Paul Egertson: Former Professor and Advocate, Dies

Paul Egertson, Former ELCA Synod Bishop, Professor and Advocate, Dies
11-003-JB

(via ELCA News Service)

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Dr. Paul W. Egertson, a former synod bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), college professor and advocate for full inclusion of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender in the life of the ELCA, died Jan. 5 after suffering a heart attack. Egertson, 75, died at his home in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
A memorial service will be held Jan. 15 at California Lutheran University's Samuelson Chapel. The university, located in Thousand Oaks, is one of 26 ELCA colleges and universities.
He served as bishop of the ELCA Southern California (West) Synod -- now called the ELCA Southwest California Synod -- from 1995 to 2001. He resigned as bishop after participating in the 2001 ordination of Anita C. Hill, who was not eligible at the time to be on the ELCA clergy roster. After his resignation, Egertson continued to advocate for change in ministry policies, which occurred after the decisions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.
Hill was formally received as an ELCA pastor in 2010 and serves at St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church, St. Paul, Minn.
Egertson also served many years as a professor in the Religion Department at California Lutheran University. He was a full- and part-time teacher in the university's Religion Department since 1984, and was preparing to teach in the upcoming semester in his role as senior lecturer.
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, said Egertson was doing what he loved to do -- "engaging students in a way that deepened their understanding, broadened their vision, sometimes challenging their convictions, but always trying to instill an unquenchable curiosity about faith and life."
"I witnessed those same qualities when Paul was a member of the Conference of Bishops," Hanson said. "His deeply held passionate commitment to a church in which lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people are welcomed fully into mission, membership and leadership remains as a defining mark of his leadership." He added that
Egertson and wife, Shirley, have been "loving, supportive parents and gracious in their hospitality."
Emily Eastwood, executive director, Lutherans Concerned/North America, St. Paul, Minn., said Egertson "stood up" for people who were not eligible to serve as ELCA professional leaders. His witness and commitment "are a shining beacon of prophetic righteousness in the face of determined opposition, and he did it with grace and eloquence, as befits a follower of Christ," Eastwood said in a news release from Lutherans Concerned. "He was a friend and mentor -- always available, with words of calming wisdom. He made a profound difference. He will be missed."
The Rev. Dean W. Nelson, bishop of the ELCA Southwest California Synod, said that in addition to his teaching duties at California Lutheran University, Egertson was a faithful parish pastor and committed to continuing education for pastors and lay members.
"Much of his life was dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge on behalf of the faith both for rostered leaders and lay leaders," he said. "He did a Bible survey class for our very successful program called Equipping Leaders for Mission." The course was well-received by students, Nelson added.
The Rev. Howard "Howie" E. Wennes, former bishop of the ELCA Grand Canyon Synod and former acting president of California Lutheran University, knew Egertson well, and is a first cousin. Egertson had a significant impact on many people through various ministries during his life, Wennes said.
"Pastor and preacher, professor and prophet, bishop and servant leader -- take your pick," Wennes said. "In each role he made a deep impression on people's faith. He inspired faith with his preaching. He informed faith with his teaching. He modeled faith with his prophetic witness. For this gifted and dedicated man of faith we join in a chorus of 'Thanks Be to God.'"
Egertson was born in Litchville, N.D. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1955 from Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, and a master of theology degree in 1960 from Luther Seminary, St. Paul, one of eight ELCA seminaries. In 1976 he earned a doctoral degree from the Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, Calif.
Prior to his election as bishop, Egertson taught religion at California Lutheran University, and during that time, he served a shared-time appointment as pastor at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, North Hollywood, Calif.
For 13 years, Egertson was director of the Center for Theological Study, a continuing education program for Lutheran pastors at California Lutheran University. He also served as pastor at ELCA congregations in Lakewood, Calif., Las Vegas and Hollydale, Calif.
Egertson is survived by Shirley, a former teacher at California Lutheran University's Early Childhood Center, and their sons Gregory, Scot, Steven, Glen, Jon and Jordan.
---
More information about Paul Egertson and California Lutheran University is athttp://www.callutheran.edu on the Web.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/elcanews
Twitter: http://twitter.com/elcanews

Praise in an awe-deficient world

A Lutheran Christian life for today:Praise in an awe-deficient world
A Story by Peter W. Marty

Reproduced by permission of Augsburg Fortress Publishers.

Worship is a weekly opportunity to practice not being God
If you've checked out local or national news coverage recently, you probably haven't seen much eyewitness reporting on worship. Unlike college football highlights, convenience store robberies and lottery winner announcements, Christian worship doesn't make the news. For one thing, it's tough to report on. It's a bit like trying to get compelling footage of a nice family meal where grace is spoken over turkey tetrazzini and beneath warm candlelight. Worship isn't easy to grasp from the outside. You have to experience it.

