by Amalia Vagts

When we came up with the name “Proclaim” for the group of Lutheran ministry leaders who publicly identify as LGBTQ, we knew it was perfect. And when I say “when we came up with,” I mean Jen Rude, ELM’s Program Director. At the time, Jen was serving on the ELM Board. We’d just finished a Board brainstorming session for the name and had come up empty-handed. From the backseat of the car on our drive home, Jen sat up suddenly and shouted, “Proclaim!”

And that was it.

As Paul writes in his second letter to the people of Corinth, “For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord…”  And in Isaiah, “I am about to do a new thing…so that they might proclaim my praise.”

The proclamation of good news is the reason you and others invest in these leaders.

I am always looking for new ways to help the leaders of Proclaim share what is on their hearts. At our recent Proclaim retreat, the Rev. Brenda Bos combined her skills as a Lutheran minister and movie producer to create a series of brief testimonies from Proclaim leaders.

We’ve started adding the videos to our homepage. You can easily find the most recent video to watch or share with a friend. You can also check out the Proclaim Profiles section to find out more about the leaders you support.

Please check out these stories and share them with others! Your wonderful support makes it possible for us to collect and share these stories so that the good news continues to be proclaimed from a wide variety of voices.

Amalia Vagts, Executive Director for ELM, has had the chance to see all of the incredible interviews that Brenda recorded and is excited for you to see them (except for hers, which was painfully awkward and fixed only through Brenda’s ace editing skills!). Amalia can be reached at director(at)elm.org

Note: This post was edited on 9/5/2014 to correct a URL link.