Bishop Highlights Young Adults

May 2008 Accompaniment
News and information for rostered leaders

Dear Partners in Ministry,

In a trip to El Salvador two weeks ago, the accompaniment theme was certainly evident, as we celebrated the robust and faithful partnership we share with the Lutheran church there. It played out as we witnessed remote faith communities struggling with hunger and natural disasters, now served by Ten-to-One projects. It was evident in the Lutheran Church, as it contends with financial shortfalls, even as our sister parish partnerships are strengthened and our El Salvador Pastoral Assistance Fund builds. It was experienced through prayer and worship, through conversation, and in visiting the sobering memorials to Oscar Romero, Rutillio Grande, and the nuns and Jesuits who were assassinated. We realized the essential quality of the church in that nation...and in ours. What a privilege to experience such accompaniment, something we will hear more about at our upcoming assembly, as Bishop Gomez joins us for our time together.

But one of the unexpected discoveries of the trip was that we were accompanied throughout our time by a missionary from our ELCA. His name is Daniel Bierne, a 23 year old recent graduate from Valparaiso University, who is serving in El Salvador as a GM2, a two year young adult missionary. He serves there as a translator, as a delegation guide, as Bible study leader with youth, as an ambassador of Christ to children (perhaps not a part of his job description, but an aptitude nonetheless). We appreciated his giftedness and his spirit (and his patience!).

That set in motion for me a deep appreciation for the place of young adults in our ELCA, and an increased awareness of these connections.

Last month, we gathered at Lake Park Lutheran Church to honor the Rev. Christine Thompson for her call to serve in Lutheran Campus Ministry at UWM. Her ability to connect with young people, and her passion for the Gospel is evident in her voice, and in the testimonials of the young people with whom she serves. To imagine Christine and Pastor Brad Brown (at Marquette) is to recognize a strong ministry to young adults.

At an Invitation to Serve Event earlier this year (itself evidence of the leadership potential in our youth) I spent time speaking with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps participants here in Milwaukee. The seven individuals volunteering here, working on behalf of our church, are impressive young adults, doing amazing things, too often unrecognized.

I spoke with Jeff Bluhm, the executive director of Lutherdale Bible Camp, and was reminded of the huge number of young adults who each summer serve as camp counselors. He said they are the "minor league" for training seminarians.

This is a time when our ELCA colleges and universities are preparing for their graduations, when the baccalaureates will connect this time with their faith journey, and when commencement marks a beginning of their ministries beyond college. This weekend, we travel to Luther College for Maren's graduation, after which she will serve through Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Baltimore...which may be why this topic is on my mind.

There is serious talk of an "emerging church" expression of ministry, reaching out to young adults in the Greater Milwaukee Synod, perhaps as a church without walls.

It seems that next year at the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, our synod will have two high school students as voting members.

Geri Murtaugh on our synod staff continues to provide inspired and organized leadership to youth and family ministry in our synod; our congregations and young people are well served.
All this is to say that this church is gifted with its young people, and responds to their gifts with creative and meaningful opportunities. Let us accompany these individuals and these ministries with our prayers, with our appreciation for the present of this church, and with high hopes for the future of this church.

Your companion on the way,

Bishop Paul Stumme-Diers

Around the world

Last night at the Westside Thirst was an amazing experience to hear people tell about what God is up to in their lives all over the world. From Thailand, to Australia, to Israel, to Tanzania, to Colombia, to El Salvador, to New Orleans, to Milwaukee and Waukesha -- those of us who gathered to experience the Spirit together heard how God is weaving our journies together, that we may grow in faith. This growth has come through both highs and lows, celebrations and challenges. But the guidance of God's hand is evident through it all. In the past months, we have grown in prayer and reading scripture, in worshipping more regularly, in making decisions and commitements with our time, money, goals, and plans. The most common characteristic of our stories, was that God was helping us to grow spiritually by calling us to serve people and to share our faith.

This commonality started to make a lot of sense in light of reading Matthew 28:16-20. Jesus tells his disciples to "go", to "make disciples", to baptize them into God's name "Father, Son, Holy Spirit" -- i.e. into God's saving presence -- to teach people to follow Jesus as their rabbi that they too may participate in his messianic mission with him, who is "always with us." By going around the world, around the block, and even around our Facebook connections, we have grown in our own discipleship by encouraging others to follow Jesus. There's no need to sit around and wait until we're "ready" to live our faith with radical passion. Getting off our duffs and "going" and "doing" is how we are experiencing God nurture us into being more and more "ready".