To plenty of skeptics and distant observers, Christian worship is useless behavior. Who would participate except dreamy-eyed believers, full of patience for invisible things and strangely willing to endure hard pews for an hour at a stretch? Never mind that many other facets of a meaningful life could come under similar scrutiny for being useless. Why kiss someone you love? What's the point of staring through wired safety glass at a newborn in a hospital nursery? What is the value of giving a gift to someone who has no intention of repaying you, much less expressing thanks?

Still others shrink from worship because mystery baffles them. So does that ornate cross with the gold trim paint, mounted on the wall. So does that assembly of people who seem to embrace wonder as if it were their sixth sense. Many of these unwilling participants turn first to nature: "Oh, I can worship God much more meaningfully outdoors than I can stuck indoors with a group of people singing some half ancient song."

Yet where is that Ponderosa pine that will tell you to "love your neighbor as yourself?" If Yosemite's Half Dome reminds us to love our enemies, it could only be through graffiti carved somewhere in its granite face.

Nature may be the handiwork of God. But nature doesn't pass an offering plate to help feed the hungry, clothe the poor or meet the needs of cholera-stricken refugees. Nature gives no clue as to how sinners might be reconciled to God and invested with a hope in Christ. The best-looking tulip garden in the Netherlands can't declare the forgiveness of your sins.

The great choral conductor Robert Shaw once commented that "the absolute minimum conditions for worship are a sense of mystery and an admission of pain." People incapable of handling either one will shy away. They will not thirst to know the sweep of salvation. Praise will never emerge as their mother tongue. The personal hang-ups, anxieties and broken shards of sin that can't be airbrushed from their life will have to be shoved under the couch. Unless we're willing to lose ourselves in the unfathomable mystery of God and the unsearchable pain that goes with being human, worship may always prove too much to bear. We will never get to enjoy the gospel of Jesus Christ coursing through our veins.

Lutheran Christians turn to worship as the central melody for their lives because they want a place where God is taken seriously and where they can be taken seriously. For them, worship is their weekly opportunity to practice not being God.

Faithful worshipers are those who get tired of living paltry lives in an awe-deficient world. They know that the activities we undertake in life in repeat fashion always possess the greatest potential to shape us in a long-term way.

So faithful people return time and again to communally confess sin, eat gratefully from the communion table, and sing the spirited liturgies and songs of the church. These recurring commitments add up to great significance. They become our human response to a "for us" God who keeps acting so graciously in our favor.

If we stay away from worship too long, we start to make God into our own image. The privatization of our spiritual journey only transforms God to be virtually anything we want. Once back in the habit and flow of worship, however, and surrounded by a mix of people who don't mirror every facet of our life, something delightful happens. We discover God to be quietly remaking us into God's own image. We encounter a rhythm stronger than our heartbeat. We find ourselves full of more joy than we can contain.

Stephen Ministry Workshop

Join More than 10,000 Congregations in Providing Care
Are there hurting people in your church or community whose needs are going unmet? Can you imagine the difference it would make to have 10 or 20 lay caregivers in your church who are well-trained and ready to respond to people in need? More than 10,000 churches have learned an effective, proven strategy for equipping laypeople to provide high-quality, distinctively Christian care.

On Saturday, 1/29/2011, Epworth United Methodist Church in Berkeley, CA is hosting a Stephen Ministry Workshop from 9:00 A.M. – 1:00 P.M. Registration begins at 8:00 A.M., and refreshments will be served. This workshop is an excellent opportunity for church leaders and other members to learn about the Stephen Series, a ministry system that equips and mobilizes laypeople for effective caring ministry.

Practical Ministry Skills
At the workshop, you will experience a sample of the training Stephen Ministers (lay caregivers) receive, and you will take home practical knowledge and skills on “Ministering to Those Experiencing Grief” and “How to Care in a Distinctively Christian Way.” You will also learn why churches from more than 150 different Christian denominations use the Stephen Series for training and organizing laypeople for one-to-one caring ministry.

A Highly Affordable Workshop
The cost of the workshop is $15 per person or $50 for a group of four or more from the same congregation. For more information, or to register for the Stephen Ministry Workshop, call Stephen Ministries at (314) 428-2600.
You can also register online at www.stephenministry.org/workshop.
We hope to see you at the workshop!

Remembering the Four Churchwomen

Remembering the Four Churchwomen
by Steve Schultz



If you’ve had the privilege of traveling on a delegation to El Salvador, you quickly become aware of the significance of martyrdom in Salvadoran culture and theology. Those who have given their lives in the struggle of the powerless for dignity are continually honored and called to mind. Archbishop Romero may be the most prominent example of this tradition, but we also have the six Jesuits at the University of Central America, Father Rutilio Grande, the more than 70,000 whose names cover the Wall of the Martyrs in downtown San Salvador, and the Four Churchwomen whom we recognize in our liturgy on December 5th.

