A Kaleidoscope of New Possibilities
A Report to the Conference of Synodical Presidents, Women of the ELCA
By Linda Post Bushkofsky, executive director
February 2007, Salt Lake, City, Utah

I want to celebrate with you some of the many, many exciting developments in our shared ministry as Women of the ELCA.

Continued work on two matters raised up by the Sixth Triennial Convention:

Active unit assessment: The active unit assessment is proving invaluable to staff, providing us with a way to communicate directly with the 7,000 or so active units in our organization. Just as importantly, we now know which congregations do not have an active unit, and we can tailor communication to them, as well. Thank you for your hard work on this project, and for your continued work in updating the data as you receive changes.

Bold Women's Day: This Sunday (the 4th Sunday of February) is the inaugural observance of Bold Women's Day, a day to recognize and honor the many bold women within this organization. How exciting it will be celebrate this day together.

20th anniversary: We reach a milestone this year as our organization celebrates 20 years of existence. We've prepared a wonderful resource with suggestions of ways to join in the celebration. I encourage you to hold a celebration in your own congregational units as well as at synodical events this year.

One aspect of our anniversary celebration is the trip to Germany, and we have over 80 people traveling there! It's been a busy year of travel, with two LWR-sponsored trips to Tanzania in January and our global education advocates in India, even as we meet here.

Café: This intentional ministry with and to younger women continues to grow in fabulous ways. Visits with female seminarians occurred this past year on three of our seminary campuses where important connections with the next generation of pastors has begun

HEART for Women Act: This was a first — Women of the ELCA endorsing a piece of pending federal legislation and then becoming a co-sponsor of the legislation. Our organization is the only religious organization to be a co-sponsor of this act. It was just re-introduced into the new Congress. Be looking in Interchange for more information about how we can work to move this forward.

ELCA National Youth Gathering: I'll talk more about our presence there in a bit.

In this past year, your staff members have dealt with two significant items over which I've had little influence but which have impacted our life together and our work considerably:

I apologize for any delays you have experienced with the delivery of services from me and my staff because of these two significant items. For the most part, renovation-related matters are nearly done and should involve us only tangentially. We believe that the financial software conversion will continue to slow down our operations (especially our reporting out) for a good portion of this year.

On the financial front, you've heard Denise Smith (churchwide treasurer) report that our two most significant streams of revenue — Thankofferings and regular offerings — were down in fiscal year 2006. Thankofferings were down 10% over what was anticipated while regular offerings were down 32%. Together that amounts to a significant shortfall.

My staff and I have shepherded the offerings entrusted to the churchwide expression, with the executive board's oversight, so that spending did not exceed actual income. Actual spending in FY2006 came in at about 76% of the anticipated spending while actual giving came in at 85% of anticipated giving.

We have done our part. It is now up to you and the leaders you represent to do your part. Staff members scrimp and save while still trying to provide resources and events that meet and exceed the expectations of the women in this organization. At the same time, giving continues on a multi-year downward trend. More of the same can only lead to an early demise of this organization. As the song made popular by Fred Astaire in Daddy Long Legs goes, "something's gotta give."

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I'm not one to complain without offering some solutions. I apologize now to the presidents and triennial gathering promoters here tonight from Northeastern Iowa, Southeastern Iowa, Western Iowa, Central States, Greater Milwaukee, and Metropolitan Chicago, all of whom have heard some variation on what I'm about to say. Stick with me, though, because there are some new twists and turns to be had.

I'm a lawyer by training. The primary focus of the three years of law school is to learn how to analyze a problem and seek solutions to the problem. So, for the past four and one-half years, I have been analyzing Women of the ELCA. Here's our number one problem: the women who currently participate in Women of the ELCA are growing older and we have not brought younger women into the organization in sufficient numbers to maintain or grow the levels of participation.

And what are the consequences?

We know the problem. We know that the problem has many consequences, several of which are negative. And now we need some solutions to the problem. I am not the answer to the problem. Our churchwide executive board is not the answer to the problem. You and your synodical boards are not the answer to the problem. But all of us together along with all the other women who are currently active in Women of the ELCA can provide the answers to our problem and create a bright and vibrant future for the organization that we all love and cherish.

In all of God's wisdom, we women were designed not to love in isolation or in competition, but to live and thrive in community with other women, drawing upon the gifts of healing, leadership, and inclusion. We've all known that, by a 2000 study conducted by scientists at UCLA confirmed that. Those friendships we have with other women help counteract the stress we experience nearly every day. Managing stress and having less stress helps keep us healthy. Many studies have shown, for example, that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. The Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School, a study that has been ongoing since 1976, has shown that women's friendships enhance the quality of life, both physically and emotionally.

