By Donna Prunkl
N.C. Lutheran Synod
HICKORY ó College and university campuses are like “windows for glimpsing God’s active presence in our world,” the Rev. Patricia J. Lull told Lutherans from all over North Carolina this week.
“They really are the cosmopolitan marketplace of the 21st century. It is on our campuses that nations and ideologies, faith traditions and diverse cultural backgrounds claim a common turf,” said Lull, dean of students for Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., the keynote speaker. More than 800 voting members and visitors represented 238 N.C. congregations with more than 87,000 members.
With 2007 being the 100th anniversary of Lutheran Campus Ministry, the assembly highlighted the ministry’s impact on the church, especially in North Carolina. There are 20 ELCA covenant congregations involved in campus ministry in the N.C. Synod and four campus ministry pastors at larger universities: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke, Appalachian State and North Carolina State.
“Historically, Lutheran Campus Ministry has served as a bridge to those university settings where innovative ideas, fresh scholarship and new social realities are always breaking forth,” said Lull, former director of ELCA Campus Ministry.
“Lutheran Campus Ministry was my home while I was in college,” said Corinne Bohling, a recent graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. “I learned the power of being welcomed into God’s house, where I was surrounded by support and love.”
Campus Ministry “was my kitchen, living room and study center for four years,” she added. “It’s where I had my deepest conversations and most serious debates.”
Throughout the three-day assembly, video clips provided an opportunity for former campus ministry participants to share how the program affected their lives. During the annual Friday evening barbecue, attendees wore shirts from their favorite colleges.
Water was the theme of the daily worship services that began with water being poured into a fountain, reminding worshippers to remember their Baptism.
“We walk broken” in this world, said the Rev. Dr. Leonard H. Bolick, bishop of the N.C. Synod during opening worship, but we are “claimed by God, baptized in water.”
Brief assembly highlights:
– An emotional moment occurred Friday afternoon when the Synod Assembly adopted a resolution honoring William McDonald, a member of the Tuskegee Airmen and gave him a two-minute standing ovation.
McDonald, former member of the Synod Council and faithful member of Church of the Abiding Savior in Durham, was among the black aviators of World War II who received the Congressional Gold Medal on March 29 in Washington, D.C.
– Friday evening the Rev. Sandra Burroughs was ordained by Bolick into Word and Sacrament ministry. A recent Wartburg Seminary graduate and former minister of music and youth at Our Saviour Lutheran in Southern Pines, she has been called to serve as associate pastor for Living Savior Lutheran in Charlotte.
– Connie Sue Young, AIM, of Concord, was commissioned as an associate in ministry in the area of administration. She serves in the synod office as call process coordinator and administrative assistant to Bolick.
– In 2005, the N.C. Synod asked the ELCA Churchwide Assembly to join with appropriate ELCA agencies, synods, seminaries, congregations and others to rediscover the authority of scripture.
That initiative has launched a five-year plan developed by the Office of the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA that will “reposition the church to be in conversation with the scripture,” said the Rev. Dr. Gary Weant. He is the pastor of Philadelphia Lutheran in Dallas, N.C., and a member of the ELCA task group planning the emphasis. “We need to re-center and re-energize our congregations,” he said.
The initiative “Book of Faith: Lutherans Read the Bible” has six key objectives, including fostering engagement and faithful understanding and opening the church to the renewing power of the Word. For more information, go online to www.elca.org/bookoffaith.
– The assembly adopted a resolution urging congregations and Lutherans to reduce their impact on the environment. It also asked the Synod Council to make 2008 a “Year of Prayer for Creation.” The N.C. Synod Caring for Creation Task Force will provide materials and resources. The group had hybrid cars displayed on the Lenoir-Rhyne campus during the assembly.Photos, video highlights, podcast, reports of resolutions, daily summaries of activities and educational forums are posted at the N.C. Synod Web site, www.nclutheran.org.