mycah’s identity. Mycah is a 2023 graduate of United Lutheran Seminary and is ordained in the ELCA. Mycah holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from James Madison University, specializing in environmental and evolutionary fields as well as anthropology. After college, Mycah served as a Young Adult in Global Mission through the ELCA in Manchester, UK. Before attending seminary, Mycah served as a lay staff member in a Lutheran congregation where she worked with communication, youth, and young adult ministries. Currently, Mycah is located just outside Philadelphia, PA with her spouse, Alyssa, and three cats: Clem, Clio, and Minnie.

On Joel R Workin’s Birthday, we are happy to announce that the Workin Scholarship committee received five incredible applications for this Scholarship cycle. This Spring, the committee met, discerned, and decided to award two Working Scholarship awards.

This year’s honor comes with a $7500 grant to be used for the specified purposes of the fund: professional or spiritual development, or educational, ministry, or candidacy expenses.

Meet the awardees:

The Reverend Juan Manuel Arias-Perea (He,Him, Él) serves as the pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Weehawken, New Jersey. Originally from Cuba, Rev. Arias-Perea brings a rich blend of academic and pastoral experience to his ministry. He holds a Master of Divinity from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, a Master of Theology from the Mexican Theological Community in Mexico City, and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado.

Rev. Arias-Perea is a committed public theologian whose work is shaped by a liberative and decolonial perspective, informed by his experiences in Cuba and his theological formation across Latin America and the United States. His writing and teaching often explore the intersections of faith, justice, and identity, with a particular focus on dismantling systems of oppression within and beyond the church. He believes that theology must be embodied, prophetic, and responsive to the cries of the marginalized.

In addition to his pastoral duties, Rev. Arias-Perea serves on the Board of Directors of Seafarers International House, reflecting his commitment to social justice and advocacy for marginalized communities. Under his leadership, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church continues to be a vibrant, bilingual, and multicultural congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), dedicated to creating an inclusive, welcoming community for all.

Seminarian Max Del Bosque (he/him) is a queer, bi, transgender, Latinè seminarian at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and candidate for ordination in the ELCA’s Southwest California Synod. Max has an MFA in Studio Art, and is a practicing visual artist and tenured art professor at Los Angeles’s Pierce College. He has taught painting workshops for Yale Divinity School’s Graduate Conference on Religion and Ecology and Harvard Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality, as well as painting workshops for San Francisco Night Ministry, and art workshops for transgender and gender diverse folk out of his studio, Miel de la Tierra Studio. Max’s art explores identity as it relates to gender, culture, and sacred connections to land and place.

The Joel R.Workin Memorial Scholarship was established in 1995 by the generosity of Joel’s family, colleagues and close friends to honor his life and legacy. Read more about Joel and the scholarship here. We are pleased to add Rev. Juan Manuel Arias Perea and Seminarian Max Del Bosque to this distinguished roster of previous Workin Scholars: Bishop Jen Rude, Rev. Matthew James, Rev. Julie Boleyn, Rev. Asher O’Callaghan, Rev. Laura Kuntz, Rev. Emily Ewing, Rev. Becca Seely, Rev. Gretchen Colby Rode, Justin Ferko, Christephor Gilbert, Ben Hogue, Rev. Leon LaCross, Jory Mickelson, Rev. Rachel San Diego, and Rev. Reed Fowler.

Please join us in congratulating these two awardees and in giving thanks for their continued witness as beloved members of Christ’s body.

