Eucharist & Rite of Reception/Reinstatement for the SPS7

Watch: Press Conference Before the Service

2010-07-27T08:55:00.001-07:00

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

The Rite - Full Text, Video and Photos

2010-07-27T00:50:00.001-07:00

Ordo of the Liturgy

A festival Eucharist celebrating the reception and reinstatement of pastors

from the roster of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries onto the roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with prayer and the laying on of hands

I. Gathering

The holy spirit calls us together as the people of God

As people gather for the liturgy, music is offered, beginning before the start of the service around 3:30ish...

from Dixieland Dykes & San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band
Sonata in C Major: I. Allegro, by J.B. Breval -- Emily Gee, cello

Oakland East Bay Gay Men's Chorus
"Do you hear the people sing?" (Les Miserables) Music and lyrics by Claude Michel Schoenberg and Herbert Kretzmer
"Live your dream" Lyrics and music by Greg Gilpin

Prelude and Fugue in G Major, Opus 37 No. 2Felix Mendelssohn

At the sound of a bell, the congregation stands and turns toward the cross and the font.

Video: Confession and Absolution

Pause for reflection and confession.

Friends in Christ as we gather, we seek to speak the truth of the difficulties we have witnessed in our church.

Our church of the reformation has been too long captive to bias and misinformation.

We have not remembered the life giving words of our own Confessions.

We have not respected the gift of sexuality, nor the joy, delight and vulnerability sexual intimacy creates among loving partners.

We have not honored faithful and loving promises, marriages, and covenantal relationships.

We have not acted quickly enough for some who have died and have not made it to this day.

We have not accorded all families with the dignity and respect they deserve.
We have not spoken up.

We have betrayed fellow members of the body of Christ because of cultural prejudice.
We have misused Scripture as a tool of discrimination.
We have forced celibacy upon too many, a gift God grants to only a few.

We have encouraged silence and complicity.

We have promoted invisibility and dishonesty.

We have hardened our hearts with bitterness and condescension.

We have intimidated and disciplined, censured and expelled.

Our actions have destroyed faith and have led people away from the gospel's call to love and justice.

A bell is rung. A shofar is blown. Silence is kept.

Absolution is proclaimed in the words of the prophet Isaiah. Water is poured into the font.

But now thus says the Holy One who created you, who formed you: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.

Do not fear, for I am with you; Thus says the Holy One who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters,... Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

Through Christ, God has indeed done a new thing and is continually doing a new thing through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Shower us with your Spirit. Renew our lives, and our life as your people, with your forgiveness, grace and love.

Amen.

Video: The Procession

The procession begins.

The people are sprinkled by the presiding ministers, the assisting ministers and the confessors as the solo is sung.

Photo by Stephen Lawson

Solo Voice: "O quam mirabilis" (Hildigaard von Bingen) sung by Rebekah Wu, soprano

O how magnificent
Is the foreknowledge of the divine heart
which foreknew all that is created.
For when God inspected
The face of the human being he had formed,
He perceived all his works
within this same human form.
O how magnificent is the inspiration
which thus awakened man.

Processional Hymn: "Christ be our light" (ELW 715)

Greeting

Called to freedom in Christ: grace, mercy, and peace be with you all.

And also with you.

Prayer of the Day

Let us pray. Draw your church together, O Living One, into one great company of disciples, following together our redeemer Jesus Christ into every walk of life, serving together your mission to the world, and proclaiming together your love wherever you send us, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.Adapted from the "Mission of the Church" prayer, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, p. 75.

The assembly is seated.

II. Word

God speaks to us in scripture reading, preaching, and song

Photo by Pamela Diane Gilbert-Snyder

Here might be offered an extemporaneous word of greeting from the Host Pastor.

Video: Hebrew Scripture

Hebrew Scripture: Genesis 45:4-15

Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.” And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Assisting Minister: This is the Word.
The Word of new life!

Photo by Stephen Lawson

Musical Response "Selah" by Steve Green, Judith L Dancer - Minister of Embodiment - Ebeneezer/herchurch Lutheran, Oboe - Gregory Jahnke, Soprano Sax - Don Pender, Piano - Tim Zerlang

Video: Greek Scripture Reading

New Testament: Romans 9:20-30

But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is moulded say to the one who moulds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show wrath and to make known power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if God has done so in order to make known the riches of glory for the objects of mercy, which God has prepared beforehand for glory— including us whom God has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed God says in Hosea,

'Those who were not my people I will call “my people”,
and the one who was not beloved I will call “beloved”. ’

"Aquellos que no eran mi pueblo los llamaré 'mi pueblo,' y aquel que no
era amado le llamaré 'amado.'"

“那本來不是我子民的、我要稱為我的子民．本來不是蒙愛的、
我要稱為蒙愛的。”

‘And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people”,
there they shall be called children of the living God.’

This is the Word.
The Word of new life!

The assembly stands.

Gospel Acclamation: "Canticle of the Turning" (ELW 723, stanzas 1& 2 by solo; congregation sings the refrain only)

A gospel procession brings a gospel book into the center of the gathering, with cross & fire (torches)

Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew! Glory to you O Holy One.

Jesus said: For the realm of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the labourers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into the vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the market-place; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.” When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the labourers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.” When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ! Praise to you O Christ.

"Canticle of the Turning" (ELW 723, stanzas 3 & refrain sung by congregation)

The assembly is seated.

Photo by Stephen Lawson

Sermon: The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, House for All Sinners and Saints, Denver

Hymn of the Day: "The love burning deep" (Iona Abbey Worship Book, p. 80)

Photo by Stephen Lawson

Video: Rite of Reception and Reinstatement

Presentation for Reinstatement
The assembly stands. The presiding minister says: The Rev. Ross Donald Merkel, has been examined and approved by the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and has been reinstated to the roster of ordained ministers. That call to the ministry of word and sacrament is on this day affirmed and renewed. Thanks be to God.

With Prayer and the Laying On of Hands

Presentation
The assembly stands. Those being received to the roster of ordained ministers are presented to the presiding minister and to the assembly with these words.
We present for reception onto the roster of ordained ministers of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Rev. Paul Richard Brenner, the Rev. Jeff Robert Johnson, the Rev. Craig Michael Minich, the Rev. Dawn Marie Roginski, the Rev. Megan Marie Rohrer, and the Rev. Sharon Sue Stalkfleet, who have been prepared, examined, and approved for this ministry and whose call to the ministry of word and sacrament is on this day affirmed and renewed.
Thanks be to God.

The presenters move aside.

The assembly is seated.

Address
The presiding minister addresses the one being received.
All baptized Christians are called to share
in Christ's ministry of love and service in the world,
to the glory of God and for the sake of the human family and the whole creation.
According to apostolic usage and for the sake of this ministry in which we share,
some of the baptized are entrusted with the office of word and sacrament
in the one holy catholic church by the laying on of hands and by prayer.
We are gathered this day by the Spirit of God
to affirm your call to the ministry of word and sacrament
and to receive you with gratitude and joy as an ordained minister in this church.

The following or other appropriate scripture passages may be addressed to the ones being received.
A reading from Ephesians. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For Christ is our peace; who made both groups into one and has broken down the barrier of hostility that has kept us apart. In his own flesh, Christ abolished the Law, with its commandments and ordinances, in order to make the two into one new humanity, thus establishing peace, and reconciling us all to God in one body through the cross; thus putting to death that hostility between us. Christ came and "announced the good news of peace to you who were far away and to those who were near"; for through Christ, we all have access in one Spirit to our God. (Ephesians 2:13-18)  

The presiding minister addresses those being received.
When you were entrusted with the ministry of word and sacrament, Pastor Brenner on the Feast of Pentecost, 1966, Pastor Johnson on January 20, 1990, Pastor Minich on February 18, 2001, Pastor Roginski on June 16, 2007, Pastor Rohrer on November 18, 2006, Pastor Stalkfleet on May 12, 2002, and Pastor Merkel on June 8, 1978, you committed yourself to this office, asking God to help you and believing that the church's call is God's call to this ministry.

This church confesses that the holy scriptures are the word of God
and are the norm of its faith and life.
We accept, teach, and confess the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds.
We also acknowledge the Lutheran confessions
as true witnesses and faithful expositions of the holy scriptures.
You promised to preach and teach in accordance with the holy scriptures
and these creeds and confessions.

You promised to be diligent in your study of the holy scriptures
and faithful in your use of the means of grace,
to pray for God's people, nourish them with the word and sacraments,
and lead them by your own example in faithful service and holy living.

You promised to give faithful witness in the world,
that God's love may be known in all that you do.

