Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries

This month ELM had two more members join the Board of Directors, ELM’s governing body. Julie Boleyn and Jim Kowalski both bring a wide range of skills and experiences to the Board of Directors.

Julie Boleyn grew up in Oregon, attending a Lutheran church for the first time at the invitation of a high school friend. While still in high school, she became a Sunday School teacher, jr. high youth leader, and sang in the choir. Almost directly upon graduation, Julie started working for a start-up software company as their first employee. While the work was interesting, she found her real joy was always in the volunteer work she did with the church.

In 1997, Julie volunteered on long-term staff at Holden Village. It was there that she discerned a call to the ministry as a parish pastor. In May 2010, Julie completed her masters at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

Julie and her partner, Jeanine Reardon, were married in a church ceremony at St. Paul Lutheran in Evanston, Illinois in October of 2004.  They live in Chicago with their daughter.

Jim Kowalski grew up in suburban Pittsburgh, attending and being confirmed in a Lutheran congregation. He went to college at Emory University on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Jim moved to San Francisco in 1992 with his spouse Bruce Jervis, after the both served four years in the US Navy. They joined St. Francis Lutheran Church shortly thereafter, and Jim has served in many leadership roles there, including on the congregational Council and as co-chair of a capital fund-raising campaign.

Jim worked through April 2010 at Golden Gate University in a variety of capacities, including alumni relations, fund-raising and program administration. He served on the board of Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries from 2003 to 2006 and is delighted and honored to be serving as co-chair of the Prophets and Workers Campaign for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries.

Our coalition partners, Lutherans Concerned/North America, issued the following announcement about an upcoming re-broadcast of a program on the Oprah Network featuring The Naming Project.  The Naming Project was founded by Rev. Jay Wiesner, Ross Murray, and Rev. Brad Froslee. The original broadcast received great reviews.

An excerpt from LC/NA’s announcement:

The Naming Project will be part of a program, “Pray the Gay Away?,” being re-broadcast on Friday night, March 11, at 9pm Eastern/8pm Central. This program is part of the Our America with Lisa Ling series of programs.   Immediately following the program will be The Gayle King Hour, discussing the program with Lisa Ling and taking questions from the viewers.

Our America is broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network and other cable networks.

For additional information about “Pray the Gay Away?” and to check where on your local cable station, go to http://www.oprah.com/own-our-america-lisa-ling/our-america-blog.html or direct to http://tinyurl.com/PrayTheGayAway.

The Naming Project is a faith-based youth group serving youth of all sexual and gender identities. The primary focus is to provide a place for youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning or allied to learn, grow, and share their experiences. In this way The Naming Project is a space in which youth can comfortably discuss faith and who they understand themselves to be–whether gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender…or straight. Learn more about the Naming Project at  www.thenamingproject.org.

IRA Charitable Rollover: Additional Way to Give in 2011

ELM is expanding our vision and programming, and we will rely on the generous support of current and new supporters to do so.  I wanted to tell our supporters about a special way you or your loved ones can give to ELM in 2011.

Late in 2010, the IRA Charitable Rollover provision was extended through December 31, 2011.  This allows the owner of a traditional or Roth IRA to distribute to a public charity up to $100,000 a year without the distribution being included in taxable income.  The distribution counts  toward the donor’s mandatory withdrawal amount.

Individuals with traditional and Roth IRAs can make direct transfers from such plans to ELM or to our endowment, housed at the Lutheran Community Foundation.  Some restrictions apply:

• Individuals must be 70-1/2 or older on the date of the gift (if you aren’t…keep reading for a fun idea!).
• Individuals may give up to $100,000 per year without having to count the distribution / charitable gift as taxable income, but there is no income tax deduction for the gift.
• Charitable gifts must be made outright to the endowment fund by the IRA plan administrator (meaning you direct your IRA manager to send the gift directly to ELM). Lifetime income gifts and gifts to donor-advised funds and supporting organizations do not qualify for this incentive.

Our friends at the Lutheran Community Foundation shared this observation: “Given these parameters, the charitable rollover provision provides the most opportunity for those who must take their required minimum distributions from an IRA, but would prefer to direct it to charity instead. These individuals may have either maxed out on tax deductions or don’t itemize.”

Your gift can be designated where most needed for ELM or could be made to the Lutheran Community Foundation, designated for the ELM Endowment Fund.