Sincerely,
Rev Mycah McNett, Chair, Extraordinary Lutheran Board of Directors
Michael Price Nelson, Chair

Workin Committee members: Greg Egertson, Bishop Jeff Johnson, Michael Price Nelson, Rev. Becca Seely, Rev. Amalia Vagts, Rev. Becca Seely, Rev. Kelsey Green.
Donate to the Continued Ministry of ELM

Bio: Mycah McNett (She/Her) is a life-long Lutheran who hails from both Washingtons: the State and the DC Area. Being a Queer Lutheran is a major part of Mycah’s identity. Mycah is a 2023 graduate of United Lutheran Seminary and is ordained in the ELCA. Mycah holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from James Madison University, specializing in environmental and evolutionary fields as well as anthropology. After college, Mycah served as a Young Adult in Global Mission through the ELCA in Manchester, UK. Before attending seminary, Mycah served as a lay staff member in a Lutheran congregation where she worked with communication, youth, and young adult ministries. Currently, Mycah is located just outside Philadelphia, PA with her spouse, Alyssa, and three cats: Clem, Clio, and Minnie.

As we head into the holiday season – a time where we often gather with our loved ones around tables and share in delicious food, and one another’s company – I keep being reminded of the image of God’s endless table. 

For me, the image of the eschaton being like a large banquet, with a never-ending table with enough room for all, has been an image of hope, liberation, and admittedly, also confusion. This idea that no one is separate from the love and grace of God, that our God is one who craves wholeness with us, and among each other. That in God’s desired future, we might all share in a meal together, even those we might disagree with most vehemently in this lifetime. That one day, all of creation might be reconciled to God, and that can look like gathering over a meal that never ceases, full of joy, abundance, and pleasure. 

This image of a banquet table being a place of God’s salvation is a repeated metaphor throughout scripture, found in Isaiah 25:6-10, Luke 14:15-24, and Matthew 26:26-29, and so, has been a common metaphor in our practice of Holy Communion. In the Lutheran tradition, we trust that in the Eucharist, all are gathered in a mysterious union with God, to share in the sacrament with us, and that this is just a small taste of the feast that is yet to come. Every time we share in communion together, we are at the same time preparing for, and participating in, this endless table.

While thinking about this tradition, where the Kingdom of God is like gathering around a dinner table, I couldn’t help but be reminded of kitchen table polyamory. For those unfamiliar, kitchen table polyamory centers around the idea of polyamorous relationships being anchored in building community, sustaining relationships, and found family – so much so that a polycule (partners, and partners’ partners, and everyone connected in a great web of relationship!) might be so comfortable around each other, they hope to regularly gather around a kitchen table and share in a meal together. This style of polyamory is the closest definition for what my relationship structure looks like, where my partners (though not together romantically) are family to one another. 

Kitchen table polyamory is itself a metaphor for the style of relationship the practitioners of it want to achieve – that of closeness, proximity, and interconnected relationships. It is especially fitting then that the Kingdom of God is said to look like all of us gathered together, around food, around abundance, around love and around reconciliation. In this way, kitchen table polyamory is a fitting metaphor for how the Kingdom of God might one day look. To me, this is not a flowery or utopic metaphor – polyamory, just as life in the Church, or in any relationship structure, is not all sunshine and rainbows. There can be hurt feelings, grief, miscommunications, and more – and yet, we are drawn back to the table, drawn to being reconciled to one another, created by God to be in community.

There is something beautiful too about how a seemingly small, daily act that my family (and incredibly queer polycule) regularly does – sharing a meal together around a table – might in some way, be re-enacting or foreshadowing the world to come. In her book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown talks about how our imaginations can aid us in thinking of our future, and I find it fitting here. “Science fiction is simply a way to practice the future together. I suspect that is what many of you are up to, practicing futures together, practicing justice together, living into new stories. It is our right and responsibility to create a new world.” (pg.19) Through living kitchen table polyamory in the flesh, we are practicing God’s New Day together. We are practicing what it is like to meet one another across difference and difficulty, to share in nourishing our bodies, and building lasting community – in this act, we are in fact, living and creating the Kingdom of God together.

______________________

This blog post was lovingly submitted by an anonymous author and has full support of ELM’s Board of Directors. If polyamory, relationship anarchy, ethical nonmonogamy, or any other relationship structures are new and unfamiliar, we ask that you approach this topic with curiosity rather than judgment. Relationship structures outside of a monogamous paradigm are not for everyone, and that’s okay, but it is not okay to do harm to a sibling in Christ who finds it right for their relationship. Here are some further resources to check out if you are curious: The Triad Fam: a Polyamourus Christian Family or the book Polysecure by Jessica Fern.

