As a lifelong Lutheran, in the middle years, the best medicine is always what I need most, both for myself and my folks. For instance, I see a doctor with the intention of correcting the medications we use so that we are not getting worse instead of better!

Likewise, I think, our Churchwide Convention met last week to devote valuable time to a volatile subject and voted to offer the possibility of being called to church ministry to ordained gay men and women, even those who are not celibate but committed to a significant other. In our society it is a sub-group very often marginalized and excluded from social structures like the called ministry because of their status in society.

That is a hard pill to swallow, and I am so thankful to our leader, Bishop Mark S. Hanson, who shepherded the churchwide convention. They were able to change the stigma of exclusion for the corporate body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and open the door for the churches to call people who would be a good fit for a church in need of the best medicine in town, grace from God and the persuasion to love the Lord with all our heart, souls and minds.

Pamela S. Slette

Albert Lea