Author: Amalia Vagts

Rev. Steve Keiser was received to the ELCA clergy roster this morning during the 11 a.m. worship service at Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion in Philadelphia. Bishop Claire Burkat, ELCA Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod preached at the service and presided at the Rite of Reception.  Keiser is pastor at Holy Communion, along with Rev. Kari Hart.

Rev. Keiser is the 15th pastor who was extraordinarily ordained to be received onto the ELCA clergy roster.  Other ELM pastors and other LGBTQ rostered leaders have also been reinstated or received onto the ELCA roster.

The ELCA Rite of Reception is the formal rite developed by the ELCA to receive ELM roster members who had been extraordinarily ordained onto the ELCA clergy roster.

Click here to read an article about Rev. Keiser and Rev. Jay Wiesner from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod’s site.

The cake pictured at left was served on Thursday, Oct 28th at the occasion of Rev. Donna Simon’s 10th ordination anniversary and reception to the ELCA roster in the Central States Synod.

It’s a fitting photo for tomorrow as well, when the Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA will receive Rev. Jodi Barry. Tomorrow’s service will be held at Grace University Lutheran Church.

Minneapolis Area Bishop Craig Johnson will preside at the service. The Rev. M. Susan Peterson is preaching. All are welcome at this service!

Grace is located at 324 Harvard Street SE in Minneapolis. Parking is available across the street from the church in the AA parking lot. Check back in a few days for a recap of both services.

The ELCA Rite of Reception is the formal rite developed by the ELCA to receive members of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries roster onto the ELCA roster.

(Cake made by Niki Williams, a member of Abiding Peace Lutheran Church in Kansas City, MO).

On Sunday October 10, 2010, Rev. Erik Christensen was received onto the ELCA clergy roster in the Chicago Metro Synod.

The service was held at Ebenezer Lutheran Church in Andersonville, a Reconciling in Christ congregation and strong supporter of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people and ELM. Rev. Patrick Shebeck, pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church on Chicago’s South Side planned the service. Area rostered leaders and congregants participated in the service of thanksgiving and reception. Bishop Wayne Miller presided and preached, reminding everyone that many things are simultaneously old and new.

In a brief address during the service, Rev. Christensen spoke about the present needs of the church–naming the homeless LGBTQ youth on the streets of Chicago and the recent attention to the high suicide rates among LGBTQ youth. Many longtime leaders in the welcoming movement for LGBTQ people in Chicago and members and friends from Erik’s congregation, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square attended.

Rev. Erik Christensen will be received to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America clergy roster on Sunday, October 10th at 4:00 pm. The service will be held at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 1650 W. Foster Avenue, Chicago, IL. ELCA Metro Chicago Synod Bishop Wayne Miller will preside.

The Rite of Reception service was developed for pastors who had been credentialed for ministry by Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries and who were extraordinarily ordained (ordained outside the regular process of the ELCA). There have been 17 such ordinations in the United States over the last twenty years. The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly voted to change polices that previously barred partnered LGBTQ pastors and rostered lay leaders from serving in the ELCA, paving the way for the reception of pastors rostered with ELM.

Erik is pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square in Chicago, IL. He has been pastor there since he was ordained on October 21, 2006. Prior to receiving the call at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Logan Square, Erik served as the Director of East Coast Operations with StandUp For Kids, a national non-profit organization working with and for runaway and homeless youth. A graduate of Macalester College (’95); Candler School of Theology, Emory University (’02); and the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (’04), Pastor Erik brings a wide variety of interests and experience to his ministry with St. Luke’s. Pastor Erik serves as Co-Chair of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries.

ELM extends our condolences to the friends and family of Howard Erickson, founding member of Lutherans Concerned. Howard died early last Friday morning of a heart attack and stroke at age 73. His memorial service was yesterday at Hollywood Lutheran Church, in Los Angeles.

We give thanks for the life of Howard Erickson and his early and dedicated lifelong commitment to an inclusive church.

Click here to read an extended obituary on the LC/NA website.

(Post by Amalia Vagts, ELM Executive Director).

I arrived for Rev. Jen Nagel’s Rite of Reception this past Sunday and immediately felt energized by the colorful surroundings of Intermedia Arts, the temporary home of Salem English Lutheran Church.

Bulletin from the service

This feeling continued as we entered the worship space, which is a theater. The sounds of the fabulous Salem jazz ensemble filled the room. Pastor Jen wanted her rite of reception to occur within a worship service at Salem, and many in the congregation were actively involved in the service.

