Guest blog: Five tips for ‘Fifth Sunday’ letter writing
Guest blog by Kris Bartanen, LAMA Liaison at New Journey Lutheran Church, Fountain Hills
It’s been a year since New Journey Lutheran Church (Fountain Hills, AZ) began their “Fifth Sunday” advocacy letter-writing program. Now in their 6th round of letters, guest blogger Kris Bartanen shares what they’ve learned in the process. Read where they started.
On January 12th, New Journey Lutheran Church in Fountain Hills completed its sixth round of “Fifth Sunday Letter Writing” (postponed from December 29 due to the holidays). This experiment in purposefully putting our voices of faith into the public square in those months with a fifth Sunday was inspired by a Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Arizona (www.LAMAz.org) session and is grounded in Martin Luther’s admonition that “if you want to change the world, pick up a pen and write.”
New Journey's recent letter writing Sunday gathered signatures to urge Senators Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly to oppose H.R. 9495 - the “Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act” - when it comes to the U.S. Senate, and asked Representative David Schweikert to vote against further arms to Israel in support of a cease-fire in Gaza. At the federal level, we have written to oppose House cuts to humanitarian assistance programs; three times, twice in concert with Bread for the World’s letter campaigns, regarding multiple provisions of reauthorization of the Farm Bill; in support of the Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act; and in support of the Northeastern Arizona Indian Water Rights Settlement. At the State level, we have urged continued funding for free and reduced school lunches (signed into law by Governor Hobbs); locally, we have joined with Mesa neighbors to support funding for the “Off the Streets” program (successful) purchase of a former hotel to help address persons experiencing homelessness.
If you would like to bolster advocacy efforts in your faith organization, here are five suggestions:
Seek support of your church council or equivalent leadership body. We asked permission to put our 5thSunday letters on New Journey letterhead, previewed our goals, and now council members are among the first in line to the sign-on sheets that accompany the letters.
Ask for suggestions and bring no surprises. We post draft letters in advance and include them in New Journey’s bi-monthly eNewsletter. When possible, we post copies of explanatory material or links for further reading.
Craft letters that provide context for why your congregation is writing. For example, when we write about hunger, we name specifically our involvement in heat respite lunch packing, leading the Fountain Hills Community Food Pack, and support for Extended Hands Food Bank. When we wrote in support of asylum seeker work authorization, we named our involvement with Northeast Valley Consortium and Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest partners in preparing apartments for Afghan evacuees. While sample texts provided by ELCA action alerts, Bread for the World templates, and other resources are very helpful foundations, your persuasive effort is more credible when your reasons for writing are clear and meaningful. Thank your letter recipient for his or her public service.
Always allow for alternate points of view. Our letter writing corner includes a sign welcoming folks who think differently or wishing to express their ideas in their own voices to do so. We provide an “advocacy packet” containing addresses for federal and state legislators, as well as a sample letter and a sample e-mail message, for anyone to take home.
Express thanks to your congregation and publicize successful outcomes – such as the Mesa City Council funding for the hotel purchase, school lunch funding, and provisions that were progressing into the Farm Bill (at least in the last Congress). Stay strong in the face of slow processes and defeats.
As a small, storefront ELCA congregation (i.e., owning no land or building) founded a little over a decade ago, New Journey by mission has chosen to put its resources into social ministry. We work directly – increasingly with our Northeast Valley Consortium partners – to address hunger, to foster children’s success, and to support neighbors in need here and around the world. These are important acts of service at a “first-order” level of change.
Advocacy – in this case, the small act of letter writing – is a step toward “second-order” change, an effort to change systems or address root causes. Advocacy moves us (even if just a little) from feeling good about (repeatedly) serving at a soup kitchen to asking “why is it that people are hungry?” and “what needs to happen systemically to reduce food insecurity?” Advocacy is educational work. And, while our numbers are small and persuasion is very often a long-term process, our advocacy is also a source of the hope we, as people of faith, are able to make in the world.
Editor’s note: Thank you Kris and New Journey for sharing your story! We’d love to hear your story! All are invited and encouraged to share an article or blog with us at the LAMA weekly newsletter.