Are you thinking, but I’m not 70-1/2 years old? This might be a way for your parents or grandparents to make a special gift to support your passion for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. Invite your loved ones to consider a gift in your honor for a special occasion, or just because. For more information about making a qualified charitable distribution from an IRA, please contact your financial planner or Amalia at 563-382-6277.

Last week, we wrote on this blog about the service in which St. Francis Lutheran Church was welcomed by the ELCA.

The ELCA posted a news release about this historic event, which you can read here.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Lutheran pastors and rostered lay leaders from around the country (and even the world) are getting ready for a first-of-its-kind retreat next month.

For many years, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM)  has hosted an annual retreat for members of the ELM roster. Each year, this group would come together for community and professional development. This year, ELM is launching Proclaim, the new professional community open to all publicly-identified LGBTQ Lutheran pastors and rostered lay leaders.  So when the retreat begins on April 1, it will include leaders not only from the ELM roster, but also the ELCA and other Lutheran rosters. This retreat will be the official launch of Proclaim.

49 people have registered for the retreat. About half the group have prior ELM connections and about half  do not.  We are especially delighted that the group includes 15 seminarians! And thanks to the generosity of ELM donors, we were able to award scholarships to 18 attendees. Attendees are coming from all parts of the United States and beyond–9 from Chicago; 15 from the Twin Cities; 4 from the Midwest; 7 from the East Coast, South & Southwest; and 11 from the West Coast. AND…1 from South Africa and 1 from Alaska!

The 2011 Proclaim Retreat will be April 1-3 at the George Williams Conference Center near Lake Geneva, WI. The key presenter will be Lisa Larges, who has long worked for ordination for lesbian and gay people in the Presbyterian church and serves as Ministry Coordinator for That All May Freely Serve.

It’s been a period of “historic services” in the life of the Lutheran church. And feeling somewhat like Forrest Gump, I’ve been blessed to end up at most of them. And with each service, I’ve felt a wave of gratitude and renewal and faith in the Lutheran church as time and time again people have come together to stand up against insidious and damaging discrimination within the Church and throw open the doors of the church to LGBTQ people.  These services have been a blessing to all who witness them.

And somehow, yesterday’s service of Reconciliation, Restoration and Reception at St. Francis Lutheran Church felt wholly new.  This is the congregation that, along with First United Lutheran Church, stood up years ago to injustice and spiritual violence in the church when they called lesbian pastors Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart and gay pastor Jeff Johnson, despite a policy barring them from doing so. These congregations issued these calls because they were in the midst of an AIDS crisis and needed the LGBT community to know how truly welcome they were. They issued these calls because they knew that the policy barring partnered lesbian and gay pastors from serving was unjust.

Twenty years later, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American agreed with them. After a period of conversation and discernment the Sierra Pacific Synod issued an invitation for them to return. St. Francis Lutheran Church voted unanimously to once again join the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

At the beginning of a powerful service, Bishop Mark W. Holmerud knocked on the door of the church and was received by the current congregational president and the president serving at the time of St. Francis’ expulsion. These leaders welcomed the bishop. And in an important and moving sermon, the bishop welcomed the ELCA home. You can view the full sermon here.

This is a day of grace for the whole church. How could a congregation that had been forcibly removed from a denomination because they followed the gospel and not a discriminatory policy fraught with human failing decide to return? Why would they? Because God can lead us to places we would not go ourselves. As Paul writes in Ephesians: “For Christ is our peace; in whose flesh both groups have been made into one, who has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”

Through Christ, we are all welcomed home.

If you cannot attend in person, join us virtually on Sunday as St. Francis Lutheran Church, expelled in 1995 after calling lesbian pastors Rev. Ruth Frost and Rev. Phyllis Zillhart, is restored as a congregation of the ELCA in an historic and unprecedented service.

Click this link at 3:00 pm Pacific Time on Sunday, February 27, 2011 to join the service.

Here is a link to a great article about the journey of St. Francis Lutheran Church.

We’ll “see” you there!

44  wonderful folks gathered at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Northeast Portland, OR last Sunday night to talk about ELM and Portland-based EcoFaith Recovery.  It was an inspiring and energizing time!