By Bergen Eickhoff

I was almost too intimidated to join Proclaim.

I know that never feeling Queer enough is a part of the modern bisexual/nonbinary condition. Still, I was apprehensive to join an organization filled with living Lutheran legends. As a closeted Queer kid in small-town Minnesota, Proclaim members were the legendary defenders of a bright future I needed to believe in even though it felt far away. How could I now be in the same group as my heroes when I was just a mere intern pastor?

I joined Proclaim in 2020. So it’s safe to say that my experience in Proclaim has been marked by instability. Heartbreak. Hurt. Change upon change upon change. Like the wider Lutheran church, ELM and Proclaim are in a period of self-discovery. Gone are the days of growth and advancement. Here are the days of discernment, adaptation, accountability, advocacy, and change upon change upon change.

Self-discovery is a beautiful period of life, but one defined by pain. To quote Jimmy Eat World, “We’re in the middle of the ride.” Everything might be alright one day. But not until we endure a lot of struggle and the seemingly endless onslaught of questions and tasks of becoming. Being in Proclaim and ELM right now feels like writing the perfect poem but struggling to come up with an appropriate ending.

When I was discerning an invitation to become the Proclaim relator to the ELM Board, I felt that all too familiar intimidation returned. Proclaim, to me, seemed in need of healing. I am a pretty new pastor. I’m still pretty new to being out. What place did I have in that healing process?

I still don’t know what place I have in the healing process of Proclaim. But my discernment told me that I have a place in the self-discovery process. We in Proclaim, in ELM, in the Church, in the world, are being called to change. And as Queer people of faith, we trust that the call to change is a holy call from God in the Holy Spirit. When the world screams at us to be normal, we respond by changing with the brilliant and loud enthusiasm as a Lollapalooza crowd singing “Hot to Go.” When the church tells us it isn’t ready for our change, we reform it by sharing our transformation loud and proud like a Pride parade. We do this because we know our change is holy.

Now is the time for us to give attention to the millions of ways that each of us individually and collectively are being called by God to change. We’re in for some holy chaos in the middle of this ride. But leaning into that call to change is what we’ll need to do if we want to get to a place where everything might once again feel alright.

And that’s why I’m here. As the new Proclaim relator to the ELM Board, I am here to give attention to your call to change. Proclaimers, use my Calendly page to schedule a time to meet with me, and tell me about how you are called to change and how Proclaim or ELM is called to change in this moment. I promise never to minimize or put down your call to change. My commitment is to be a presence in the world of ELM and Proclaim whom you can trust to carry your call to change. And I will do everything I can to prove worthy of your trust by representing your call to change in ELM’s self-discovery process.

It’s going to take some time to heal. Especially as America is kind of a political tirefire right now. But I hope that these conversations about your call to change help make ELM and Proclaim a community that sustains and nourishes your vocation to love and serve in this weary world.

Please do not be too intimidated to find a time to talk. Please do not be too intimidated to dive into the middle of Proclaim and ELM’s questions of self-discovery. As we figure out how we’re called to change, we don’t need legend and heroes.

We need you. Thanks be to God that you’re here.

Peace,

Pastor Bergen Eickhoff (they/them)

P.S. If you’d like to get in touch with Bergen or the ELM board, please reach out via board@elm.org

Bio: Bergen Eickhoff (they/them) is a pastor, poet, and mercenary pianist living in Tacoma, Washington. They currently work in Children, Youth and Family ministry in Olympia, Washington, where they enjoy great Music and better coffee. They are bisexual and nonbinary, and love to be loud about both of those identities. They have been a member of Proclaim since 2021 and currently serve as the Proclaim Relator To the ELM Board. You can find their writings on their Substack pages (Standard) (Bible Rewrite Project). Go be Queer!

