“Original sources” supplied the information that resulted in a recent vote by acclamation by Morningside Lutheran Church, Sioux City, Iowa, to join the WordAlone Network, redirect some benevolence funds and remain in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, according to Phil Osborne.
He was a member of a task force that for five months studied “Called to Common Mission,” (CCM) the full communion agreement between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American (ELCA) and The Episcopal Church USA.
He says the task force wanted to be thorough and accurate in its report because it was “such an important vote.” Sources they used, in addition to CCM, included the Bible, the Conference of Bishops 1999 Tucson Resolution on CCM and the “Concordat,” an earlier full communion proposal rejected by the 1997 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.
Osborne says the main thing to tell other congregations studying CCM is, “Be thorough and go to the original sources, so (they) can’t say, ‘That was a biased report and how can you back that up?’”
(For the full report, see “Go to original sources for study, says one task force leader”)