Before almighty God and in the presence of this assembly, I ask:
Will you Paul, Jeff, Craig, Dawn, Megan, Sharon, and Ross live and serve according to these promises?
Response: I will, and I ask God to help me.

Almighty God, who has given you the will to do these things,
graciously give you the strength and compassion to perform them.
The assembly responds: Amen.

Prayers of Intercession
The assembly stands for the prayers of intercession.

An assisting minister invites the assembly into prayer with these or similar words.
With the whole people of God in Christ Jesus,
let us pray for the church, those in need, and all of God's creation.

This text will NOT be spoken, but will be PRINTED in the bulletin:

(Spanish) O Morning Star, we awake to this new day with celebration and joy in our hearts. Bless Paul, Jeff, Craig, Dawn, Megan, Sharon, and Ross as they are welcomed onto the clergy roster of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and bless our church as we receive them more fully into partnership with us in our proclamation of the Gospel.

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

(Mandarin) O Gracious One, open our eyes to the delightful diversity of your creation. Open our hearts to your loving kindness. Open our lives to the grace we are called to share with all your human family.

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

O Sophia, Wisdom and Mother of us all, you are One with many names and images. May we see in all who are gathered here today your multiplicity of blessings. Today we honor your unlocking systems and practices that devalued and demeaned us for so many years and by putting your way of honoring people in its place.

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

(Swahili) O Champion of the poor and ravaged, we join you in your work to end violence and war and in your campaign to feed the hungry and free the oppressed. We hear your call to speak the truth with love and to act with compassion and justice in all we do.

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

(German) O Beautiful Savior. Gather us to your body that we may open ourselves to each other and share in your inclusive, generous, and caring family.

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

This text will be SPOKEN and not printed in the bulletin, but ONLY in the script.

O Estrella Matinal, nos despertamos a este nuevo día con celebración y regocijo en nuestros corazones. Bendice a Paul, Jeff, Craig, Dawn, Megan, Sharon, and Ross conforme reciben la bienvenida a la lista clerical de la Iglesia Evangélica Luterana de América y bendice nuestra iglesia conforme les recibimos más plenamente en asociación con nosotros en nuestra proclamación del Evangelio."

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

(Mandarin) 有恩惠的神啊, 把我們的眼睛打開, 讓我們看到你豐富的創作。把我們的心放開, 讓我們進入你的慈愛。把我們的生命放開, 讓我們進入你的恩典, 你叫我們分享這個恩典給傳世的家庭。

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

(Swahili) Oh Bingwa wa Maskini na Wanyonge,tunajiunga katika kazi yako kuondoa fujo na vita na katika kampeni ya kulisha wenye njaa na kuleta uhuru kwa wanao nyanyasika. Tunasikia wito wako wa kuongea kwa upendo na kwa matendo ya juhudi na haki kwa kila tufanyalo.

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

(German) Liebster Herr Jesus Christus, bring uns zusammen als dein Leib auf Erden, dass wir uns einander öffnen und gemeinsam an deiner gerechten, großherzigen und liebenden Kirche teilhaben.This is Pr. Christian's translation of the text into German. (Kyle) Alternate (translation from Simone Dippon) ""Wundersamer Retter. Bring uns in Deine Naehe, wo wir uns einander oeffnen koennen und ohne Diskriminierung, an Deiner grosszuegigen und fuerhsorglichen Gemeinschaft teilnehmen duerfen."

Most Holy One.

Hear us we pray.

Into your loving embrace, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in your mercy and grace. Amen.

Thanksgiving
The presiding minister leads the assembly in giving thanks.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal,
we bless you for your infinite love in Christ our Lord,
in whom we have redemption and forgiveness of sins
according to the riches of his grace.
We thank you that by his death your Son overcame death,
and that, raised by your mighty power, he gives us new life.
We praise you that, having ascended into heaven,
Christ pours out his gifts abundantly on the church,
making some apostles, some prophets, some pastors and teachers,
to equip your people for their work of ministry for building up the body of Christ.

Solo: "Tantum Ergo" (Louis Vierne) organ with Rebekah Wu, soprano
Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail;
Lo! o'er ancient forms departing,
newer rites of grace prevail;
faith for all defects supplying,
where the feeble sense fail.

To the everlasting Father,
and the Son who reigns on high,
with the Holy Ghost proceeding
forth from Each eternally,
be salvation, honor, blessing,
might and endless majesty. Amen.

Photo by Pamela Diane Gilbert-Snyder

The presiding minister lays both hands on the head of the ones being received. Other ordained pastors who are participating in the laying on of hands place one hand on the person being received.

Following a time of silent prayer, the presiding minister continues.
Eternal God, through your Son, Jesus Christ,
as we receive name into the ordained ministry in this church,
pour out your Holy Spirit upon name
and fill name with the gifts of grace for the ministry of word and sacrament.
Bless name proclamation of your word and administration of your sacraments,
so that your church may be gathered for praise and strengthened for service.
Make name a faithful pastor, patient teacher, and wise counselor.
Grant that in all things name may serve without reproach,
that your people may be renewed and your name be glorified in the church;
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.

Photo by Pamela Diane Gilbert-Snyder

An extemporaneous prayer for Ross accompanied by the laying on of hands.

Blessing
The presiding minister addresses the ones being received.
The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus,
the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,
make you complete in everything good so that you may do God's will,
working in you that which is pleasing in God's sight;
through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.
Amen.

Acclamation by the Assembly
The presiding minister and the one being received face the assembly. The presiding minister addresses the assembly.
Will you, assembled as the people of God, echoing the voices of others and speaking for the whole church, receive Paul, Jeff, Craig, Dawn, Megan, Sharon, and Ross as messengers of Jesus Christ, sent by God to serve all people with the gospel of hope and salvation? Will you regard them as servants of Christ?
We will, and we ask God to help us.

Will you pray for them
help and honor them for their work's sake,
and in all things strive to live together in the peace and unity of Christ?
We will, and we ask God to help us.

The presiding minister presents those being received to the assembly.
Let it be recognized and acclaimed that Paul, Jeff, Craig, Dawn, Megan, Sharon, and Ross are called and ordained ministers in the church of Christ. They have Christ's authority to preach the word of God and administer the sacraments, serving God's people as together we bear God's creative and redeeming love to all the world.
Amen. Thanks be to God.

The assembly may offer acclamation with applause.

Peace
The presiding minister and the assembly greet each other in the peace of the risen Christ.
The peace of Christ be with you always.
And also with you.

The people may greet one another with a sign of Christ's peace, and may say Peace be with you or similar words.

All return to their places. The assembly is seated.

The service continues with the offering.

III. Meal

God nurtures us with the presence of Jesus Christ
Offering and Setting the table - Join in our offering online.
Our offering today will be devoted entirely to the The Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholarship which supports openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seminarians following a call to service as a rostered leader in the Lutheran church.

Joel Workin was one of the first openly gay Lutheran seminarians at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. Because of Joel's courageous act, his approval for ordination was vacated when ELCA bishops refused to place his name on the roster of approved candidates waiting for call. Joel was never ordained, but he lived a life of faithful ministry and service to people with HIV/AIDS until his death from the disease in 1995. The Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholarship was established by the generosity of Joel's family, colleagues and close friends and is administered by Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries.

Photo by Pamela Diane Gilbert-Snyder

Offering Song: Oakland East Bay Gay Men's Chorus"How Can I Keep from Singing" arranged by Gwyneth Walker

The assembly stands

Offering prayer
God of mercy and grace, the eyes of all wait upon you, and you open your hand in blessing. Fill us with good things at your table, that we may come to the help of all in need, through Jesus Christ, our redeemer.
Amen.

Great Thanksgiving
Our Blessing at the Table was composed especially for this liturgy by Sara Miles & Paul Fromberg of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church, San Francisco. Copyright 2010 Sara Miles & Paul Fromberg.

Photo by Stephen Lawson

God be with youAnd also with you.
Lift up your hearts.We lift them up to God.

Let us give thanks to our God Most High.
It is right to offer thanks and praise.
It is indeed right, our duty and our joy, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks and praise, God of love, through your son Jesus Christ. As your life blazes forth from the empty tomb, you pour your Spirit upon us to burn away divisions. And so with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join in their unending song:

Sanctus - Image not displayed here.

Creator of the universe, you speak to the chaos,
bringing song out of silence,
dance out of stillness, life out of death.

Sustainer of the covenant,
you send messengers in every time and place
giving voice to your love:
You speak through thirsty women, broken men, the poor and impure.
You choose what is despised to make us whole.