Those of us reading this in the United States have a pretty big responsibility today. We have stressed over the election for months, prayed about it, and maybe talked about it with friends and family members.

As the hours pass today, and more and more of us have completed our voting duty or voted early by some means, all that is left is the waiting.

As Christians, we have seasons when we contemplate waiting intentionally. Even though the stakes feel high, like we are in the midst of Good Friday, observing a kind of Holy Saturday Vigil, or approaching the tomb early at sunrise…

I wonder if this is more like how we wait in Advent?

In the comforting night. Contemplating what the deeper meanings of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love might really mean to a weary people. Contemplating more than the birth pangs of a newborn baby, but the birth pangs of a whole people. A whole people delivered like how the Hebrew people were delivered from Egypt, or the Judeans living under colonial Roman rule.

Salvation did not come to all people through a political candidate in the time of Jesus, and it will not come through this election today. The grace, love, and peace of God remain the foundation we stand upon.

As people of faith – we put our trust in Christ Jesus, the one who calls us to love God and love our neighbors. Now, I am not saying don’t go vote. I hope you already have! And as we vote, we remember that we follow the one who restores us into community. The one who heals. The one who forgives. Who reconciles. Who brings us to new life.

Whether the election is called today, tomorrow, or legal proceedings drag this out to the very last minute up to the inauguration, may we know we are not alone in the waiting.

I pray you have already started the steadfast work of cultivating your network – the network of loving support – the kind that James Baldwin writes about – so that even when we do not feel like we are shining the light of Christ as brightly as we could be, our light together radiates.

About this author: Mycah McNett graduated with honors in Biblical and Lutheran studies from United Lutheran Seminary. She was called as the second pastor at Saint Luke Lutheran Church in Devon, PA in the summer of 2023. Before seminary, she served in church communication and youth ministry roles in Harrisonburg, VA, and was an ELCA Young Adult in Global Mission participant. Since 2022 Pastor Mycah has served on the Board of Directors for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries and is an active member of the Proclaim Community for LGBTQIA+ Lutheran Rostered Leaders. Pastor Mycah lives in Downingtown with her spouse, Alyssa, and three cats, Minnie, Clio, and Clem.

by Tom Gehring & Mycah McNett

Greetings in the name of the One who created all things good, who redeemed all people through radical love, and who sustains all bodies with the breath of divinity. It is my joy to write to you all in this first of many updates on the work of the ELM Board of Directors. We understand that many of you are likely curious about what the Board has been working on and that news and communication has been sparse the past several months. The Communications team plans to send semi-frequent updates (like the one you’re reading right now!) to keep all of you looped in.

To start, here are some updates on Board Membership, both people cycling out of board service and joining. We give abundant and joyful thanks for the completed services of Rev Lindsey Jorgensen-Skakum (board secretary), Jessica Davis, Ryan Fordice, and Rev Kelsey Green. We celebrate and commemorate their faithful terms serving this ministry and wish them well in their current and future endeavors. We also celebrate Rev Bergen Nelson beginning their service as a board member and look forward to how their gifts will aid the board in its ministry. The current members of the board and brief bios of each person can be seen on the ELM website. 

In April, the ELM Board began working with Rozella Haydee-White and RHW Consulting to coach the board in clarifying our vision for the ministry of ELM in this current and emerging moment. Specifically, Rozella and the board are working to 1) solidify ELM’s strategic direction, defining and prioritizing ELM’s programs, 2) navigate and strategize for the process of hiring and onboarding new staff, and 3) overall clarifying and communicating ELM’s identity and function. We are grateful for the ways in which Rozella has helped the board thus far and look forward to the remaining 6 months of working together.

If you are curious about the work the board has been focusing on and discussing in our monthly meetings, check out meeting minutes here on our website. These Board Meeting minutes are a summary of what was on the agenda and discussed in each month’s ELM Board of Directors meeting. The board approves the summary of the minutes in the following month and then they are posted to the website. That means if a meeting happens in January, the January minutes will not be posted until after they are approved in February’s meeting.