We gathered around a drum circle and shared in an incredible buffet of local and sustainable food prepared through the “Simply in Season” groups initiated as a partnership between EcoFaith Recovery and St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Beaverton, OR.  Following the music and meal, we shared stories of the exciting ministry going on through EcoFaith Recovery and updates from ELM. EcoFaith Recovery has launched a number of programs, including Table Talks that bring folks together for conversation about the environment, Green Spirit, a spiritual support group for those seeking recovery from  cultural  addictions that hurt the earth, and the Simply in Season groups: The primary resource is the  cookbook and its accompanying study guide for small groups published by the Mennonite Church.(Remember the “More with Less” cookbook? This is the next incarnation of that book.)  Group members meet in one member’s home to share recipes prepared using the cookbook. There is even a Simply in Season  cooking class  for kids!

It was wonderful to create and deepen connections between people who came because of ELM, and those who came due to EcoFaith Recovery, and especially those who just came out to learn about both groups! I left feeling just amazed by this “rainforest” ministry going on…life leading to life (thank you Bishop Brauer-Rieke, who gives a wonderful talk about the “rainforest” church).

EcoFaith Recovery began with a concept grant from ELM in 2009 and continued with an additional grant in 2010. We are blessed to be continuing to fund this growing ministry in 2011, thanks to support from our wonderful donors. Pastor Robyn is an ELCA pastor today because the ELM roster was there to support her ministry when she didn’t see a future in the church as a publicly-identified lesbian called to ordained ministry.

You support ELM. ELM supports Robyn. Robyn supports EcoFaith Recovery. And EcoFaith Recovery is renewing the church. What a joy for all of us to be a part of this!

We share in the good news included in the following press release  from St. Francis Lutheran Church…

SAN FRANCISCO – FEBRUARY 13, 2011 – St. Francis Lutheran Church, which was removed from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1995 after ordaining a lesbian couple as its pastors, has taken the final vote required to rejoin the ELCA.

At its annual meeting on Sunday, the 141-member congregation ratified its approval of a new constitution, formalizing a decision to reunite that was made last July. Before rejoining the ELCA, St. Francis had to make minor changes to its own governing document. Members approved the new constitution in October, but the final ratification had to wait for Sunday’s meeting.

St. Francis will celebrate its return to the national church in a special worship service on Feb. 27, when it will welcome Bishop Mark Holmerud of the ELCA’s Sierra Pacific Synod. Members of the media are welcome to attend this event, which will take place at 3 p.m. in the historic St. Francis sanctuary at 152 Church Street.

The return of St. Francis to the ELCA comes at a time of historic change in the national church following a series of votes at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly that changed policies relating to sexual minorities in the church and its clergy. Scores of ELCA congregations have taken steps to leave the national church in protest over those votes. With 4.7 million members, the ELCA is the largest Christian church in the United States to allow lesbian and gay clergy with partners to serve its congregations.

In 1990, St. Francis called the Rev. Ruth Frost and the Rev. Phyllis Zillhart as its pastors, breaking an ELCA rule that forbade churches from calling gay or lesbian pastors unless they had taken a vow of celibacy. The church was put on trial along with First United Lutheran Church of San Francisco, which had called a gay man, the Rev. Jeff Johnson, as its pastor. The ELCA found both churches in violation of the rule and suspended them. After a five-year grace period, both were removed from the ELCA on Dec. 31, 1995.

At the 2009 Churchwide Assembly, the national church repealed that discriminatory policy toward gay and lesbian clergy. Since then, many gay and lesbian pastors, including Frost, Zillhart and Johnson, have been welcomed into the ELCA’s roster of approved clergy. The congregation of First United Lutheran Church is still discerning its future path.

At the Feb. 27 celebration, photographers and video crews will be allowed inside the sanctuary in select locations while the service takes place. The Rev. Robert Goldstein, pastor of St. Francis, and other participants will be made available for interviews following the event.

St. Francis Lutheran Church is located near Church and Market Streets, across from Safeway. Parking permits will be available for media, and the church is easily accessible via public transit.

About St. Francis Lutheran Church

Formed in 1964 through the merger of Lutheran churches founded by Danish and Finnish immigrants, St. Francis Lutheran Church is open to people of all backgrounds and sexual orientations and has been ministering to San Francisco’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities since the 1980s. Visit St. Francis on the Web at www.st-francis-lutheran.org.