A servant girl bears Jesus, your blessing,
who turns the old world upside down.
He forsakes the temple, laughs at the powerful
kisses sinners and heals the unclean.
He breaks open prisons, frees slaves and captives,
feasts with the outcast and celebrates strangers;
Loving each one entirely,
he teaches us the way of compassion and peace.

In the night in which he was betrayed,
our Lord Jesus took bread, and gave thanks;
broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take and eat; this is my body, given for you.
Do this for the remembrance of me.
Again, after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks,
and gave it for them to drink, saying:
This cup is the new covenant in my blood,
shed for you and all people for the forgiveness of sin.
Do this for the remembrance of me.

Once more we gather at your table in thanksgiving
to share this bread and wine
Now show us his body alive in your children
as we proclaim the mystery of faith:

ELW Setting 1 Acclamation "Christ has died...."

Forgiving Father, you race toward us in the midst of our shame
to cover all enemies with your garment of love.
Now reconcile us, rise in us and make us one body
that we may live as Jesus lives and love as Jesus loves:
Amen. Come Holy Spirit

Life-giving Mother, you make a home for us in the midst of our fear
you wipe away every debt and every tear.
Now heal us, free us and give us your power
that we may share your gifts with a hungry world:
Amen. Come Holy Spirit

Merciful God, fill us with your blessing
and embrace us in communion
with saints and sinners,
the hurt and the hurting,
with Mary Magdalene, Peter the Fisherman,
Seminarian Joel Workin, Pastor Phil Knutson, Pastor Michael Pozar, and Pastor Jim Lokken,
with friends and strangers everywhere
as we give you all glory and honor and praise, now and forever,

ELW Setting 1 Acclamation "Amen, Amen..."

The Prayer of Jesus

Now in union with our friend and lover Jesus, and in the language most familiar to you, let us pray:

Our Father in heaven,

Hallowed by your name,

Your kingdom come,

Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

As we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial and

deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.

Eternal Spirit,

Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,

Source of all that is and that shall be,

Father and Mother of us all,

Loving God, in whom is heaven.

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!

The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!

Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!

Your commonwealth of peace and freedom

sustain our hope and come on earth!

With the bread we need for today, feed us.

In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.

In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.

From trials too great to endure, spare us.

From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,

now and forever. Amen.Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker is reprinted from A New Zealand Prayer Book, He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa. This prayer is a compelling and evocative translation of Jesus’ prayer found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Our Mother who is within us
we celebrate your many names.
Your wisdom come,

your will be done,
unfolding from the depths

within us.
Each day you give us all that we need.
You remind us of our limits

and we let go.
You support us in our power
and we act in courage.
For you are

the dwelling place within us,
the empowerment around us,
and the celebration among us,
now and forever. Amen.Our Mother who is within us" has been written by Miriam Therese Winter and is a part of the Goddess Rosary offered at University Lutheran Chapel of Berkeley and Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran in San Francisco.

God, lover of us all, most holy one,

Help us to respond to you

To create what you want for us here on earth.

Give us today enough for our needs;

Forgive our weak and deliberate offenses,

Just as we must forgive others when they hurt us.

Help us to resist evil and to do what is good;

For we are yours, endowed with your power

To make our world whole. Amen.This paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer is by Lala Winkley from the resource, “Celebrating Women.”

Padre nuestro que estás en el cielo,

santificado sea tu nombre.

Venga tu reino. Hágase tu voluntad

en la tierra como en el cielo.

Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día.

Perdona nuestras ofensas

como también nosotros

perdonamos a los que nos ofenden.

No nos dejes caer en tentación

y líbranos del mal.

Porque tuyo es el reino,

tuyo es el poder y tuya es la gloria,

ahora y siempre. Amén

Pater noster

qui es in caelis

Sancitificur nomen tuum.

Adveniat regnum tuum.

Fiat voluntas tua,

sicut in caelo et in terra.

Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie.

Et dimitte nobis debita nostra,

sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.

Et ne nos inducas in temptationem,

sed libera nos a malo.

Quoniam tibi est regnum et potestas

et gloria in saecula.

Jesus welcomes everyone to this Table, so we offer everyone, without exception, the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ.

Holy things for holy people!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

The assembly is seated.

Canticle: Lamb of GodELW Setting 1 Lamb of God

Music during distribution

Christian Jennert
Hymn: "There's a wideness in God's Mercy" (ELW 587)
Solo: "Jesu Joy" (J.S. Bach) organ with Rebekah Wu, soprano
Hymn: "For the Bread" (ELW 494)

Once all have communed, the communion servers place their elements on the credence tables and return to their places.

The assembly stands.

Post communion prayer

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ. Amen.

IV. Sending

God blesses us and sends us to be at work in the world

Blessing

Way of Truth and Light, Bless us as one people drawn together by your love and forgiveness.

Way of Peace, Strengthen us to follow Christ into every walk of life.

Way of Hope, May we always live with your future promise today.

In the name of the Creator, + Redeemer and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Hymn & Recessional: "Light dawns on a weary world" (ELW 726)

Dismissal

Go in peace. Live the truth. Accompany the poor. Serve with joy!

Thanks be to God.

Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV J.S. Bach

Leaders of the Liturgy

Presiding Ministers
The Rev. Mark W. Holmerud, Bishop, Sierra Pacific Synod

The Rev. Nancy Nelson, Bishop's Associate, Sierra Pacific Synod

Preacher
The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, pastor, House for All Sinners and Saints, Denver

Assisting Ministers

Maria Anderson, Lutheran Volunteer Corps, University Lutheran Chapel, Berkeley

Brian Richards, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco

Musicians & Dancers

Rebekah Wu, soprano

The Rev. Christian Jennert, oboe

Oakland East Bay Gay Men's Chorus, Michael Robert Patch, Artistic Director

Dixieland Dykes

Emily Gee, cello

Judith L Dancer - Minister of Embodiment - Ebeneezer/herchurch Lutheran

Gregory Jahnke, oboe

Don Pender, soprano sax

Timothy Zerlang, organ & piano

Clergy Marshalls

The Rev. James Delange & The Rev. John Frykman

Crucifer

Travis Van Horn, Ascension Lutheran, Medford, OR

Thurifer
Rev. Tommy Dillon, St. Aidan's Episcopal

Gospel Bearer

Jordan Ward, Co-President of St. Paulus Lutheran

Torch Bearers

Maurie Hamilton, member of the East Bay Lutheran Youth Program
& youth representative on Sierra Pacific Synod Council
Molly Calhoun, President of the Sierra Pacific Synod Youth Committee

Greeters, Vergers, & Mentors (St. Mark's Lutheran Church & others)

Liv Beck, Chuck Lewis, Nate and Kacie McDonald, Roberta Brouhard, Marge Jencks, Marge Okuley,
Jan Charter, Mary Carlton Lull, Dale Loepp, Megan Buckingham, Linda Jackson, Sharon Reinbott,
Ralph and Charlene Loen, Suzanne Smith, Whitney Wolfe, Pattie Fulmer, Steven Krefting, Rachel Hoobing

Gathering Confession

Dr. Margaret Moreland, Covenant Circle, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries

Amalia Vagts, Executive Director, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries

Lectors

Hebrew Scripture: Rabbi Reuban Zellman, Congregation Beth El, Berkeley

New Testament: The Rev. Dr. Ev Kalin, ELM Candidacy Panel, Professor Emeritus at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary

Gospeler: Nicole Bohn, First United Lutheran Church, San Francisco

Intecessors
The Rev. Chuck Witschorik, ELM/SPS Transfer Candidate and member of Christ the Good Shepherd, San Jose (Spanish)

The Rev. Christian Jennert, St. Mark's Lutheran Church (German)

The Rev. Lucy Kolin, Resurrection Lutheran Church, Oakland (Swahili)

The Rev. Stacy Boorn, Ebenezer/herchurch Lutheran, San Francisco

Sam Tia, University Lutheran Chapel, Berkeley (Mandarin)

Pastor to be reinstated (and presenters)
The Rev. Ross Donald Merkel
Paul Basting, Robert Broughton, & Joilee Webb

Pastors to be received (and presenters) The Rev. Paul Richard Brenner Rob Byrne, Mari Irwin, Jeanine Janson The Rev. Jeff Robert Johnson Robert Wohlsen Jr., Sam Tia, & Martha Backstrom The Rev. Craig Michael Minich Pr. Dave Bringman, Pr. Adisa Armand Miller, Carolyn Carpenter, Beth Munsterman, Lu Pearson, & Nancy Hughes The Rev. Dawn Marie Roginski Jo Chadwick, Donna Simon, Brandee Marckmann, & Elaine Whitney