Dr. Ruthellen Josselson, a clinical psychologist and co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendship (Three Rivers Press, 1998) tells us that women need "unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience."

Even before Raising Up Healthy Women and Girls, our health initiative, many Lutheran women have created that "unpressured space" through Women of the ELCA. That "unpressured space" can be found in a book discussion, a Bible study, or a service project. Some find that "unpressured space" while cleaning up together after a potluck supper. Others find it over coffee, discussing an article from Café.

One gift we can give to the nearly 3 million women who are part of the ELCA is an unpressured space where women and girls can gather together in community to support one another.

Who are we? We are a community of women, created in the image of God. We need to celebrate that and consciously expand our community. It's what we women are designed to do. And when we do that — gather in the community of women — we promote healing and health.

How will we do that? It's going to require change.

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Albert Einstein said we "cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Said another way, we cannot expect to meet the challenges of today with yesterday's tools and still expect to be in business tomorrow. What worked for Women of the ELCA in the past will not necessarily work for Women of the ELCA today. If we only keep on doing what we've been doing, we likely won't continue into the next generation.

Change is a bit like death and taxes. Change is inevitable. It's been said there's nothing permanent except change. John F. Kennedy said that "change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

On my most cynical days, I feat that many of us in Women of the ELCA are looking only to the past or the present and that we will miss the future. I realize that we get comfortable in our existing ways and that even to think of changing makes us feel comfortable. Change can be risky. Yet there is as much risk in doing nothing as there is risk in doing something.

However, we don't live this life alone. God is with us. God sustains us, strengthens us. And God is doing new things every day. Think of God's message to Israel in Isaiah, chapter 43, verses 18 and 19.

       NRSV: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing;
       now it  springs forth, do you not perceive it?

       From The Message (a translation by Eugene Peterson): Forget about what's happened; don't keep
       going over old history. Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. It's bursting
       out! Don't you see it?

Our God is a transforming God. Yes, there are things about our God that do not change: God's love, the salvation that God offers creation. Still, God's in the business of change, of transforming lives. And we need to be present to the movement of change in our organization.

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By now, you've read in one place or another about the Women of the ELCA involvement at the ELCA National Youth Gathering in July of last year. I want to talk about that event, as it holds some of the answers for our current problem and invites us in to considering change for the sake of the life of this organization.

Why the youth gathering? Something happens to young women when they graduate from high school. As they move into the next stage of their life, so many — even those who were very involved in their congregations growing up — drift away from the church. Many reconnect when they have children themselves, but for 10–15 years they are not anchored in the church.

Yet young women have the same basic need to connect with other women, just like you and I do. They aren't finding that connection in the church, though. They may find it at the gym, at Starbucks, in a book club, in a scrapbooking group, in any number of places. However, in the end, it's hard to find support for one's faith journey in those places.

So, we want Women of the ELCA to connect with high school women so when these young women graduate, they  maintain a connection with the faith community through Women of the ELCA. And we want these young women to be part of our community of women for all the many gifts and insights they can offer us.

Women of the ELCA had an exhibit space in the interactive center. We set up a café — five café tables and chairs, flowers on each table, cups of chocolate-covered espresso beans all around, four computers available with Internet access, a tip jar, women with aprons.

Why a café? As you know, we have an electronic magazine called Café. It's a virtual place where young women can come together to talk about their faith. So we wanted to connect with the young women at the youth gathering in our café setting so we could explain to them about Café, our e-zine, as well as other aspects of our ministry.

We didn't want any money in our tip jar. The tips we wanted would come from the collective wisdom of these young women as they answered this question: What would inspire you to participate in Women of the ELCA? Here are some of their thoughtful responses, in their own words:

Do you see yourself in these tips? Do you see others you know in our organization here? Do you see how some of the young women are seeking that "unpressured space"? Do you see how they can be leading us in new directions?

These young women and countless younger women who read Café and the young women who are currently on our global advocates trip to India and the young women who went to Tanzania in January on our LWR-sponsored trips ... these young women are like me and you. In all of God's wisdom, these young women were created to gather in community, to seek solace from one another, to celebrate joys with one another, to explore God's word together. Women of the ELCA is one place where they can gather in community, with one another, with you and me, and together we can live out the mission and purpose statements of this organization.

Some of the tips the high school women shared with us represent such hope. We have shared aspirations and we can work together. Other of the tips offer a reflection of this organization that is less than flattering. So that's where change comes in. We must be open to the power and movement of the Holy Spirit in our midst. God is calling us to a new day, a day where women and girls of all ages will stand together, healthy and whole, growing in faith, affirming our gifts, supporting one another in our callings, engaging in ministry and action, and promoting healing and wholeness in the church, the society, and the world. We cannot hold back the Spirit. We have been called for such a time as this. The only question that remains is this: are you in?