Please Read This Now

[Um, apparantly leaving this blog open to post via email let in a lot of spammers to post here trying to sell their junk. So we had to clear out all that junk and eliminate the email function. Since that wiped out almost a year of posting, I thought I'd post something from my personal blog to get the ball rolling again.]

Jesus healed me!!!

Here's how it went down:

You may have noticed that I haven't written in a long time, except for one post on Obama which took me like 5 hours to write. Well, it's no secret to people who know me that I live with depression. And in January, I bottomed out big time. Couldn't get off the couch if the house was on fire. That gave me a lot of time to pray for healing, except that I couldn't even form thoughts in my brain. I couldn't read, couldn't have a conversation, couldn't even cross the street safely. So I trusted that the Holy Spirit within me cried out in sighs too deep for words.

By the second day, I was seeking medical help. And over the next couple of months my doctor put me on various meds and increased my dosage. My friends and family surrounded me with support and care. Especially my wife. She's amazing. Each day I saw a litle bit more progress toward healing. But I couldn't get over the hump.

Then a copule months ago I started weekly sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy. My therapist, Sarah, worked with me on identifying my 'hot thought', which is one of those automotic tape recordings in our heads that is associated with my periods of depression. We discovered that my hot thought was vocational crises...times when the vision Jesus was calling me toward wasn't jiving with my present experience.

I was first diagnosed with depression my senior year of undergrad. I was already accepted into seminary and was able to coast in school. (My friends will tell though I my senioritis began my sophomore year of high school and hasn't left me yet.) Then during my second masters program, I fell into depression for a few days when I had finished my classes and had to buckle down to finish writing my thesis. And now this time, i had just finished my course work in my Ph.D. program. I finished up a 10 day mission trip to New Orleans with 37 young adults, and then returned home to finish one last paper incomplete from last term.

The common thread, or hot thought, with all of these episodes is that I am able to sprint marathon after marathon, but when I come to an inbetween time when I can pause to take a breat then my body crashes and forces me to rest. When this rest corresponds with a vocational crises, the bottom drops out from underneath me and my system crashes.

In this case, I had just returned from being on cloud nine: serving people in need, networking with new friends, and discipling people in a postmodern culture. I was feeling affirmed in my gifts and in my theological proposals for ministry. Here I was, still working my way toward a degree, but I was already doing the things the degree was supposed to be enabling me to do. So I thought, argh, I don't need to be studying at Marquette any more if I can already do what I'm called to do. I knew finishing my studies at Marquette is vital to my long term call, but with much frustration I've been experiencing I wasn't feeling it day to day.

To make a long story short, my hot thought was that I wasn't seeing Jesus at Marquette. Sarah asked me to think about how I could reframe that hot thought. And so at the very next Thirst event, which was last Tuesday, I was sharing my journey about therapy and reframing my hot thought. Then one by one, everyone else started sharing their own stories of wanting to reframe aspects of their life in which, like me, they know in faith Jesus is present but we just weren't seeing him.

So then we turn to Luke 24 and read the story of two men walking to Emmaus. They meet a man on the road whom they don't recognize. He tells them why according to Moses and the prophets the messiah must suffer, die and rise to new life. Then when they reach their destination, they recognize this stranger to be Jesus. He had reframed their entire story and now they could see how he was walking with them all along.


As we talked about how we heard Holy Spirit reframing our own journies that night at Thirst, I heard Jesus reframe my story.

My depression tells me that Jesus isn't at Marquette, so I should stay in my cave, lying on my couch and not go to campus. But the two times I went to campus this semester, I saw Jesus. The first time, I sat in my history prof's office and we talked about depression and therapy; he offered me grace and compassion; and wow, I saw Jesus clear as day sitting in his office. Then a few weeks ago, I went to a meeting for students to learn how to prepare for our doctoral comps, and as soon as I entered the room three people came up to me and said 'hey kev, haven't seen you in a while. are things alright with you?' yep, saw Jesus in that room too.

Hmm... my depression tells me don't go to campus or study theology because Jesus isn't there. BUT, everytime I go to campus and read or discuss theology I've seen Jesus bright as the sun. AHA! Therefore, my depression lies to me.

Satan is the father of lies . . . and so as quickly as you can turn on a light switch, I was healed of my depression that night at Thirst. I've been back to myself everyday since then: high energy, critical reasoning, creativity, itch to write.

It's good to be back with you all. Praise Jesus.