Invitation to Join
—Congregation
Declaration:
- As children of God who have been saved by grace through faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ;
- As sisters and brothers in Christ who believe that the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions provide a solid foundation upon which we can confidently base our faith, beliefs and practices;
- As sisters and brothers in Christ who believe that the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions provide a solid foundation upon which we can confidently base our faith, beliefs and practices;
- As sisters and brothers in Christ who believe that the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions provide a solid foundation upon which we can confidently base our faith, beliefs and practices;
- Whereas the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America adopted at its 1999 Churchwide Assembly the requirement that all new bishops must be installed into the Episcopal historic episcopate and all new pastors must be ordained by bishops (a requirement only slightly amended at the 2001 Churchwide Assembly),
- I/we, do hereby pledge to resist and not comply with the ELCA imposition of a mandatory historic episcopate upon ELCA members and congregations, and do hereby join the company of like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ in the WordAlone Network for the purpose of carrying forth mission, ministry, worship, and service in an organization free of a required historic episcopate; and commit to work for WordAlone's goals:
- Renew the ELCA so that we are grounded in God’s Word and truly centered on making disciples of Jesus Christ
- Reform and restructure the ELCA so there is:
- Representative governance throughout the church with effective checks and balances; and
- Resistance to a mandatory historic episcopate so that all pastors and bishops are free to practice what Lutherans believe about ordination
- Reflect more deeply upon our Lutheran biblical and confessional foundations in ways that engage all ELCA members—lay persons, pastors and theologians—in life-long learning and teaching.