Marcus Kunz, Executive for Discernment of Contextual and Theological Issues for the Office of the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA1, called the other day.
He’s working on a project related to the Augsburg Confession for the churchwide organization (2030 is the 500th anniversary of the AC) and he would be interested in “listening” in on a conversation about the continuing relevance (or non-relevance) of the confessions.
Here’s my ask: I’m evaluating interest among you all on whether or not you’d attend an approximately two-hour Zoom conversation some time in early 2024 about the Lutheran confessions.
It would be a very open-ended conversation. We might discuss things like: whether we even need confessions anymore? Is doctrine dead? Do we need new confessions? Wait, what, you have confessions? What’s in the confessions and why?
If this interests you, please comment or send me a note. I’ll keep a roster, then follow-up with an announcement about the date and time of the event.
I’m setting two parameters around the event. First, we need a minimum of 20 participants. Second, no clergy. I may gather a separate conversation just among clergy, but for this conversation I’m following the “art of gathering” rule that you need to know who should and shouldn’t be invited, and for this one, we want to host a conversation among non-clergy.
Nothing in the ELCA comes with a short title, even job descriptions.
For those who are interested, please use this link to sign up: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc7e6QmaEGEBdtukXCa6CXM8GkCgAbch4R2cpIKH8YEBLmB4w/viewform?usp=sf_link
This is wonderful. I’m a new Lutheran, working with youth at church and college students at Montana State University, all of which are curious of these things. I’d love to participate!