Pre-worship gathering in chapel of St. John’s Lutheran, Salisbury, N.C.; (left to right) Bishop Leonard Bolick (ELCA North Carolina Synod), Bishop Kenneth Monroe (president of African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Board of Bishops and Bishop of the South Atlantic Episcopal District), Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson (ELCA), Bishop George Walker Sr. (senior bishop, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and bishop of the Piedmont Episcopal District), Bishop Herman Yoos (ELCA South Carolina Synod), the Rev. Donald McCoid (assistant to the ELCA presiding bishop, Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations)
Something is in the wind and that phrase is not one that I use lightly. I’m referring to the rather important September 17-18 summit between the ELCA, a predominantly White church body, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a predominantly Black church body.
It is a significant meeting given the fact that the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was in response to people of African Descent not being welcomed in the mainline Methodist church.
A noteworthy meeting
In my judgment this historic meeting is tantamount to Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Castle church. In that bold act Luther sought to liberate the gospel and the church from the idolatries of legalism and traditionalism.
In his remarks to this summer’s ELCA Churchwide Assembly, George Walker, senior bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, focused on the future. Much like Luther who stepped boldly away from the past, we turn our sights ahead to sharing, ministry and mission work. It is a bold step for our two church bodies to make together.
I am hopeful, as should be the whole church, that in this summit we will build a foundation of trust, providing a place for us to move toward a deeper understanding of who we are and whose we are.
The community of believers
I am presently serving at Cross Lutheran Church in Milwaukee. Each Sunday I stand before that community and see the amazing people who sit in our pews, the working poor sitting shoulder to shoulder with people from the middle- and upper-middle class.
There are young people sitting next to seniors, people from suburban communities sitting next to city dwellers, people who are homeless sitting next to people who have a home to return to, people of various nationalities all sitting together.
I believe that this congregation looks like what God has in mind for the church. It is a congregation diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, economics, age and gender.
Each day we are blessed by each other, by the gifts that we all have to share. We are not a perfect community by any means, but because of the awesome love of God, we are committed to being a congregation that is open to all.
I am hopeful that this summit will set the foundation of such a community made up of members from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the ELCA — that we will see and understand the gifts each of us has to share.
I am hopeful that through the love of Jesus we will join with other Christians in prayer and action to express and preserve the unity given to us by the Spirit of God.
Ken Wheeler is pastor of Cross Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation in Milwaukee. He served 18 years as an assistant to the bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the ELCA.
I love the fact that these two groups who have lived and worshiped apart have come together for worship. I love churches where everyone feels welcome. I really do not like the use of words such as "diverse" because they are all about politics, not faith. The Christian faith need not aim for "diversity" because we are taught that the second highest law God gives us is to love people. Not races, not economic categories, not labels of any kind. Just people.
We all get caught up in the politicspeak because the media shouts at us all day every day. We think we need to justify and explain ourselves, and we think it will work better if we use the language of the political conversation. I don't think so.
I think the only way we will ever finally break down the barriers our political conversations create is to fully and truly submit to the Holy Spirit and love people the way Christ does. To focus on those barriers is to invite rebuilding. We have to quit noticing them. We have to dissolve them. We dissolve them when we stop seeing them.
Hurrah for the joint worship with AME Zion. Let the barriers dissolve and be forgotten. Let the praises and hallelujahs begin!
Thank you Pastor Wheeler!Please tell me that I am not dreaming! This is indeed a historic moment in the life of the church. I am also hopeful that we will live out this committment and will be open to what each body brings to the rest of society.I am proud to be a member of the ELCA! Agnes
Individually, I understand each of the words "African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church". Together, I have no idea what it means, aside from the indication that it is a church primarily composed of people of African descent and a split from the Methodist church (years, decades, centuries ago?). What do they believe, and where is it similar/different from the ELCA?
Being mostly ignorant of racism, I also don't fully grasp the importance of this. I've seen ELCA statments on race before, and grown up pretty much in the paradigm that racism is an 'evil thing of the past that must be fully banished' even though in practice it remains all too prevalent. So my question: is the wonder/amazement/excitement in the OP due to a mostly-white denomination actually honoring its spoken word of openness to a black church, or due to a black church that split off due to racism being ready to talk with a mostly-white denomination, or am I missing something else entirely? I guess I don't understand what makes this noteworthy. We talk with different church bodies all the time, and it's worth celebrating when we do find common ground, but hardly a '95 theses' moment in the church.