ELCA NEWS SERVICE April 14, 2004 Lutheran Services in America is 'Building Communities' 04-062-FI ROSEMONT, Ill. (ELCA) -- "Building Communities" was the theme of the 2004 annual conference for Lutheran Services in America (LSA). Almost 400 executives, staff members and friends of Lutheran social service agencies studied facets of the theme through speakers, workshops and worship here March 31-April 2. "We have at least 100 social ministry organizations represented here," said Jill Schumann, president and CEO, Lutheran Services in America, Baltimore. "We have more than 85 chief executive officers here. We have at least 14 organizations that have five or more people here. So, we have both depth and breadth," she said. LSA is an alliance of 296 social ministry organizations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). The independent health and human service organizations employed more than 150,000 staff members and served more than 6 million people in almost 4,000 communities across the United States and the Caribbean in 2003, and they reported combined revenue of $8.2 billion. "'Communities' is what Lutheran Services in America has been about since its beginning," said Ruth Henrichs, chair of the LSA board and president and CEO of Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska, Omaha. LSA organized in 1997. "Community is always built when people of faith come together to worship and to learn and to share knowledge. Community is always strengthened through relationships and through sharing," Henrichs said. The conference was both an opportunity to learn about how to build communities and "actually doing it by building the relationships within the LSA member network," she said. "We worked carefully as a planning group to identify speakers and breakout sessions that would illuminate the theme and that would illuminate it from different perspectives," Schumann said. There were four keynote addresses. Dr. John "Jody" P. Kretzmann, co-director of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute, Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., told the conference that every community has the "assets" to solve its own problems. A community must identify those assets and have "the confidence to believe in what we know," he said. The Rev. Arthur A. Just Jr., professor of exegetical theology, dean of the chapel and director of deaconess studies, Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind., said Jesus redefined community. God's law was often used to separate some people from the community, but Jesus made God's love the community's core value, he said. Concordia is an LCMS seminary. The Rev. Delores Brown-Daniels, vice president of mission and spiritual care, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, Chicago, said community in the workplace is often defined by race, faith or class. She encouraged her audience to take the risks necessary to pull down those barriers in their workplaces and build a community that treasures every member through honesty, respect and spirituality. Brown-Daniels is a pastor of the American Baptist Churches and United Church of Christ. There are conversations across the ELCA about what it means to be a "public church," said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the ELCA. "Social ministry organizations are already that public church," he said. "Help us raise up leaders for a public church." Thirty-five breakout sessions were offered at five points in the conference schedule. Topics included building relationships between boards and CEOs, advocating child-welfare legislation, linking services to the needs of the community, caring for caregivers and diaconal ministry in Silesia, a region of Europe chiefly in the Czech Republic and Poland. Five of the sessions involved tours of Lutheran social ministry sites in the Chicago area. Several groups met before the annual conference, including the Council for Human Resource Management, Lutheran Adoption Network steering committee, LSA board of directors, LSA Disability Network and National Lutheran Counseling Coalition. A panel reviewed "Caring for Health: Our Shared Endeavor," a social statement on health, healing and health care that the ELCA adopted in August 2003. Speakers were the Rev. Stephen P. Bouman, bishop of the ELCA Metropolitan New York Synod, the Rev. Donald A. Stiger, director, Lutheran HealthCare, Brooklyn, N.Y., and the Rev. Gregory J. Wilcox, director for spiritual ministries, Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, Sioux Falls, S.D. The Rev. Ronald W. Duty, assistant director for studies, ELCA Division for Church in Society, hosted the pre-conference panel discussion. "A ministry of healing is integral to the life and mission of the church," he said. The conference opened with worship provided by St. John Lutheran Church, a Missouri Synod congregation in Wheaton, Ill. St. Luke's Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation in Park Ridge, Ill., provided the closing worship service. LSA presented two 2004 Awards of Excellence in keeping with the conference theme -- one for building community within the social ministry organization and one for programs that contribute to the building of the surrounding community. Alaska Children's Services, Anchorage, won the award in the internal category for its Service to Others projects; and Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries, Allentown, Pa., won in the external category for its work in Urban Congregational Health Ministries. During a one-hour business session April 2, members approved a budget for fiscal year 2005 of almost $1.7 million for the alliance. The budget included a 3 percent increase in the LSA dues schedule. Representatives of the social ministry organizations elected three directors to the LSA board: Dr. David Geske, president and CEO, Bethesda Lutheran Homes and Services, Watertown, Wis.; Mark Peterson, president and CEO, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minn.; and Patricia Savage, president and CEO, Allegheny Lutheran Social Ministries, Hollidaysburg, Pa. The ELCA appointed Chris Andersen, executive director, Lutheran Community Foundation, Minneapolis, to the LSA board. Those completing their service on the LSA board were Madelyn Herman Busse, diaconal minister and assistant to the bishop, ELCA Rocky Mountain Synod, Denver; Jane Hartman, president and CEO, Lutheran Services in Iowa, Waverly; Dr. David Jacox, president and CEO, Mosaic, Omaha, Neb.; and Gene Svebakken, president and CEO, Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois, River Forest. The LSA board elected Suzanne Gibson Wise, president and CEO, Lutheran Family Services in the Carolinas, Raleigh, N.C., its chair-elect for the next year. Roger G. Miles, president and CEO, Lutheran Child and Family Service of Michigan, Bay City, succeeded Henrichs as LSA board chair at the close of the conference. Henrichs remains on the board as past chairperson. "There were all these wonderful leaders who helped in the formation and creation of LSA seven years ago," Henrichs said. "My role was to transition the board through a second phase. Now we're on the launch pad to phase three," she said. "Phase three is taking the strengths of 296 wonderful social ministry organizations and all of their connections and the church bodies and mobilizing that for a different level of effectiveness and impact," Schumann said. "There are some things we can do together that are greater than the sum of our parts. This is the time to identify and to move forward on those things that can best be done together," Schumann said, "for the sake of the world and especially for the sake of the world in Christ's name." -- -- -- The home page for Lutheran Services in America is at http://www.lutheranservices.org/ on the Web. For information contact: John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask] http://www.elca.org/news