That’s it for this update! Thank you, as always, for supporting ELM. As we reflect upon what this organization has been and envision what it is becoming, we do so in the confidence that the Spirit continues to guide us in ministry together. 

Blessings,
The ELM Communications Team
Tom Gehring
Mycah McNett

Bio: Tom Gehring (He/They) is a pastor currently working as a chaplain in Metro Chicago providing spiritual care for individuals living with, or at risk for HIV. In their free time Tom loves to DJ, spend time outside, play lots of games (both video and board), read excessively thick fantasy novels, and work out with his lovely gym community. Tom has been serving as a member of ELM’s board of directors since October of ’23 and is honored to be a part of this ministry.

Bio: Mycah McNett (she/her) is a 2023 graduate of United Lutheran Seminary and is ordained in the ELCA. Mycah holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from James Madison University, specializing in environmental and evolutionary fields as well as anthropology. After college, she served as a Young Adult in Global Mission through the ELCA. Before attending seminary, Mycah served as a lay staff member in a Lutheran congregation where she worked with communication, youth, and young adult ministries. Currently, Mycah is located just outside Philadelphia, PA with her spouse and three cats: Clem, Clio, and Minnie. 

by Tom Gehring

Once again, we find ourselves entering the most sacred week of the church year.

As the child of two pastors, I consider myself intimately familiar with the church calendar as my life has been marked by its rhythms for 30 years now. Despite this long-running familiarity, however, the journey through Holy Week has always carried a meaningful significance. From washing feet and hearing the command to love as Jesus loved, to sitting through the painful emptiness of grief and keeping vigil, my spirit has always found peace and meaning among the familiar patterns. The Lenten runup and subsequent journey through this sacred week felt like a return home. It was a poignant reminder of who I am as an individual of faith as well as a member of the worldwide body of Christ. However, in recent years, Holy Week has not felt like much of a homecoming.

Four years ago, I was in my final year of seminary and navigating the early stages of a global pandemic that continues to mark our lives. As Holy Week approached, I struggled to find any peace, joy, comfort, or familiarity in the rhythms of the week because they had been so aggressively upended. I felt unable to feel much of anything through the observations of the week. Admittedly, I still struggle to some extent as the months and years since that first pandemic Holy Week have only grown increasingly chaotic and disheartening.

This year, however, I find myself wondering. If the familiarity of these sacred observances no longer brings a sense of comfort, introspection, and joy, then perhaps it can stir up something new within me, maybe in our communities as well. After all, the stories that shape and guide us, we profess to be a living Word. Though the structure and stories of this sacred week are relatively unchanged from year to year, we as individuals and communities have been shaped in myriad and tumultuous ways. I desperately want to believe that, despite living in a reality whose very fabric seems to be unfolding before our eyes, our collective journey through the days to come might help us face whatever comes next.

With everything in the world continuing to unfold, with each new and prolonged crisis, I cannot help but focus on the tenacity of this week. Perhaps, too I feel an indignant comfort in how staring down a world in chaos has only seemed to highlight the most important elements of this Holy Week: a protest through the streets that actively mocked an occupying empire, an intimate gathering of close friends sharing a meal amidst heightened anxieties, a desperate prayer in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, hours of keeping watch through the silence of night with a defiant hope.

However you approach this coming week, be it with anticipation and excitement or the numbness of enduring yet another year, I pray that the Spirit might find you and speak to you in the way you most need. May we all come home to this sacred moment and be transformed into the very Love we encounter in the altar, the cross, and the tomb. Amen.

Bio: Tom Gehring (He/They) is a pastor currently working as a chaplain in Metro Chicago providing spiritual care for individuals living with, or at risk for HIV. In their free time Tom loves to DJ, spend time outside, play lots of games (both video and board), read excessively thick fantasy novels, and work out with his lovely gym community. Tom has been serving as a member of ELM’s board of directors since October of ’23 and is honored to be a part of this ministry.