The Rev. Megan Marie Rohrer
Bobby Lane, Michael Carreiro, & Michael Norton

The Rev. Sharon Sue Stalkfleet
Ms. Larell Fineren, Ms. Mary Gotelli, & Rev. Mary Rowe

Bulletin Design
Gretchen Rauch, Grace Lutheran Church of Palo Alto

Photographer
Vince Donavan

Videographer
Dann Cantrell

Florist
Monica Riner

Sign Language Interpretation supplied by "Say-Hey"

Healing Prayer (outside prior to the service)
The Rev. Gabrielle Schroeder, Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, South San Francisco

Planning Coordinators
The Rev. Jeff Johnson & The Rev. Sharon Stalkfleet

Media
Amalia Vagts & Megan Rohrer

Reception
The Rev. Ross Merkel & Martha Backstrom
Clarissa Flores, Caterer
Dean Atkinson, Coordinator
Don Pender, Jazzberry Patch

Logistics & Processions
Kyle Schiefelbein, The Rev. Paul Brenner, & The Rev. Dawn Roginski

Host Parish, St. Mark's Lutheran Church of San Francisco

The Rev. Elizabeth Ekdale, Host pastor

The Rev. Christian Jennert, Host pastor

Dr. Timothy Zerlang, Director of Music

Richard Boyle, Sacristan

Kyle Schiefelbein, Liturgy Coordinator

Financial Sponsors
Sierra Pacific Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
St. Paul Lutheran Church, Oakland

University Lutheran Chapel, Berkeley
LutheranTrueconfession.org (underwriting the wine for the reception)
St. Francis Lutheran Church, San Francisco
Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries
Trinity Lutheran Church, Alameda
Trinity Lutheran Church, Oakland
East Bay Lutheran Parish
Lutherans Concerned/San Francisco-Bay Area
Jazzberry Patch (music during the reception) is sponsored by
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans San Francisco Peninsula Group -- Gregory R Jahnke, ChFC. Let the celebration continue!

Dr. and Mrs. Dale and Betty Johnson

The Rev. Stacy Boorn

GLBT Task Force of St. Paul Lutheran Church

Kaye & Ray Fitzsimons

Nancy Heastings & Colleen Vermillion

Bob Wohlsen & Miriam Casey

Paul & Pamela Gilbert Synder

Nancy Ulmer & Steve Schultz

Steve & Jan Hitchcock

Nancy Nielsen

Pr. Mert Johnson & Pr. Mary Rowe

Mary Gotelli
Donald & Karin Mai
Jeff Pennington
Steven Gates & Mac Barbee
Paul H. Basting & Rob McHugh
The Rev. Ross D. Merkel & Robert D. Broughton
Joanne Schultz
Robert & Grace Eacret
Beverly James
Brian Knittel
Mary McEwen
Rosalie Tilden
Joilee Webb
Hans-Christian Kasper & The Rev. Dr. Diane Bowers

Randy & Kathy Gee

Tom Ray & Son Ly

Judy Turley and Duane Anderson

Andy Bouman

Notes & Bios

The Oakland East Bay Gay Men's Chorus performs a wide variety of music, from Classical to Broadway, in three seasonal and numerous church, community and outreach performances every year. Under the artistic direction of Michael Robert Patch, OEBGMC is the most active and well known Gay Arts organization in the Oakland and East Bay region of California. Centrally located in Oakland, it serves many communities, with members from San Jose to Napa. Join OEBGMC for their Summer Pops Concert and Fundraiser on Saturday, August 7th. It's the perfect combination of music fine food and wine and the gathering of good friends, being out and proud and celebrating life and laughter. More information at www.oebgmc.org.

Ordained in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Pastor Paul Brenner has 30 years of leadership in the hospice movement and 10 years experience as an inner city parish pastor. Paul's notable achievements include developing an innovative national program of All Inclusive Care for Children and Their Families; the the first Palliative Care program for Persons living with Alzheimer's Disease; the first hospice program for the Deaf; and the first Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care in a Medical Center.

A graduate of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and ordained along with Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zilhart on January 20, 1990 with a call from First United Lutheran Church, Pastor Jeff R. Johnson is currently the pastor of University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, on the Steering Committe for the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, is facilitating the East Bay Interfaith Immigration Coalition and is a member of the Syond Council. Jeff's notable achievements include helping to found the predecessor bodies of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries; serving two terms as Dean of the San Francisco Conference; and as member of the Steering Committee for Religious Witness with Homeless People.

A graduate of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and ordained in 1978 in the Lutheran Church of America, Pastor Ross D. Merkel is the pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland, CA. Prior to being called to St. Paul in 1982, Ross served as a Refugee Resettlement Coordinator with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest in Phoenix, AZ and prior to that as Associate Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Phoenix.

A graduate of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and ordained February 18, 2001, Pastor Craig Minich is currently serving the East Bay Lutheran Youth Program with calls from St. Paul Lutheran and United Lutheran, Oakland.

A graduate of Lutheran Seminary and ordained on June 16, 2007, Pastor Dawn Roginski is the former Associate Pastor and Director of Parish Programs at St. Francis Lutheran Church, San Francisco. Dawn's notable achievements include serving in leadership roles on the Lutherans Concerned/North America board, on the leadership team for the ELM roster, serving for 10 years at a residential treatment facility for seriously mentally ill patients at Boston Health Care in Minneapolis and then as a chaplain at a residential treatment center for children in Kansas City, MO.

A graduate and candidate for the Doctorate of Ministry degree at the Pacific School of Religion and ordained on November 18, 2006, Pastor Megan Rohrer is the Executive Director of Welcome with calls from St. Francis Lutheran, Iglesia de Santa Maria y Marta, herchurch and Christ Church, in San Francisco, the Project Manager of Project Homeless Connect's Growing Home Community Garden and a board member of the Sojourn Chaplaincy at San Francisco General Hospital. Megan's notable achievements include serving as the Director of Candidacy for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, on the Steering Committee for the San Francisco Trans March, as an author for the Human Rights Campaign's Out In Season: the Church Year Through Transgender Eyes and winner of Out History's Since Stonewall Local History Competition.

A graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and ordained on May 12, 2002, Sharon Stalkfleet is the former chaplain of the Lutheran Ministry to Nursing Homes where she was called by St. Paul Lutheran, Resurrection Lutheran and Trinity Lutheran in Oakland and Trinity Lutheran Church, Alameda.

Watch The Rite: Reception and Reinstatement

2010-07-27T00:45:00.000-07:00

Part One

Part Two

Watch The Rite: The Sermon

2010-07-27T00:40:00.000-07:00

Read the transcript

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Watch The Rite: New Testament Text

2010-07-27T00:35:00.000-07:00

New Testament: Romans 9:20-30

But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is moulded say to the one who moulds it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use? What if God, desiring to show wrath and to make known power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction; and what if God has done so in order to make known the riches of glory for the objects of mercy, which God has prepared beforehand for glory— including us whom God has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed God says in Hosea,

'Those who were not my people I will call “my people”,
and the one who was not beloved I will call “beloved”. ’

"Aquellos que no eran mi pueblo los llamaré 'mi pueblo,' y aquel que no
era amado le llamaré 'amado.'"

“那本來不是我子民的、我要稱為我的子民．本來不是蒙愛的、
我要稱為蒙愛的。”

‘And in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people”,
there they shall be called children of the living God.’

Watch The Rite: Hebrew Scripture.

2010-07-27T00:33:00.000-07:00

Hebrew Scripture: Genesis 45:4-15

Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.” And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Watch The Rite: The Procession

2010-07-27T00:29:00.000-07:00

Watch The Rite: Confession and Absolution

2010-07-27T00:25:00.001-07:00

Nadia Bolz-Weber's Sermon

2010-07-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints a Lutheran emerging church in Denver Colorado that describes itself as a group of folks figuring out how to be a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, queer inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient - future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination. She is author of an entertaining but not terribly important book called Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television (Seabury 2008) a slightly snarky theological and cultural commentary based on her experience of watching 24 consecutive hours of Trinity Broadcasting Network. This book is mostly famous for giving prosperity gospel preacher Joel Osteen the nickname"McPreachy". Nadia blogs at Sarcastic Lutheran and at Jim Wallis' God's Politics blog. Her writings can be found in the Christian Century, The Lutheran and Patheos.com. Nobody really believes she’s an ordained pastor in the ELCA. Maybe it’s the sleeve tattoos or the fact that she swears like a truck driver. Either way…she’s fine with it. Nadia lives in Denver with her family of 4 where she can be found writing bios in the third person and chasing chickens around the back yard with her kids.

