WANTED: GCS Participation in Listening Sessions on Civic Engagement Social Statement

The ELCA Social Statement on Civic Engagement is underway. Let your voice be heard!

What issues should be included in the ELCA’s next Social Statement on Church, State, and Civic Participation? What concerns do you have about where the church currently stands on civic engagement, and where should the church be headed?

Participating in a Listening Session is one way to have your voice be heard. The window to influence what goes into the draft statement through listening sessions is open until September 2022. These sessions are no more than an hour, can be in-person or virtual, and are facilitated by a trained process builder. More churchwide listening sessions will be held after the draft is complete in December, 2023. If you are interested in hosting a listening event in your congregation or group, email Solveig Muus at director@lamaz.org or Heather Dean at civicsandfaith@elca.org.

The ELCA has a social message on Government and Civic Engagement in the United States: Discipleship in a Democracy (see link below, June 2020). Now, the ELCA is developing a social statement on government, civic engagement, the relationship of church and state and related matters, as called for by the 2019 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

The ELCA has adopted a social message on government and civic engagement titled “Government and Civic Engagement in the United States: Discipleship in a Democracy.” This writing project was requested by the 2019 Churchwide Assembly and was adopted in June 2020 by the ELCA Church Council [CC20.06.17].

To help dig into the text, there is a Study Guide, along with a Leader's Guide for those facilitating groups. A Spanish translation can be downloaded here. Printed copies (in packs of 5) can be ordered here.

Social messages are teaching documents of the ELCA focused on particular social topics. They are intended to focus attention and urge action on timely, pressing matters of social concern to church and society. ELCA social statements are more comprehensive documents developed via a five-year process led by a task force and adopted at churchwide assemblies.

Social statements are the ELCA’s primary documents to address significant social issues. They are intended to aid reflection and shape conscience and to set forth the ELCA’s teaching and policy on the major social issues and questions of contemporary life.

An ELCA task force provides primary leadership for the statement’s development over a five-year period, using an established process of study and widespread participation in theological and moral deliberation.

To learn more about the task force members, click here.

Here is a detailed timeline of the task force's work.