Congregations across the ELCA regularly engage with the question of what actions communities of faith should take in an election season. On election day in 2016, Edina (Minn.) Community Lutheran Church opened its sanctuary doors to anyone seeking a place to pray. After the 2020 presidential election, the congregation held a prayer vigil as a space for participants to recommit to God’s call to act for justice.
In this election year, Edina Community Lutheran has taken the additional step of creating a voter engagement task force, with the purpose of equipping “members for active participation of education, encouragement, and engagement in an effort to amplify our witness to nonpartisan democratic values of equity, justice and the common good.”
At the first virtual meeting of the ELCA Election Activator Network on July 23, the convener of Edina Community Lutheran’s task force shared about how the group was set up and how their activities are unfolding. The network was launched by ELCA Witness in Society this year as a nonpartisan effort meant to support and equip ELCA members and congregations as they encourage local participation in the electoral process.
Other participants in the first session ranged from election day volunteers to food pantry workers to college students and professors to church and synod staff to passionate lay members of congregations.
The ELCA Election Activator Network was launched this year as as a nonpartisan effort meant to support and equip ELCA members and congregations.
All brought questions. What does nonpartisan electoral engagement look like? What’s available from the ELCA to help me respond to my faith-centered convictions and concerns in this election year? Are there things we can do together? Am I the only person feeling overwhelmed?
Witness in Society will host two meetings (at 3 and 8 PM Eastern time) on the fourth Tuesday of every month leading up to Election Day (Aug. 27, Sept. 24 and Oct. 22). Participants can talk to each other and are urged to share ideas, experiences and resources. Network participants also receive informational emails from Witness in Society.
This church understands government as a means through which God works to preserve creation and build a more peaceful and just social order in a broken world. According to the ELCA social message “Government and Civic Engagement in the United States: Discipleship in a Democracy,” our civic participation “is not simply voluntary, idealistic, or altruistic. The ELCA holds to the biblical idea that God calls God’s people to be active citizens and to ensure that everyone benefits from the good of government (Jeremiah 29:7, Romans 13:1-7).” The ELCA “also strongly affirms voting, guided by faith-based values, as an exercise in citizenship.”
Learn more about, and sign up to join, the ELCA Election Activator network.