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Grace peace and mercy to you from the crucified and risen Christ. Amen. To say that it is an honor to be your preacher today would be an embarrassing understatement. So I will just say thank you.

I bring you greetings on this festive occasion from the people of God at House for all Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado a mission church of the ELCA. House for All is a liturgical, Christo-centric, social justice oriented, queer inclusive, incarnational, contemplative, irreverent, ancient - future church with a progressive but deeply rooted theological imagination. At least that’s what our website says.

You may not realize this, but this little mission church is kind of the spiritual granddaughter of many churches represented here today. Churches like St Pauls and St Francis. So I’d like to thank you and the ELM 7 for your faithfulness to the Gospel despite countless obstacles and say that you almost certainly have no idea how your witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ has rippled out into this hurt and broken and beautiful world.

Let me explain - many of the folks at House for All have been hurt by the church in one way or the other. Several have been victims of so-called ex-gay reparative therapy at the hands of Christians, some have been told they are not up to snuff in the eyes of God and needless to say, the vast majority of the folks at House were not regularly attending a church when they joined us.

In other words they were just like me in the Spring of 1996. It was 14 years ago that I walked into a Lutheran church for the very first time. I had not entered a Christian church for 10 years and when I finally did, it was St Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Well, here’s the thing: I had no desire to be Christian. I don’t like Christians and they don’t like me. See, I was raised in a sectarian and fundamentalist tradition called the Church of Christ. Not the gay-friendly liberal United Church of Christ. Nope. The Church of Christ - which can only be described as, like, “Baptist-Plus”. Women in this tradition were not permitted to pray out loud in front of men much less be pastors. I left that kind of exclusion in the name of God behind me and was perfectly happy about it.

And yet, despite my mis-givings about the church, that Sunday in 1996 I found myself with tears in my eyes. When I walked into St Paul’s Lutheran church it somehow felt like I was walking into the kingdom of heaven - there were young people and old, gay and straight, black folks and white folks and folks who used wheelchairs. And the worship was so beautiful. I had never experienced liturgy. I had never heard that kind of language used to speak of God. I had never heard… the Gospel.

After that first Sunday I unexplainably found myself thinking “I want to come back next week and hear those things and do those things and say those things again” And before I even knew what was happening I started going to Pastor Ross Merkel’s adult confirmation class. I could not believe I was choosing to spend my Wednesday nights in the basement of a church of all places…yet there I was.

I had at this point been clean and sober for 4 years following just the tiniest little drug and alcohol problem. God had literally interrupted my life and plucked me off one path and put me on another bringing life out of the death of this Sinner/Saint. So when Pastor Merkel taught me that God brings life out of death, that we are all simultaneously sinner and saint; when he said that no one is climbing the spiritual ladder up to God but that God always comes down to us; when he said that God’s grace is a gift freely given which we don’t earn but merely attempt to live in response to…well, when he said all of this, I already knew it was true.

I had undeniably encountered God’s grace when I got sober and now I was hearing a historically rooted beautiful articulation of what I had already experienced to be true. It’s what we like to call Lutheran Theology. And It changed everything.

Those classes… and Ross Merkel’s gracious acceptance of me… and my hearing the gospel …and receiving the Eucharist at St Paul’s was how God again simply came and got me. It felt like the Kingdom of Heaven and I fell in Love with this whole Lutheran thing. It was like that 5 minutes of a movie where the couple is gloriously ignorant of each other’s short comings and are vapidly skipping hand-in-hand through a field of wildflowers ….because you know as the viewer that as soon as the montage ends some kind of awful is gonna happen. The Lutheran church was so different from the conservative Christianity of my youth and I was so happy to have discovered something so beautiful – and so different from the church of my upbringing.

So when I was soon told that Ross Merkel had actually been removed from the clergy roster because of a policy in the ELCA prohibiting partnered gay folks from serving as pastors I was devastated. It felt like the rug of hope that the church might actually be something beautiful and redemptive was pulled out from under me. This Lutheran thing isn’t what I hoped after all. Because these Lutherans are just as bad as everyone else. Yet in his humble wisdom Pastor Merkle reminded me that God is still at work redeeming us and making all things new even in the midst of broken people and broken systems.

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. You already know how the rest of the parable goes. The landowner goes about hiring whoever happens to be hanging out at the marketplace all day. And when everyone is paid the same wage, when the landowner makes the slept-till-noon new hires equal to the upstanding early risers who worked all day in the scorching heat, well…things get ugly.

You gotta love a kingdom of God parable in which the citizens who make up the kingdom of heaven are completely unlikable and entitled and whiney. Don’t you picture the Kingdom of Heaven as more like a thing where everyone wears sandals and flowing white linen? Wouldn’t people in the kingdom of God appear more, I don’t know, spiritual? Wouldn’t people in the kingdom of God have that sheen of serenity and calm which is not unlike having taken a couple doses of xanex? Nope. Apparently the Kingdom of God is like a cruddy work place filled with type A personalities whose sense of entitlement would rival that of Paris Hilton working alongside slackers who take smoke breaks and earn what money they have through scratch tickets.

What kind of off-brand kingdom is made up of this kind of people?

God’s kind. Because here’s the thing: what makes this the kingdom of God is not the quality of the people in it. The kingdom of God is like a glorious mess of a kingdom where Paris Hilton and Hilton Perez and Fred Phelps and Fredrick Beuchner and ELM pastors and Core Lutherans all receive the same mercy we never saw coming because we were too busy worrying about what everyone else is doing.

What makes Lutherans blessed is not, as I thought, that they’re somehow different from the people in the Church of Christ where I was raised. What makes us all blessed is that God comes and gets us, dumb as we are; smart and faithful as we are; just as we are. Because the kingdom of God, is founded not on the quality of the people in it but on the unrestrained and lavish mercy of the God who came and got us.

Our gospel text for today is not the parable of the workers. It’s the parable of the landowner. Because what makes it the kingdom of God is not the worthiness or piety or social justice-yness or hard work of the laborers…it’s the fact that the trampy landowner couldn’t manage to keep out of the market place. He goes back and back and back interrupting lives…coming to get his people.

Like a parent throwing a wedding feast God goes out into the street and just grabs up any old wretch. Like a sower who just wantonly, wastefully casts handfuls of seed, God just CAN’T seem to be discerning. Like a father who runs out into the street to embrace his wasted betrayer of a son, God simply insists on coming to get us. Insists on making all things new, insists on ripping out our old hearts and replacing them with God’s own.

And anytime we think that this kingdom of God is just for the nice people, or the ones who are ethnically Minnesotan or the ones who really really believe it; anytime we think this thing is just for the liberals who are open and affirming or the ones who protect the Confessions, we become blind to God’s making all things new work. Work like the unexplainable fact that I am now in a clergy small group with a Church of Christ preacher who is my brother in Christ and friend and colleague.

This is the kingdom of heaven breaking in on us. A kingdom where yes, the people are somewhat questionable, but which is defined by the mercy of a God who is revealed in the cradle and the cross.

And so, Paul, Jeff, Craig, Dawn, Megan, Sharon and Ross… know this: The Kingdom of God is also like right here right now. The kingdom of God is like this very moment in which sinners are reconciled to God and to one another. The kingdom of God is like this very moment where God is making all things new…even this off brand denomination of the ELCA. Because in the end, your calling, and your value in the Kingdom of God comes not from the approval of the other workers but in your having been come-and-gotten by God. It is the pure and unfathomable mercy of God which defines this thing. And nothing. nothing else gets to tell you who you are.

In the News: San Francisco Chronicle

2010-07-26T01:34:00.000-07:00

Gay and transgender Lutheran pastors reinstated

Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, July 26, 2010

Lacy Atkins / The Chronicle

Megan Rohrer (right) and Craig Minich are reinstated at the service.

Images

View All Images (4)

Seven Bay Area gay and transgender pastors were reinstated into the national Lutheran church on Sunday after being barred for two decades from serving in the denomination.

It was a day of mixed feelings for the "Bay Area Seven" - the Revs. Jeff Johnson, Megan Rohrer, Paul Brenner, Craig Minich, Dawn Roginski Sharon Stalkfleet and Ross Merkel - who saw the event as an act of reconciliation with the church that once shunned them.

"We finally got to the direction we knew the Lutheran church was heading. It just took it longer to get there," Johnson said.

The pastors were welcomed almost a year after the national assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America - the largest Lutheran denomination in the country - voted to allow gay men and women, with partners, to serve as clergy members, making it the latest Protestant church to allow such ordinations.

