Synod Assembly Upstate Update: Wednesday, January 20, 2016

The Synod Assembly Upstate Update for Wednesday, January 20, 2016

In Christ One New Humanity

'Christ creates in himself one new humanity . . . thus making peace.'

Ephesians.2:15b

In Christ One New Humanity is the theme for the 2016 Synod Assembly which will be held June 5 - 7, 2016 at the Joseph A. Floreano Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, NY. Accommodations will be at the Radisson Hotel Rochester Riverside.

Our 2016 focus is on Advocacy and Social Justice with the mission to "Inform, Engage, and Equip the Upstate New York Synod to pursue racial justice." We will look at some of the justice issues that were addressed in resolutions passed by the 2015 Synod Assembly especially those around racial justice. Our Synod Assembly Planning Team volunteers are working diligently to offer an exciting and energizing experience at our 2016 Assembly. There will be opportunities to participate in worship, synod business, to learn how your congregation can access and use racial justice tools provided by our synod's Racial Justice Task Force, attend workshops, explore the Mission Expo, and much more.

Registration opens April 1, 2016. The registration fee is still $95. Hotel ($109/night) and food costs are in addition to the registration fee and will be listed on the registration page when available. Synod Assembly is open to all who want to attend, not just rostered leaders and congregational voting members. Child care will be offered.

Encourage your congregation to elect youth and young adults as voting members to the June 5 - 7, 2016 Upstate New York Synod Assembly. Please mark the appropriate places on the registration forms so we can keep accurate records. Our synod constitution states that it is the goal of this synod that at least 10% of the voting members of the Synod Assembly, Synod Council, committees, and organizational units of this synod be youth and young adults.

Mark your calendars NOW to join us June 5 - 7, 2016 in Rochester. Be sure that your congregation's voting members are signed up for the synod's Upstate Update where beginning March 16 you will be able to find all the information about our 2016 Assembly. Sign-up on the synod website, http://upstatenysynod.org/ bottom right corner.

Reflections on Justice
by Robert Roger Lebel, Synod Assembly Planning Team

The theme of synod assembly this year is racial justice.

Justice is one of the cardinal virtues propounded by Plato (BC 428-328). The others are temperance, wisdom and courage. The word "cardinal" derives from the Latin

cardo (hinge) so that it references something that is essential to the function (of the door, or of the church, or of a virtuous life).

There are several important species of justice.

Interpersonal justice has to do with uprightness in our interactions. If you are hungry and I have a basket of apples, a just exchange between us will take the shape of my selling an apple to you at a reasonable price, and you will not try to steal the apple from me.

Rectificatory justice applies after some wrongdoing. If you have stolen the apple from me, some other person in authority over both of us will require you to return it and perhaps include some fine or penalty to impress upon you that stealing it was a bad idea.

Punitive justice has to do with more serious breaches of the social contract, in part because an infraction might not be as quantifiable as the above example. If in fact I have the apples because I hijacked a fruit truck and injured the driver, I will be fined or even jailed for disrupting the social fabric.

Distributive justice involves considerations of how the good things of creation are made available to us in such a way that no one is left behind or outside of the common wheal (that our individual dignity is sustained). In a famine, someone should construct societal mechanisms to assure that everyone has an apple.

Watch for upcoming further reflections on justice (and injustice).

Workshops at Synod Assembly

Your 2016 Synod Assembly Planning Team has been hard at work praying, planning, networking with the Synod Racial Justice Task Force, and preparing for a synod assembly that will inform, engage, and equip the Upstate New York Synod to pursue racial justice in our congregations and communities, an urgent call of the Gospel in our contemporary culture.

During one dedicated workshop time period, all assembly participants will participate in "Racial Justice Tool Discovery." The synod Racial Justice Task Force will introduce and train all assembly participants to use a packet of tools in home congregations and local ministries. We are presently seeking workshop proposals for our second workshop time. Workshop space is limited. All workshops are asked to address the assembly theme, "In Christ One New Humanity" and our focus on racial justice. Exceptions may be made for timely themes. If you are interested in being considered as a workshop presenter, please email Patsy Glista, AIM at pglista@upstatenysynod.org. Workshop application packets will be available February 10 and due back to the workshop planning team no later than March 10.

Why are we Looking at Racial Justice?

During the summer of 2015 a work team gathered at the invitation of Bishop Macholz to think about how to address the racial justice resolution passed at the 2015 Synod Assembly. This Racial Justice Task Force identified some assumptions that guided our work.

Taken from the 1993 Social Statement on Racial and Social Justice, "Racism- a mix of power, privilege, and prejudice---is sin, a violation of God's intention for humanity. The resulting racial, ethnic, or cultural barriers deny the truth that all people are God's creatures and, therefore, persons of dignity. Racism fractures and fragments both church and society."
Conversations on racial justice and white privilege must become a priority for us as a synod as this is a Gospel problem.
These conversations must permeate all levels of the Synod.
These are not one time conversations but discussions that will evolve over months and years.
Inaction and silence are no longer an option.

As part of the suggestions from the Racial Justice Task Force that the Synod Council adopted we were given the opportunity of identifying an all-Synod book read that addresses some aspect of this topic. The book we are recommending to the Synod is The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. At the heart of the book it argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America, we have merely redesigned it." We hope that as many individuals, congregations, conferences across the Synod will begin reading this book. In the months ahead there will be opportunities for book group discussions using a bible study, and the Study Guide and Call to Action that accompanies this book.

One of the other recommendations from the Task Force that was adopted by the Synod Council was for the 2016 Synod Assembly to focus on racial justice. As your congregation and voting members move toward the June Assembly please take time to read The New Jim Crow book and use the study guide, to participate in bible studies around this topic as they become available, and to attend your conference Spring Assembly where the topic will also be addressed. Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton's January 14 webinar, "Confronting Racism: A Holy Yearning" is available for viewing. (http://www.elca.org/webcast) and there are numerous resources as well as several ELCA Social Statements available http://www.elca.org/ by searching for racial justice.

As part of carrying on the work of Christ in tearing down the barriers that separate us as people of God, and removing the hostility that is between us, through the cross of Christ and the love poured out there, we hope you will join us in this important work of living into the kingdom of God.

2016 Synod Assembly Project - Aluminum Can Tab Collection

For the past three years, the aluminum can tab collection project has proved to be a successful endeavor that all of our Synod congregations can participate in. The Synod Assembly Planning Team has again decided that we would conduct this project for the 2016 Synod Assembly. The collection point at the Assembly will be in the area of the registration table. No decision has been made as to where the proceeds will be sent. An announcement of the decision by the Planning Team will be made at a future time.

Start your collection project now and bring the collected tabs to the 2016 Synod Assembly.

Synod Assembly Annual Reports Deadline

E-mails will be sent soon requesting annual reports for the Pre-Assembly materials for our 2016 Synod Assembly. The deadline for our office to receive those reports is NO LATER than March 10, 2015. If you normally provide a report and do not receive an e-mail from Caitlin Donovan by February 10, please contact Kathy Neugent at kneugent@upstatenysynod.org or by phone at 315-299-4955.

Don't miss out on any important 2016 Synod Assembly Information - sign up today for the Upstate Update.

Please visit our website upstatenysynod.org

Thank you for spending some time reading this edition of the Upstate Update. We hope, and pray, that you found it useful. If you know someone who could benefit from the Upstate Update, please forward it to them and ask them to sign up directly.

Kathy Neugent

Executive Assistant to the Bishop

Upstate New York Synod of the

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

kneugent@upstatenysynod.org

Phone: 315-299-4955 Fax: 315-299-4981

Resurrection people who pray first, walk together and change lives.