While we have our own fallen heroes, most recently Martin Luther King, and John and Robert Kennedy, North American culture has no obvious parallels to the Salvadoran veneration of those who have died for the cause of justice. Thus it may seem like a morbid obsession to find the blood-stained vestments of Monsignor Romero or the bullet-riddled Bible of one of the Jesuit theologians on display when you visit El Salvador.

And yet, on spending time with people and hearing their expressions of gratitude, it becomes clear that these sentiments are far from morbid. What comes through instead is a sense of remembrance, in the face of great loss, of the presence and the goodness of this beloved person, whose life continues to inspire and illuminate the lives of others. We are brought back to the theme of accompaniment, a posture of ministry in which one walks with others, seeking to share in their lives and suffering. In this, Jesus represents the ultimate example, as one who was executed for joining with the cause of the marginalized in his society.

As we remember the Four Churchwomen, whose deaths contributed to a growing opposition to American participation in the war in El Salvador, we can seek to learn from their example of accompaniment. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer has written:

Christ, so the scriptures tell us, bore the sufferings of all humanity in his own body as if the were his own—a thought beyond our comprehension—accepting them of his own free will. We are certainly not Christ; we are not called on to redeem the world by our own deeds and sufferings, and we need not try to assume such an impossible burden. We are not lords, but instruments in the hand of the Lord of history; and we can share in other people’s sufferings only to a very limited degree.

We are not Christ, but if we want to be Christian, we must have some share in Christ’s large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in freedom when the hour of danger comes, and by showing a real sympathy that springs, not from fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer.

Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. The Christian is called to sympathy and action, not in the first place by his or her own sufferings, but by the sufferings of his brothers and sisters, for whose sake Christ suffered.
From Letters and Papers from Prison

World Aids Day

Wednesday, Dec. 1 at 6:00 pm

St. Mark's Lutheran Church San Francisco

The Rev. Mark Holmerud, Bishop, Sierra Pacific Synod,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, presiding

The Rev. Maggi Henderson, Pastor,
Old First Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, preaching

Dr. Timothy Zerlang, St. Mark's Lutheran Church,
San Francisco, Director of Music

On World AIDS Day on December 1, join leaders and clergy from the community in a day of prayerful remembrance, repentance for our part in creating stigma, joy with the enhanced access to essential medications and a deeper understanding of prevention, care and greater knowledge about this global epidemic.

HIV and AIDS are viruses that the United Nations has named the single largest obstacle to global development. Affirmed by the new ELCA HIV and AIDS Strategy, the church has renewed our collective commitment to love, care for and walk with those living with HIV or AIDS and help protect those most at risk of new infection.

St. Mark's Lutheran Church

1111 O'Farrell St. | SF | 415.928.7770 | www.stmarks-sf.org

Interfaith Action Conference

If you haven't yet registered for the conference, PLEASE DO! It is going to be an amazing event that we'll look back on as the start of something really special and we want YOU to be a part of it! Please register and encourage others in your congregation or organization and your students to do so as well. It is important we make every voice heard!

Join us for the Interfaith Action Conference on November 13th in the MLK Student Union! (UC BErkeley Campus)The conference will last from 3:00 to 7:30 followed by a wonderful dinner and dialogue provided by Bears Breaking Bread. We will be having multiple breakout sessions and will send a questionnaire shortly for you to sign up. Be sure to register ASAP and join the interfaith revolution as spots are already filling up!

Again the conference and dinner is completely FREE of charge and we'll be giving out a lot of personalized material, so it is important for you to register! Here is the link to register:

Conference Registration Form

Thanks and please don't hesitate to email us about anything!

Best,

Interfaith Action Initiative

East Bay Sanctuary Covenant Annual Dinner

Twenty eight years ago, the Chapel helped to found the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant. This Sunday, they are celebrating their anniversary with an annual dinner honoring:
Catherine Eusebio, UC Berkeley student and DREAM Act Advocate
Bill Ong Hing, USF Law professor
Sylvia Rosales Fike, Founder and CEO of AnewAmerica
Tessa Rouverol Callejo, San Francisco Foundation

Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wine and Cheese & Silent Auction 5:15pm - 7:00pm
Dinner 6:00pm
Key Note Speaker Bill Ong Hing 7:00pm

St. Johns Presbyterian Church
2727 College Avenue, Berkeley
For reservations, call (510) 540-5296 or email maureenduignan@yahoo.com orceusebio1@gmail.com
A donation ($25-$200) is requested for this event; however, all are welcome, regardless of ability to contribute funds.