Gay men and women were previously allowed to become Lutheran pastors but had to take a vow of celibacy. Some within the church saw the rule as discriminatory, and in 1990 two San Francisco churches, First United and St. Francis, defied the policy by ordaining Johnson, a gay man, and a lesbian couple.

As a result, the two churches were expelled from the denomination. In the last 20 years, more than a dozen pastors nationwide were ordained in defiance of the church, three removed by trial and many denied the possibility to serve.

It was "a policy that ruined lives, destroyed faiths," Johnson said.

Rohrer, who serves in four churches and as a missionary for the homeless, said she did not feel Sunday was the day she became a pastor, but the day "the church gets to receive me as a pastor."

In an extension of that spirit of reconciliation, on Sunday the St. Francis congregation also overwhelmingly voted to return to the national Lutheran church.

"It's like an individual who was separated from his family after his mother kicked him out," said the Rev. Robert Johnson, head pastor at St. Francis. "The mother church has come around and said 'you were right.' "

E-mail Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera at amartinez-cabrera@sfchronicle.com

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

St. Francis Votes to Rejoin the ELCA

2010-07-26T01:14:00.000-07:00

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St. Francis Lutheran Church
152 Church Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
www.st-francis-lutheran.org
415-621-2635

CONTACTS:
Rev. Robert Goldstein
415-621-2635 x11
revrgoldstein@sbcglobal.net

Stephen Lawson, Publicity Coordinator
st.francis.outreach@gmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

St. Francis Lutheran Church to rejoin national Lutheran body, 15 years after explusion

-- Reunion celebrates a victory for sexual minority rights in the 4.6 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America --

SAN FRANCISCO - JULY 25, 2010 - St. Francis Lutheran Church, a San Francisco congregation that was removed from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1995 for defying a ban on pastors in same-sex relationships, voted today to rejoin the national church after it ended that ban.

The 129-member congregation voted to accept an invitation from the Sierra-Pacific Synod, the regional organization of the ELCA for Northern California and Northern Nevada. In April, the Synod had voted overwhelmingly to invite back St. Francis and another San Francisco congregation, First United Lutheran Church, that had also been removed for standing up against the discriminatory rule.

Today's historic vote marked a turning point for St. Francis in its long struggle for full acceptance of sexual minority people in the Lutheran Church. Located near the Castro district at Church and Market streets, St. Francis began reaching out to the gay community in the late 1980s, in the midst of the AIDS crisis, under the leadership of Pastor James DeLange. In 1990, it called a lesbian couple, Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, as assistant pastors. At the same time, First United Lutheran called a gay man, Jeff Johnson, as its pastor.

At the time, gay and lesbian pastors had to take a vow of celibacy to join the ELCA roster, from which member churches chose pastors. Because Pastors Frost, Zillhart and Johnson had not taken that vow, St. Francis and First United violated the ELCA's rules by calling them. However, both congregations stood by their decisions as the best way to carry out their ministries. After a trial by the ELCA in 1990, St Francis and First United each were suspended for five years and then removed from the national church on Dec. 31, 1995.

In August 2009, after years of dialog within the national church and activism by St. Francis and partner organizations including Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries and Lutherans Concerned, the ELCA voted to end its unequal treatment of pastors in committed same-sex relationships. With this act, it became the largest faith group in the United States to welcome gay and lesbian pastors to its roster. Earlier this year, the national church also agreed to recognize the ordinations of more than 40 sexual minority pastors who had not qualified for the ELCA roster because they violated the rules of that time. Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries had maintained a separate roster for these clergy and worked to place them in Lutheran churches across the country.

As partners in the movement for full inclusion of lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender people in the church, ELM and St. Francis know that the visible presence of openly gay and lesbian pastors sends a message of welcome and hope to others who have felt shut out of their own faith traditions.

"The process of healing from the pain of being removed from the ELCA will take time. However, we all rejoice that the church is now welcoming sexual minority people, and we embrace our future as a member of the larger church with faith and hope," said Congregation President Brandee Marckmann.

The vote at St. Francis took place just hours before a ceremony in San Francisco at which seven members of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries roster will be received or reinstated to the ELCA roster. The rite will take place at 4 p.m. at St. Mark's Lutheran Church at 1111 O'Farrell St. More information on that event is available here:
http://sps7rite.blogspot.com/p/media-info.html

At a special worship service on Sunday, Nov. 7, the congregation of St. Francis will welcome Bishop Mark Holmerud of the Sierra-Pacific Synod and celebrate its reunion with the ELCA. The media is invited to witness this festive event, and more details will be available soon.

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About St. Francis Lutheran Church
Formed in 1964 through the merger of Lutheran churches founded by Danish and Finnish immigrants, St. Francis Lutheran Church is open to people of all backgrounds and sexual orientations and has been ministering to San Francisco's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities since the 1980s. Visit St. Francis on the Web at www.st-francis-lutheran.org.

In the News: New York Times

2010-07-26T00:54:00.000-07:00

Lutherans Offer Warm Welcome to Gay Pastors
Noah Berger for The New York Times

The Rev. Sharon Stalkfleet, center, was one of seven gay pastors at a welcoming ceremony Sunday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco.
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Published: July 25, 2010
With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until recently been barred from the church’s ministry.
Enlarge This Image
Noah Berger for The New York Times

The Rev. Dawn Roginski, center, in white, one of seven gay pastors at a welcoming ceremony Sunday at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco.

The ceremony at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church.

“Today the church is speaking with a clear voice,” the Rev. Jeff R. Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news conference just before it began. “All people are welcome here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, known as the E.L.C.A., with 4.6 million members, is now the largest Protestant church in the United States to permit noncelibate gay ministers to serve in the ranks of its clergy — an issue that has caused wrenching divisions for it as well as for many other denominations.

Since the church voted last summer to allow noncelibate gay clergy members to serve, 185 congregations have taken the two consecutive votes required to leave the denomination, said Melissa Ramirez Cooper, a spokeswoman for the church, citing a tally that she said was updated monthly. There are 10,396 congregations nationwide.

The Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ also allow gay ministers. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s general assembly voted at its convention earlier this month to do so, though the vote will become church law only if is ratified by a majority of the church’s 173 regional presbyteries. Two smaller Lutheran denominations, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, do not ordain ministers in same-sex relationships.

The seven ministers welcomed at the ceremony on Sunday had already been ordained and have been serving at churches or outreach ministries in the San Francisco Bay Area, but they had not been officially recognized on the clergy roster.

“The effect of them being brought onto our roster is they will now be part of our national database of pastors who are available for service in any of our 10,500 churches,” said Bishop Mark W. Holmerud, who leads the Sierra Pacific Synod, which includes San Francisco. He noted that while some congregations were open to consider hiring openly gay ministers, others were not — and each congregation is free to choose.

The Evangelical Lutherans designed Sunday’s special “rite of reconciliation” to mark the formal inclusion of gay ministers who were ordained in “extraordinary rites” that were not recognized by the church but were conducted by a group called Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. Three more gay pastors will be welcomed at ceremonies in September and October, two in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area and one in Chicago, Ms. Cooper said.

Amalia Vagts, executive director of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, said, “It’s been a long and hard journey for a lot of people, and it feels like this is a new beginning in the history of the E.L.C.A.”

She said that all together, there were 46 openly gay ministers who had previously been excluded from the church’s clergy roster and would now be accepted.

The change was made possible after the Churchwide Assembly, the Evangelical Lutherans’ chief legislative body, voted at its meeting in 2009 to allow the ordination of noncelibate gay pastors who are in monogamous relationships. The denomination appointed a task force to study the issue in 2001, and spent the next eight years in debate. In the end, the proposal to permit openly gay clergy members won just two-thirds of the votes, the minimum required for passage.

Some who opposed it are now poised to leave. The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, a coalition of theologically conservative Lutheran churches, said his group expected to form a new denomination, the North American Lutheran Church, in August.

He said of the ceremony on Sunday, “It’s just another steady step taken by the E.L.C.A. to move the denomination further and further away from most Lutheran churches around the world and from the whole Christian church, unfortunately.”

Before the ceremony, one of the gay pastors, the Rev. Megan M. Rohrer, said it had been a long journey from her home in South Dakota — where fellow Lutherans regarded her sexuality as a demon to be exorcised — to being finally welcomed as a minister in the Lutheran church.

“It’s an invitation,” she said of the ceremony, “to join us in the pews every single Sunday, where not a single one of these pastors will care if you agree with us or if you think our families are appropriate. We’ll serve you communion, we’ll pray with you and we’ll visit you in the hospital.”
A version of this article appeared in print on July 26, 2010, on page A13 of the New York edition.

