GLOBAL CHURCH, LOCAL CHURCH

Friday morning was the opening worship for the Lutheran World Federation's annual Council meeting. This year, the Lutheran World Federation Council is meeting in Bogotá, Colombia from June 15-20, which marks the first time ever it has met in Latin America.

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is (according to its website) "a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF now has 145 member churches in 79 countries all over the world representing over 70 million Christians." The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (of which Custer Lutheran Fellowship is a member congregation) is just one of these 145 member churches.

The worship service was organized and led by the Lutheran Church in Colombia. An amazing group of musicians led a liturgy that drew from Colombian peasant music. Most of the musicians came from more rural Lutheran churches north of Bogotá several hours. Click here for a brief video of some of the music.

The bishop of the Lutheran Church in Colombia, Bishop Eduardo Martínez (who also happened to be my ride over to the retreat center where worship was being held) preached at the service and another pastor from a Lutheran congregation in northern Bogotá presided.

At the conclusion of the service, during the "announcements" the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan & the Holy Land and current Lutheran World Federation President, Bishop Munib Younan brought a greeting and expressed gratitude to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia. For a video of much of this greeting (spoken in English and then translated into Spanish), click here.

During this greeting and also during the opening minutes of the first plenary session, Bishop Munib Younan joked about it being appropriate for the Lutheran World Federation's council to meet in Colombia because so many Lutherans around the world gather around coffee, which comes from Colombia. With an equal measure of sincerity, Bishop Younan offered words of support to the people of Colombia, sharing the words of 1 Corinthians that where one part of the body of Christ suffers, all suffer with it. It was also noted with appreciation that every single council member was able to get a visa to enter Colombia (not a small task!).

The first plenary session was delayed a few minutes do to technical difficulties as they tried to get all of the headsets working. Much like the United Nations (or if you're more incline towards Star Wars, much like the intergalactic council of the republic) people are elected to serve on the Lutheran World Federation council from all over the world. There are four official languages of LWF (English, Spanish, French and German) and everyone communicates through translators and headphones. It's sort of a Pentecost miracle when everyone understands what someone says. On the other hand the current General Secretary of LWF (elected for a 7 year term), Rev. Martin Junge is fluent in all four of the languages! Towards the end of the video of the music of the worship service (here) you can see Rev. Junge standing to the left of Bishop Younan.

Once the plenary session got underway, it was dominated mostly by greetings - from Bishop Eduardo Martínez on behalf of the Lutheran Church in Colombia, by a local Catholic representative (the Council is meeting at a Catholic retreat center, which I've located for this blog entry) and other greetings from the Episcopalian Bishop in Colombia and the President of the Evangelical churches in Colombia.

By then it was time for a coffee break (you know Lutherans!). And after the coffee break I returned "home" for a lunch date with Stella and then more home visits in the afternoon. As Pr. Jairo said, the day was filled with both the global church (with Lutheran World Federation events in the morning) and the local church (with home visits of members of San Pablo Lutheran Church, which has been my local church for these 20 some days that I've been in Colombia). Fortunately, all three of the families that we visited are within walking distance of San Pablo and so there was no cross-town hour-and-a-half bus needed! Still, we left home at 2pm and didn't return until about 8pm.

It's hard to convey, but one's sense of "church" and what it means to be "Lutheran" can not help but be widened and expanded (if not exploded) by an experience like today's. On one hand, there's a temptation to feel "smaller," perhaps even "insignificant" in the face of a Lutheran church body which is so big. On the other hand, there's a reminder of being part of something so much larger than oneself - the good news of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen for the sake of (as the theme of this LWF's Council says) being "Together for a just, peaceful and reconciled world."