At the beginning, Pastor Jen welcomed all of us. She made special note of a couple parishioners typically unable to attend worship due to health issues, but who were present that morning. Bp. Craig Johnson, Minneapolis Area Synod, was present for the Rite, and was also the special guest during Pastor Jen’s lively kid’s sermon.

This was the third ELCA Rite of Reception for a pastor who was authorized for ministry by Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. The grand services in San Francisco and St. Paul were important events for the community of believers who have long worked (and continue to work) for the day when the ELCA would recognize publicly-identified lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer pastors.

This Rite of Reception at Salem was a wonderful, local service held in Pastor Jen’s own parish. All of these services have been great examples of how this Church is widening its welcome to include all of God’s children. Good news!

“Over the last 11 years, as a parish pastor and then a hospital chaplain, I have devoted my life to the faithful service of God, this Synod, the Church, and those in need. I have diligently sought to offer the grace and mercy of God to all. I have loved and continue to love the Church as the instrument of Christ’s activity in the world. But I can no longer faithfully and in all good conscience serve a Church that willingly and actively oppresses and condemns a significant proportion of the population that is gay or lesbian, like myself”…

With these words, I officially resigned from the ordained roster of the ELCA in 2002 and entered a form of “ecclesial exile”. I had received a phone call from my bishop in West Virginia the week prior requesting my resignation because I was living openly in a same sex relationship. At the time I wrote my letter of resignation I had no idea where I would go or what I would do in the future. I only knew that the ELCA would no longer be the place I called my spiritual home – not because I had abandoned the ELCA but because the ELCA had abandoned me. I never questioned by sense of call from the Spirit to Word and Sacrament ministry, I simply questioned where I would live out that call.

A year later I found the Extraordinary Candidacy Project and a group of pastors and lay people who offered me incredible words of affirmation and support. This welcoming Lutheran community allowed me to live out my call to ordained ministry as a hospice chaplain and to bring the God’s grace to others at the end of their lives. A few years later when the ECP became the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries I was proud to be the first ELM pastor to apply to the Association of Professional Chaplains for accreditation as a professional chaplain with the support and encouragement of my colleagues in ELM.

Following the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, I was surprised and overwhelmed by a flood of personal emotions. Did I really want to go back into the ELCA? Could I trust the leadership of the ELCA to fully welcome me again? Had the ELCA truly changed in the last seven years? After discussing the issue at length with my ELM colleagues and admittedly with some trepidation I decided it was time to find out. In the spring I met with the Bishop of the Rocky Mountain Synod, + Allan Bjornberg, and the Assistant to the Bishop for Candidacy, Madelyn Busse. They encouraged me to apply for reinstatement to the ordained roster.

On August 20 I met with the synod’s Candidacy Committee. My partner, Mauricio, came with me to the meeting. What I experienced from the committee was nothing less than an unqualified welcome. I was overwhelmed by their grace and hospitality. We had a fruitful discussion about my previous journey in the ELCA, the pain that was associated with my resignation, the ministry I have been doing since leaving the ELCA, and my sense of call now. Indeed the Church (or at least my corner of it) had changed significantly in my exile and for that I am so very grateful to the work of the ECP/ELM, Lutherans Concerned – North America, Good Soil, Wingspan, Soul Force, and other groups and individuals who worked and advocated tirelessly on behalf of the GLBTQ community to bring about this remarkable move toward greater justice and equality.

To be sure there is still work to be done – we have not reached full equality and sadly, as I learned from one of my ELM colleagues this week, there are parts of the Church that are still resisting the work of the Spirit. But the Church IS moving. I look forward to rejoining the ELCA ordained roster and I hope that I can continue to work along with many others to keep the Church moving toward even greater inclusion.

It is with great joy that Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries announces that Rev. Dale Poland (pictured at right) has been reinstated to the ELCA roster of ordained pastors!

Please check our blog later this week for a personal reflection from Pastor Dale about the experience of being reinstated to the ELCA roster.

Rev. Dale Poland was ordained in 1991. He was removed from the ELCA roster in 2003 because he is gay. Rev. Poland has been a member of the ELM roster since then, serving for two years as chaplain to the roster. Rev. Poland serves as a hospice chaplain in the Boulder, CO area and is a member of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Denver, CO.