It Took A Village to Show the Breadth of the ELCA

     PHILADELPHIA (ELCA) -- Like any tourist town, foot traffic in the "Heritage and Hope Village" ebbed and flowed.  Sometimes only the residents could be found at each business,  home, church or service setting.  At other times, getting across the center of town became as difficult as sale day at any big city mall.
     If Charlie was not present at his saw, cutting out a cherry wood cross, then there was a line of voters and visitors waiting to get a memento of the fifth biennial Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America meeting here Aug. 14-20. Charlie Schwartz,  president of Lutheran Men in Mission, handed out 1,000 pre-cut crosses the first day the village was open and fashioned hundreds more as the week wore on.
     Coffee at the Lutheran World Relief site drew visitors and voting members in need of refreshment.  Across the way folks had the chance to get their blood pressure checked and perhaps have a neck massage.  The Augsburg Fortress bookstore maintained its usual flux of shoppers seeking books, Sunday School curriculum, perhaps a clerical shirt or CD.
     The assembly's Heritage and Hope Village displayed the vitality and diversity of the ELCA.  The former Reading Terminal train shed, the hub of the Pennsylvania Convention Center, was encircled by the village's factory, home, media center, bookstore, church, school and even a Cyberspace Cafe. The "town square" hosted concerts and performances in the gazebo: jazz, Latin and gospel music children's choir and a lecture by "Henry Melchior Muhlenberg."
     "This setting seems like a microcosm of the 'real' world," said the Rev. Jim Drury, Sitka, Alaska.  "The Village is running and life goes on. The church folks are off, God knows where, doing God knows what," he told friends in an e-mail message sent from the Assembly.  "There is much that is positive here, much that is spirit-filled and many dedicated people doing wonderful work for the church.  These are good days, all-in-all.  The church is alive, well, learning more about itself, growing and there is a good spirit, a growing spirit emerging from this gathering!  It is good to be here!  It is very good to be here," Drury said.
     "I'd like to visit the village longer but I must get to my seat on the plenary floor," said an  one ELCA voting member, passing up a stroll through global and local mission sites down the hall from the Assembly floor.  One little girl exclaimed, "This is the most exciting place I've ever been!"
     Each morning, well before enough copies were handed around, the village ran out of "The Daily Lutheran," a daily newspaper about the events of the assembly.
     And voters and visitors found each other at the Village -- friends and colleagues from one's current life ministry, and friends from the past.
     "To my utter astonishment, as I was talking to someone about 'Lutheran Vespers,' from the corner of my eye I spotted a familiar name," one visitor explained. "It was the first Lutheran pastor I ever knew, and his wife.  I haven't seen him since I graduated from high school.  We hugged each other for a very long time, exchanged updates on our lives, our kids and their grandkids.  It was the kind of moment that leaves you shaking your head at the passage of time and the joy of the spirit that fills this place."
     The ELCA's Division for Higher Education and Schools ran an electronic classroom right in the middle of the hall.  Opportunities included an interactive video visit to an ELCA elementary school in Appleton, Wis., a program on conflict in the congregation with faculty from Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and "Campus Ministry: 90 Years Young" live from Lutheran Campus Ministry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
     "People on both ends of the link were really excited about the technology," said Sue Rothmeyer, director for administration and finance in the division. "It was a great chance to explore things we don't do every day."
     Computer screens and monitors awaited visitors and voters everywhere. "People were interested in surfing the web," said Rothmeyer, who also had computers in the division's display.  "A lot of people who haven't had any experience came in willing to learn."
     In the Cyberspace Cafe visitors used computers named after famous Lutherans, including Justus Falckner and Tollef L. Brevig, to check LutherLink -- the communication computer network for ELCA members -- for reactions to the assembly's business.  A LutherLink meeting established to collect reports from voting members had nearly 200 messages posted by Tuesday night.  "A lot of people just stopped in to check e-mail," said the Rev. Mark D. Johns, Cedar Falls, Iowa, a cafe volunteer.  Others just picked up gold foil-wrapped LutherLink candies.
     Children vied with adults for computer access and adults vied with children to play with toys in the educational area.  Kids danced to the differing beats coming from the gazebo or sang along with familiar tunes. Martin and Katie Luther and Muhlenberg strolled the village, chatting with folks about the changes in the Lutheran church and life since their time. Visitors, voters and staffers perched around the edges of the village, watching people, sipping coffee (or wine on Saturday evening), deciding where to visit next.
       People made a stained glass window, the assembly's gift to New Life Lutheran Church in New Tripoli, Pa., a mission congregation in the ELCA's Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod, which recently dedicated its new building. Nearby people looked up information about companion synods, mission partners or wrote letters to members of U.S. Congress at the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs booth.  Elsewhere they made videos and audio greetings to take home, and looked at the hundreds of photographs in the exhibits scattered around the room.
     A museum tracked the history of the church's predecessor bodies and the first ten years of the ELCA.  One visitor commended the effort as "well done. It gives one a feeling of being rooted as we look at pictures and read about the saints who have gone before."
     On Saturday, a choir of children, dressed in handmade costumes, from the Hmong worshiping community in Philadelphia, was a highlight along with 30 kids, age four through seventh grade from New Wales, Pa., sang and did hand motions to "Our God is an Awesome God."
     Fabric art, by artist Vickie DeVilbiss, Annapolis, were on display at the village's factory area.  Her partner was the Rev. Ray Blansett, a retired pastor from the ELCA's Delaware-Maryland Synod.  It seems that Vickie took a Word and Witness course from Ray a while back and drew his name in a Christmas gift exchange.  She made him some fabric art and developed an entire new career.  As she said, "When you study the word of God, something might happen!"  DeVilbiss is a member of All Saints Lutheran Church, Bowie, Md.
     DeVilbiss regards her new work as a ministry...and even more so as God's working in her life to enable her to stay home with her son, who has a handicapping condition.  "I had an agenda for God but God had a better one for me," she said.  Now, she and Ray go around the east coast consulting with congregations on planning worship space designs and art.

For information contact:

Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS=40ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html