With a message of hope and confirming God’s calling to serve churches and societies, the Leadership Conference of the Americas concluded.
Participants of the Leadership Conference of the Americas (COL) in São Leopoldo, Brazil, 15-19 April 2024. Photo: LWF/Gabriela Giese
God frees us to serve and fulfil God’s mission
(LWI) - On 19 April, the Leadership Conference of the Americas (COL), held in São Leopoldo, Brazil, concluded with a worship service. Before that, participants adopted a message addressed to the communion of churches in The Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
The message addresses the fears, worries, inspirations, and hopes of the regions’ churches, emphasizing the vocational crisis, climate emergency, migration, fundamentalisms, the fragility of democracies, patriarchy, classism, racism, and armed conflicts, among other issues.
The message states, “These concerns connect with the global communion in many areas. In particular, we express our solidarity with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), which suffers the effects of war. We call for a ceasefire and access to humanitarian aid for those in need.”
The message also calls on churches to raise their prophetic voice: “Silence in the face of fears and concerns is not an option.” Instead, “we accompany one another and walk together as one body in Christ”, remembering the message of the Gospel to “Not be afraid” and sharing the Good News.
The message describes spreading the Good News as working for peace, strengthening the voice of the youth, striving for gender justice and ending gender-based violence, building bridges through intergenerational dialogue, affirming Lutheran identity through ecumenism, caring for creation and climate justice, and mutual accompaniment.
Keeping calm in stormy seas
In her sermon on Matthew 14:22-33 (Jesus walks on the water), Rev. Katia Cortéz Cristales from The Nicaraguan Lutheran Church of Faith and Hope (ILFE) said: “Sometimes as leaders or as members of our churches, we find ourselves in situations that make us feel as if we are in a boat, buffeted by strong winds, in an angry sea, where fear and doubts take hold of us.”
“As long as there are wars, there is a storm,” she said. “As long as women and young people are denied space, there is a storm; as long as there are attacks on creation, there is a storm; as long as there is economic inequality, there is a storm; as long as there are inhumane migration policies, there is a storm.”
In the face of this, “Our mission as Lutheran churches is to continue to accompany one another, to fight together for liberation,” Cortéz Cristales said.
The son of God “frees us to serve; he frees us to fulfill a mission, which is to share this message of love and hope with others.” Lutheran churches may not stand still in the face of the storm of injustices.
“The son of God accompanies us in pain,” Cortéz Cristales said, “because in that accompaniment there is empathy. Because of being human Jesus knows pain, he knows grief, just as he knows our fears and anguish, and he reaches out his loving and saving hand to us.”