In the News: KRON 4

2010-07-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

Bulletin for The Service

2010-07-25T15:30:00.000-07:00

Participate in the Offering

The link below is for a pdf version of our worship bulletin. We recommend that PC users right click on the link and choose "save link as." Since this is a large file, this will help to prevent your computer from crashing.

This is an abridged version of our service. We have eliminate much of the text in hopes that it will encourage you to really listen and be involved with what is happening. A full version of the text will be available after the service is over for people to review or to use in planning the many other rites that will be happening all over the country as our ELM rostered colleagues are recieved in their own congregations.

The pastors on the ELM roster believe that transparency and honesty about our lives is one of the ways we live out the Gospel. We livefully out lives. Sharing the bulletin and full text of our service is just one more way we live out that commitment to transparency.

Thank you for being a part of our service, whether you are watching live or in retrospect.

Link to the Bulletin - pdf

Balcony View-Live Stream

2010-07-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

Participate in the Offering

Online TV Shows by Ustream

Watch Live: Service Begins at 4pm (PST)

2010-07-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Participate in the Offering

Note About the Live Streams and Photos of Camera Views

Starting at 2:30 pm (PST) the webcams will start. There will be three webcams:

that's mobile and moves throughout the service
one from the balcony
one behind the alter

Part of the reason we're having three is to ensure that if the signals from one of the webcams goes out, you are still able to participate in the service. If you want to chat with other individuals who are watching the service at the same time, click on the link below the video stream.

The Roving Live Stream Camera For the Event is Here -
Use this Video Player to Watch the Press Conference:

Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV

Balcony Camera:

Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV

Side Camera:

Stream videos at Ustream

Offering - The Joel Workin Scholarship

2010-07-25T00:59:00.000-07:00

The offering for today's service will support the The Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholarship. Help us reach our goal of raising $12,000.

Twenty years ago when Joel Workin came out as a gay, Lutheran seminarian, he and several others helped spark the current movement supporting openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) persons in ordained ministry. Following Joel’s courageous and faithful act, his certification for ordination was vacated when Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) bishops refused to place his name on the roster of approved candidates waiting for call. The Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholarship was established in 1995 by the generosity of Joel’s family, colleagues and close friends. Joel died of AIDS, before he could see this day when GLBT pastors would be received into the ELCA.

The Joel R. Workin Memorial Scholarship supports seminarians who have been admitted into the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries candidacy process; and encourages them to persevere in their preparation for ordained ministry. The recipients must be enrolled as an openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender student, have demonstrated gifts for Word and Sacrament ministry, and seeks to fulfill their vocations as publicly identified sexual minority persons. The recipients demonstrate academic excellence, integrity and courage in response to the ELCA's discriminatory policies, a passion for social justice, faithfulness to Jesus Christ and potential to become an effective leader in church and society. The early witness of Joel Workin and several other gay seminarians led to a larger movement within the Lutheran Church. Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a result of this witness, credentials and rosters openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people for ministry; supports these pastors by working with congregations that will call them and providing mission grants to support their ministry; and provides a network of support to the congregations and pastors.

If would like to participate in the offering for this service, or you are reading this later and feel moved to support GLBT seminarians, please send a donation to Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. Please note in the memo line that you would like your funds to support the "SPS7 Workin Offering."

You can make a secure online donation here:
1)Donate via the ELM website
2)Donate through facebook causes here

A note about the live stream connections.

2010-07-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

At 3:30 pm (PST) a link to a pdf of the bulletin will appear on the blog enabling you to follow along. Be sure to refresh your browser in order to see the post.

Because the live stream is dependent upon wifi (wireless internet), it is possible that any of the live streams may go out during the service. If it is the live stream in the balcony, the problem will be resolved as quickly as possible and the video should come back up. However do to the location of the other two cameras and because we are putting our focus into worshiping rather than paying attention to the live stream. If for some reason the wifi signal goes out, we won't have the ability to restore the other two cameras.

Here are snapshops from the locations where the three cameras will be placed. Feel free to watch more than one version at once if your computer has the capability and your internet connection is fast enough.

Camera view from the balcony.

View from behind the alter

View from the side

In the News: Associated Press

2010-07-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

Gay Lutheran Pastors To Join Church Roster

by The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO July 24, 2010, 11:13 pm ET

Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the nation's largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service.

The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy.

Churches can now hire noncelibate gay clergy who are in committed relationships.

"It's going to be an extremely glorious and festive ceremony because it's the culmination of decades of work to welcome LGBT people into the ELCA," said Amalia Vagts, executive director of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a nonprofit that credentials openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people for ministry.

Megan Rohrer, one of the pastors who will participate in Sunday's rite of reception service, grew up in South Dakota and attended a Lutheran college where she said students tried to exorcise her "gay demons" by throwing holy water on her. Some of those people are now Lutheran pastors in South Dakota, she said.

Rohrer, who is transgender and a lesbian, was ordained by four congregations in San Francisco in 2006, but could not join the ELCA roster until the denomination's national assembly approved the new policy in August.

"I didn't really believe the policy was going to change as quickly as it did," she said.

Rohrer said she is hopeful Sunday's service will be a "symbol" to young people that the Lutheran church is working toward becoming more welcoming of people of all different backgrounds.

Jeff Johnson, another one of the pastors who will be added to the roster, said the ELCA's position for years of not accepting the choice of some congregations to ordain gay clergy was painful and disappointing.

"The actions the church is taking on Sunday affirms the decisions of those congregations," Johnson, pastor of the University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, said. "The church is respecting our family, our partners, the choices we're making."

A small number of congregations have voted to leave the ELCA in response to the August vote. Johnson and Rohrer want Sunday's service to heal some of the rifts.

Johnson said the goal, in part, is to show people the church has space for many different opinions.

"There's room for them," he said. "It's a tolerant church."

The special rite of reception that will be used for the first time on Sunday was developed specifically to welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pastors, said Melissa Ramirez Cooper, a spokeswoman for the ELCA.

Two more rite of reception services are scheduled for September in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area and another will follow in Chicago, Cooper said.

This article appeared online and in print in more than 300 media outlets, including: NPR, The Miami Herald, The Washington Examiner, the DC Daily Caller, the Fresno Bee, USA Today, Yahoo News, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Houston Chronicle, Manchester UK Guardian News, SFGate, Fox News, Star Tribune, Newsday, Seattle Times, ,

In the News: Argus Leader

2010-07-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

Callison: Embracing the Church

Transgender minister to be received as ELCA pastor

Jill Callison • jcalliso@argusleader.com • July 22, 2010

evious Page

When Darlene Audus was a teenager, her Lutheran father discouraged his daughter from dating Roman Catholic boys.

She didn't understand that kind of prejudice then, and the 76-year-old Clark woman today doesn't understand the prejudice directed at her granddaughter, Megan Rohrer, a lesbian.

"I back her all the way," Audus says. "She's a super gal."

Rohrer, 30, is the first openly transgender Lutheran pastor ordained in the United States. Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity or gender expression differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. Only a very few choose to change their bodies through hormones or surgery.

On Sunday, Rohrer will be part of the first rite to receive gay pastors into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

"She's had a tough struggle to get where she's at," says Audus, a retired county auditor. "I'm proud because she kept at it. It would have been easy to give up. But I wished I could protect her from all those things."

"Those things," as Rohrer tells it in a telephone conversation from her home in San Francisco, include horrifying tales.

After graduating from Lincoln High School, Rohrer enrolled at Augustana College. In the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, the campus became a hostile place, she says.

"Aggressive football players would knock on my dorm room door and try to turn me into a straight person in violently sexual ways," she says.

In an attempt to exorcise Rohrer's "gay demons," students in her religion class threw holy water on her and sang hymns as she walked to class.

Rohrer moved off campus for three months, fearing for her safety.

But college faculty supported her, Rohrer says, and it also was the place where she discovered her calling and first fell in love.

"I would never wish an unsafe space for anyone, but sometimes having to take a stand helps push a person into a leadership position," she says. "I was able to find the determination to be a pastor in a church that wasn't yet ready to welcome me."

Rohrer entered seminary on the West Coast. She never considered joining a denomination that would welcome her as an openly lesbian pastor.

"Growing up in South Dakota, everything about my culture was Lutheran," she says. "I spoke Lutheran. A lot of the theology Lutherans proclaim and are excited about is kind of the natural way people live. It's hard to leave a culture behind."

Although her home congregation, Hope Lutheran, wouldn't fill out the necessary paperwork to allow Rohrer to pursue her calling, she says, she found support from the South Dakota Synod office.

Rohrer appreciates both sides' honesty.

"When you're in South Dakota, sometimes the person who disagrees with you most is your closest friend because they're honest with you," she says. "In bigger cities, it's different. If you disagree, you don't have to talk again."

