FROM THE ECUMENICAL OFFICER - OCTOBER 2021
The Christian church is most alive when it is listening to the dreams of where God is calling it, responding to human needs that it sees, and working ecumenically.
Augsburg Lutheran Church is a large downtown congregation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a city of a quarter million. It operates a homeless shelter where Emily Norris started working in 2013. In time, she felt a call to ministry, went to seminary, and was ordained. She saw a need for a congregation for the homeless, where individual histories of employment, addiction, or prison did not seem to be the most important aspect of persons’ lives.
Emily is now pastor of The Dwelling, which started in the spring of 2020 and is a federated congregation, affiliated with both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Moravian Church, Southern Province. Moravian ministerial candidate Maddy White serves on the staff of The Dwelling.
The Dwelling on Sunday, after coffee and donuts, has worship and lunch and offers showers for those who wish, since many places serving the homeless are closed on Sunday. Attendance is under 100, like three-quarters of Moravian congregations. A mid-week Bible study is led by local pastors, many of them Moravian.
One Moravian pastor declares that The Dwelling enhances the Body of Christ in Winston-Salem.
The Dwelling meets in facilities of City with Dwellings, a nonprofit entity connecting homeless with government and private resources. The executive of City with Dwellings is Ruth Burcaw, who came there from service as executive of the Southern Province Board of Cooperative Ministries.
Moravian medical work in Nicaragua in the 1930s was the dream of David Thaeler. Planting Moravian churches in Florida and California after World War II was the dream of Moravian pastor Mervin Weidner. Keeping a Moravian congregation in a racially changing neighborhood in Indianapolis in the 1960s, rather than moving to the suburbs, was the dream of Moravian pastor Fanny Weber. These dreams all involved ecumenical thinking beyond the Moravian Church. Political and social changes have destroyed most the fruit of those dreams, but from those dreams came faithful, needed ministry.
Lord Jesus, there are many dreams and dreamers. Give us wisdom to discern when dreams come from you, as responses to our prayers that your will be done on earth, and when you are calling us to support those who dream. Amen.
Hermann Weinlick, Ecumenical Officer
Moravian Church, Northern Province
Augsburg Lutheran Church is a large downtown congregation in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a city of a quarter million. It operates a homeless shelter where Emily Norris started working in 2013. In time, she felt a call to ministry, went to seminary, and was ordained. She saw a need for a congregation for the homeless, where individual histories of employment, addiction, or prison did not seem to be the most important aspect of persons’ lives.
Emily is now pastor of The Dwelling, which started in the spring of 2020 and is a federated congregation, affiliated with both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Moravian Church, Southern Province. Moravian ministerial candidate Maddy White serves on the staff of The Dwelling.
The Dwelling on Sunday, after coffee and donuts, has worship and lunch and offers showers for those who wish, since many places serving the homeless are closed on Sunday. Attendance is under 100, like three-quarters of Moravian congregations. A mid-week Bible study is led by local pastors, many of them Moravian.
One Moravian pastor declares that The Dwelling enhances the Body of Christ in Winston-Salem.
The Dwelling meets in facilities of City with Dwellings, a nonprofit entity connecting homeless with government and private resources. The executive of City with Dwellings is Ruth Burcaw, who came there from service as executive of the Southern Province Board of Cooperative Ministries.
Moravian medical work in Nicaragua in the 1930s was the dream of David Thaeler. Planting Moravian churches in Florida and California after World War II was the dream of Moravian pastor Mervin Weidner. Keeping a Moravian congregation in a racially changing neighborhood in Indianapolis in the 1960s, rather than moving to the suburbs, was the dream of Moravian pastor Fanny Weber. These dreams all involved ecumenical thinking beyond the Moravian Church. Political and social changes have destroyed most the fruit of those dreams, but from those dreams came faithful, needed ministry.
Lord Jesus, there are many dreams and dreamers. Give us wisdom to discern when dreams come from you, as responses to our prayers that your will be done on earth, and when you are calling us to support those who dream. Amen.
Hermann Weinlick, Ecumenical Officer
Moravian Church, Northern Province
WORDS TO PONDER
In Matthew 5:44, Jesus instructs us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you. This is not a suggestion or a hope. This is a radical idea that was not in most other faiths then nor now. Many faiths have cause and effect, karma if you will, that you will get your punishment or your reward. That is not Christianity. Jesus tells us that we all get the reward. There is no condemnation now. You must love your enemy. You must love those who believe different. You must love those who you disagree with. You must love them and therefore have empathy for them. None of us deserves grace, but all of us get it.
Are you sharing that grace? Are you loving those who you agree with and disagree with? I get it, this is a time like no other and these are experiences we have never faced. But we know what Jesus instructs, and yes, it is hard, extremely hard. But it isn’t an option. We must love. We must show empathy. We must remember that everyone has a story and you might not know all the pages. Jesus doesn’t pick and choose who is in and who is out, we cannot do that either. The world needs our love more than ever. Everyone needs to be loved more than ever. May we change the world not only through science, but may we change the world through the greatest gift of all, which is more powerful than any other force in the world…the Love of God.
-Rev. Katie Van Der Linden
Reprinted with Permission
Are you sharing that grace? Are you loving those who you agree with and disagree with? I get it, this is a time like no other and these are experiences we have never faced. But we know what Jesus instructs, and yes, it is hard, extremely hard. But it isn’t an option. We must love. We must show empathy. We must remember that everyone has a story and you might not know all the pages. Jesus doesn’t pick and choose who is in and who is out, we cannot do that either. The world needs our love more than ever. Everyone needs to be loved more than ever. May we change the world not only through science, but may we change the world through the greatest gift of all, which is more powerful than any other force in the world…the Love of God.
-Rev. Katie Van Der Linden
Reprinted with Permission