Publicly engaged church.

Policies and Procedures of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for Addressing Social Concerns

As individual members, congregations, synods, the churchwide organization, and across the many connections in Christ, this church lives out Christian faith as a publicly engaged church.

Purpose

Faithful participation in society is integral and vital to the mission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to serve the triune God revealed in the Scriptures. As individual members, congregations, synods, the churchwide organization, and across the many connections in Christ, this church lives out Christian faith as a publicly engaged church. It is a church that seeks to exercise responsibility in and witness to God’s just and loving intention for all of creation. The call to God’s people to care for human society is unmistakable in the Christian Scriptures (Amos 5:22-24; Luke 4:16-22) and is given direction in the ELCA constitution.

The ELCA’s first social statement, “The Church in Society: A Lutheran Perspective,” formulates this responsibility and witness in three overarching commitments:

  • “To sustain and support its members in their baptismal vocation to serve God and neighbor in daily life” (6).

  • “To serve God and neighbor in its life and work as an institution” (7).

  • “To foster moral deliberation on social questions” (7).

Practically speaking, these commitments are woven on the frame of four distinct but interrelated spheres of activity:

  1. Nurturing and Equipping Members.

  2. Encouraging Learning, Conversation and Discernment.

  3. Developing and Enacting Social Teaching and Policy.

  4. Interpreting and Applying.

Attentive to these commitments and within these spheres, this document sets forth the policies and procedures of the ELCA for addressing social concerns. It gives extended attention to the procedural elements of “Sphere Three” even while charting the multiple means through which we together as a church carry out this calling in responsibility and witness. The rationale and procedural description established here are intended to clarify, order and facilitate the life and mission of the ELCA as a networked church.