Rohrer, who now runs a nonprofit agency for the homeless and serves four churches in San Francisco, was ordained outside the rules of the ELCA in 2006 - an extraordinary ordination. On Sunday, she will become a pastor in the ELCA.

That became possible when in August 2009, representatives of the ELCA voted to allow congregations to call pastors who were in "publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships."

Rohrer knows how difficult that vote was for many Lutherans. At the Churchwide Assembly last August, she and a Canton woman who opposed the change would pray together before every vote.

"Even when they're hoping the vote will go the other way, I really think God is bigger than this decision," Rohrer says. "I think our faith lives are bigger than this decision. I'm excited to be part of a diverse church where we can pray together."

Rohrer is in a committed, same-sex relationship and, for the past eight years, has served as a pastor to the homeless.

Many of the homeless she works with come from the Midwest. They left home either because their families rejected them or they assumed if their sexuality became public, they would be shunned.

"They left out of fear and never gave anyone the opportunity to accept them," Rohrer says. "That's another reason I continue to be engaged with congregations in the Midwest. We'll always have homeless as long as people can't openly welcome gay and lesbian people into families, church and school."

Audus could never reject Rohrer.

"It wasn't like you could go, 'That wasn't my granddaughter any more,' " Audus says of learning Rohrer is a lesbian. "It was just that the path would be a little harder."

Rohrer, however, might not agree that the path was any harder for her than anyone else. What she does acknowledge is that this is a world where secrets about sex lead to abuse of power.

"I want to be part of a church that holds me accountable, that asks me tough questions," she says. "I want to be part of a group of pastors that are honest about how they're forming healthy relationships. Being gay or straight doesn't matter. What matters is if you're in a loving relationship."

Jill Callison's column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 331-2307.

You can find the original story here.

In the News: Bay Area Reporter

2010-07-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

Lutherans receive LGBT pastors

Published 07/22/2010

by Matthew S. Bajko

m.bajko@ebar.com

The Reverend Jeff Johnson

Twenty years ago two San Francisco Lutheran congregations ordained a lesbian couple and a gay man as pastors in defiance of their denomination's ban against non-celibate LGBT people becoming clergy.

The two churches' decision in 1990 set off a two-decade fight over the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's anti-gay policy. While the congregations were ultimately ejected from the ELCA for their decisions, 15 additional LGBT people became Lutheran pastors in the ensuing years through an extraordinary ordination process.

Although their local congregations considered them to be pastors, in the eyes of the national Lutheran Church they were deemed unofficial clergy. Church leaders subsequently disciplined many of the churches that ordained them.

Last year the national Lutheran Church revised its policies and dropped the requirement that LGBT pastors need to be celibate. This weekend six LGBT pastors ordained extraordinarily and two pastors who had been dismissed from the ELCA clergy roster will be received as full-fledged pastors in the church at a ceremony Sunday, July 25 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco.

"I think this is a very significant step for the church, which has been in this two-decade process of studying gay and lesbian people and talking about finding ways to include us. That process has now come to an end and the church has decided that LGBT people are to be welcomed fully as leaders and members of the church, so it is a huge step that the church has taken," said the Reverend Jeff Johnson, whose ordination 20 years ago as an assistant pastor at the city's First United Lutheran Church sparked the internal dialogue within the national Lutheran Church.

Johnson, 48, now lives in Oakland and is the pastor at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley. He will be taking part in the formal Rite of Reception service this weekend presided over by the Reverend Mark Holmerud, fourth bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod, which covers northern California and northern Nevada.

"I am deeply grateful to the [extraordinary] pastors, and the two pastors who were removed from the ELCA roster, for their grace and good will in being a part of this process," Holmerud said in a statement about the ceremony. He added that the actions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly "have brought us to a new day."

At the Sierra Pacific Synod assembly in May, Holmerud lifted a public censure and admonition placed on the Berkeley church in 2000 after it called Johnson as its pastor even though he was not on the ELCA clergy roster. At the meeting Johnson was also elected to serve on the regional synod's council pending his participation in this weekend's rite.

The other extraordinary Lutheran pastors taking part in the service are the Reverends Craig Minich, pastor of youth ministries at the Oakland-Berkeley Lutheran Youth Program; Dawn Roginski, pastor of parish programs at St. Francis Lutheran Church; Megan Rohrer, executive director of Welcome, which feeds the homeless in San Francisco; Paul R. Brenner at St. Francis Lutheran Church; and Sharon Stalkfleet with Lutheran Ministry to Nursing Homes in Oakland.

"I think you can't go through this kind of wilderness walking in the church and not be stronger because of it," said Rohrer, 30, who identifies as a transgender dyke and was extraordinarily ordained in 2006 by four San Francisco Lutheran churches. "It feels like coming out to your parents and having them react really poorly for a long time and then one day they change their mind."

The two pastors being reinstated this weekend are the Reverends Ross D. Merkel, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland, and Steven P. Sabin, pastor of Christ Church Lutheran in San Francisco. In 1998 the ELCA removed Sabin from its clergy roster after he admitted to being in a committed, same-sex relationship while serving as pastor at Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Ames, Iowa.

"For two decades, many have been grieved and alienated by the ELCA's exclusion of gay and lesbian pastors blessed with loving spouses. I hope and pray that they can, like me, lay aside the hurts and take hope from the gracious power of God to renew and direct the church into evermore faithful and effective proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ," stated Sabin.

Retired Revered James DeLange, who was the senior pastor at St. Francis Lutheran Church in 1990, called this weekend's service a "vindication" for those who fought against the church's discriminatory policies and the beginning of the healing process for many Lutherans impacted by that struggle.

"For those of us who have been just staying with the struggle and have tried to work to try to change the policy this is a vindication of our efforts," said DeLange, who is straight and chairs the San Francisco Interfaith Council. "I am just glad I lived long enough to see the change of policy."

As for the lesbian couple his church ordained the same day as Johnson, the Reverends Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, DeLange said they now live in Minneapolis and are expected to have their own rite of reception sometime this fall.

Also this Sunday St. Francis will vote on whether to return to the ELCA. In a nearly unanimous vote, the 300 delegates at the Sierra Pacific Synod assembly this spring adopted a resolution inviting both First United and St. Francis to rejoin the national church. First United has yet to schedule a similar vote.

Johnson expressed mixed emotions about how long it has taken the Lutheran Church to fully embrace LGBT pastors.

"I think that the church's taking this step does not change the difficult things the church has done over the past two decades, so it is very important for people to tell the truth about the discrimination they have taken part in as we celebrate this momentous, wonderful happening," he said.

The formal Rite of Reception for the pastors is open to the public. It will begin at 4 p.m. Sunday, July 25 at St. Mark's Lutheran Church, the corner of Franklin and O'Farrell Streets in San Francisco.

You'll find the original here.

Healing Prayer and the Easter Fire

2010-07-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

Before the service we will have healing prayer. We invite you to write down any baggage you'd like to vent. There will be an "easter fire" in front of the church where you can burn your fears, frustrations or whatever else you write down. Healing prayers are available for those who are interested. I'm sending this note in advance in case you want a little extra time to do some writing before the service. Individuals who would like to participate, but who cannot attend can send their confidential notes to megan@welcomeministry.org

The notes will not be read, but they will be printed and burned in our easter fire if you write "private baggage" in the subject line. If you would like like it read and to get a healing prayer sent back to you by Pastor Megan Rohrer please write "for healing prayer." Your notes will also be printed and burned in our easter fire.

Photos & Hi Res Links

2010-07-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

Click on the High Resolution Link next to the caption for each photo to download high resolution photos for media use. You can either view the photos below and read the captions or click all here to see thumbnails and links to all the high res photos. Right click on the link and choose "save link as." Or click on the link, wait for the photo to download and then save it.

Photo Credit: Vince Donovan

Group Photos:

Caption: Beginning at the top from left to right: Pastors Paul Brenner, Megan Rohrer, Dawn Roginski, Sharon Stalkfleet, Jeff Johnson and Craig Minich. Not Pictured: Ross Merkel

High Resolution Photo

Right click on the link and choose "save link as." Or click on the link, wait for the photo to download and then save it.

Caption: From bottom center to the left, Pastors Paul Brenner, Jeff Johnson, Sharon Stalkfleet, Megan Rohrer, Craig Minich, Dawn Roginski. Not Pictured: Ross Merkel

High Resolution Photo

Right click on the link and choose "save link as." Or click on the link, wait for the photo to download and then save it.

Head Shots:

Caption: Pastor Craig Minich

High Resolution Photo