Summary of June board meeting

by Al Quie (Chairman, WordAlone board)

July 2, 2003

Here are the highlights from the recent quarterly meeting of the WordAlone (WA) Board of Directors in New Brighton, Minn. on June 27-28, 2003:

Board members discussed what they think are the three most important things for WA chapters to be doing and agreed upon the following priorities:

  1. Bible and theological study, education and learning to share the Gospel
  2. Impacting the ELCA, both its decision-making processes and structures
  3. Grow the WordAlone Network

The Board discussed WordAlone’s future in three areas:

  1. The overarching unifier for WordAlone that captured the Board’s attention is the Protestant Principle—the Reformation critique that reminds us that the human is human and the divine, divine, that nothing finite is infinite.
  2. The WordAlone Network’s relationship with all three “expressions” of the ELCA—congregations, synods and churchwide.
  3. An action plan for congregations and chapters leading up to the 2005 churchwide assembly.

The word “resistance” was added to the explanation of WA’s second R, Reform, so that it now reads:

  • Reform and restructure the ELCA so there is:
  • Representative governance throughout the church with effective checks and balances
  • Resistance to a mandatory historic episcopate so that all pastors and bishops are free to practice what Lutherans believe about ordination

The Board established criteria for membership in the Theological Advisory Board (TAB), and clarified the relationship between the TAB and the Board of Directors.

Plans were made to enable a WordAlone presence at the Lutheran World Federation Tenth Assembly in Winnipeg, Canada on July 21-31, 2003.

WordAlone’s Constitutional Task Force will be asked to analyze the results at synod assemblies this spring and continue to prepare a menu of sample resolutions.

WordAlone will create a new e-mail list, Chaptertalk, to provide for communication between WA chapters.

The 2004 WA annual convention will be moved from the spring to the fall, and occur following the fall 2004 meeting of WA’s Theological Advisory Board.