Synod Assembly Report of the 25th Annual Assembly of the Southwest California Synod, ELCA
Held at the Hilton Glendale Executive Meeting Center, June 1-2, 2012
First of all I want to thank the congregation and the council for selecting Judy and I to be your representatives at the recent Synod Assembly of the Southwest California Synod, ELCA. It has been a few years since we have attended an assembly and both Judy and I had a good time reconnecting with friends from the past as well as attending to the business of the Church.
The theme of this year’s assembly was “We’re on a mission from God”, and sub-titled “God’s Work, Our Hands”.
The opening bible study was given by Dr. Sam Thomas, Associate Director of the Center for Equality and Justice, at California Lutheran University. Dr. Thomas spoke on Isaiah 6: vs. 6-11 and focused on the key verse in that passage, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”, and I said “Here am I; send me!”” We are constantly being called by God; it is for us to say “Send Me!”
Following the bible study we began the first business session with procedural items and then received the report of the nominating committee and any nominations from the floor. Next was the report from the Bishop Dean Nelson and Vice President of the Synod Council, Joyce Thompson presented the report of the Synod Council. I have scanned in those reports and they will be attached. Following these reports we received greetings from the Churchwide Expression from The Rev. Walter May – Assistant to the Bishop for the Conference of Bishops. Rev. May brought greetings from Bishop Hanson and showed a short video of some of the achievements of the work of the church. The highlights of the churchwide report were:
- We are a Church to spread the Gospel, through evangelism and outreach, especially to the youth and young adults.
- We are an inclusive diverse and multi-cultural having an individual and collective engagement with the language of faith.
- We have a commitment to education through our schools, colleges, universities and seminaries.
- We identify, equip and appoint leaders to witness boldly to God’s name. We provide safe places to have difficult conversations.
- We are a Mission Church. We have over 300 missionaries and we are a member of the Lutheran World Federation with over 66million Lutherans being represented.
- We are a generous Church supporting God’s healing of a broken world and we are a voice of the voiceless, having total confidence in God’s grace.
We recognized Rostered leaders who were celebrating the 25th and 50th anniversary of their ordination and those pastors retiring from Ministry.
We received the audit report, the Treasurers report and were introduced to next year’s budget.
The second business session began after dinner with the report from the Committee on Reference and Council. Three resolutions, of the five submitted, were brought to the floor at this time. The first was to encourage the Synod to support the Malaria Task Force in an effort to raise additional funds for the ELCA Malaria Campaign. This resolution passed. The Second resolution, which also passed, was to encourage the Southern California Synod to support the 1,000 days Movement. The 1,000 days movement essentially requests that we contact our representatives to ask them to preserve and continue and “Do No Harm” to the foreign assistance budget for nutrition. Finally the third resolution was similar in nature to the second asking that we maintain the “Circle of Protection” for the poor and vulnerable. This also passed.
Following this we spent some time reviewing and updating changes to the Synod Constitution to bring it into compliance with the changes voted at the prior Churchwide Assembly.
On Saturday Morning we began the third business session by holding the election of offices. We elected two at-large positions for the Synod Council as well as a youth representative, and representatives to the Churchwide assembly in 2013.
Following elections we had a report on the Grant Recipients. Ther were close to 79 thousand dollars in grants dispersed.
Rostered leaders new to the Synod were introduced.
We received reports from the ELCA Malaria Campaign and Trivent Financial.
A final vote on the budget was conducted and the budget was approved as submitted.
After a short break, a Festival Eucharist was held to celebrate God’s gifts to us.
Following Lunch, we completed the remaining two resolutions from Reference and Counsel. The forth resolution had to do with having Churchwide provide a subscription of the “Lutheran” to every household. After discussion this proposal was defeated. The last resolution requested that the Synod organize a new group specifically designed to assist “troubled” congregations and assist their revitalization efforts. This resolution invoked considerable discussion both pro and con. In the end it was conceded that the existing Evangelical Outreach Mission Team already was tasked with this effort and the resolution was referred to the Synod Council.
This completed the work on the resolutions.
We then received the report from California Lutheran University from President Christopher Kimbal.
The final item on the agenda was the presentation to the Clarence E. Anderson Peace and Justice award to Bishop Nelson.
We proceeded with the Rite for the closing of the Assembly, and went “On Our Way Rejoicing.”
In closing we would once again like to thank those who supported us as delegates. It was a rewarding experience.
Judy and Ken Getzin