Thursday August 11th was the penultimate date of our 2022 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. A great deal of business was conducted including the election of a new churchwide vice president. This is the highest office in our church for a lay (non-clergy) person. After 5 ballots among a variety of well qualified candidates Imran Saddiqui was elected. Imran is currently the vice-president of the Southeastern Synod. He became a Lutheran in his 20s and has a passion for the gospel. I am excited about his leadership for our church.
We also acted on a number of memorials as well as were greeted by ecumenical and interfaith guests. The ELCA has a number of full-communion relationships which we celebrated as well.
Finally, we had a group dinner for our voting members in the evening including the Rev. Nick Billardello who is a member of the ELCA Church Council from NT-NL Synod, ELCA. It was good to have fellowship and share time together after all the business of the day.
Friday most of our group will head home. On Saturday August 13th we will ordain jj Godwin to the office of Word and Service at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Garland. Please join us if you can at 10:30am. #NTNL #InMissionTogether