3. Bring your Bible with you on January 16.

 

Our Schedule:

Friday, January 16 1:30 -- On-Site Check-In Begins 3:30 -- Session One 5:30 -- Dinner on your own 7:15 -- Session Two 8:30 -- Worship, Bishop Stuck preaching and presiding

Saturday, January 17 8:00 am -- Session Three 10:00 -- Break 10:30 -- Session Four 11:45 -- Lunch together 1:00 -- Session Five 3:00 -- Sending Worship

• Rostered and Lay Leaders of I-K Synod Congregations
• Voting Members to the 2004 I-K Synod Assembly
• I-K Synod Council Members
• I-K Conference Chairs
• Congregational Members and all others committed to making faithful choices.

His theological interests include ecclesiology, theological ethics, liberation theology, and family systems theory. In addition to other articles, reviews, and books, Dr. Nessan is the author of Many Members, Yet One Body: Committed Same-Gender Relationships and the Mission of the Church (2004), Give Us This Day: A Lutheran Proposal for Ending World Hunger (2003), The Air I Breathe is Wartburg Air: The Legacy of William H. Weiblen (2003), Beyond Maintenance to Mission: A Theology of the Congregation (1999) and Who Is Christ for Us? (2002-edited with Renate Wind).

Rev. Dr. Daniel Olson is Professor of Pastoral Care, at Wartburg Theological Seminary. He earned a B.A. from the University of Minnesota, a B.D. from Luther Theological Seminary, an S.T.M. in Pastoral Counseling from New York Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies at Adelphi University. His major areas of specialization for teaching purposes are 1.) pastoral care and counseling, 2.) pastoral theology, and 3.) theological anthropology.

Before coming to Wartburg, he served as an Lutheran pastor to two congregations in New York; as a Clinical Pastor Education Resident and chaplain at the Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York; as a psychotherapist in LMC's community mental health center; and as a chaplain on active duty in the U.S. Navy. He is a member of St. John's Lutheran Church in rural Grand Mound, Iowa, where currently on Sundays, he leads worship, teaches confirmation, and provides pastoral care.

Hear Our Presenters Speak:

"As I began presenting my views on homosexuality and the church as set forth in this book, I had no inkling how they would be received. Many routinely have offered their condolences when they heard this was the topic of a recent speaking engagement. I can honestly say that my interactions with church members and leaders around the themes of this book have provided the most awesome speaking engagements of my teaching career. There is far more good will in our church to find a way through the questions surrounding homosexuality than I ever could have imagined. This experience gives me hope for the future of the church, not that we will all agree but that we will find a way to be church together in spite of our disagreements." -- Dr. Craig Nessan, Many Members, Yet One Body

---

"To me this is an important project because I think this is a genuine crisis for the church in the technical meaning of the term "crisis" in the Greek language. It means a situation out of which you cannot emerge the same as you went in. You can either come out weaker or stronger, better or worse, more whole or more fragmented, more or less faithful. I think that this is a situation in which we will either come out stronger or weaker. I hope that this project will contribute to us being able to discuss these issues as congregations and as synods and as a church in such a way that we demonstrate to ourselves that we can be faithful even though we are dealing with really hot-button issues, issues that have a lot of emotion attached to them and on which we strongly differ in our opinions. I think that is what the world needs from us now. As the world becomes more and more fragmented, it needs a demonstration that it is possible to find unity that is not based simply on like-mindedness or shared experience, but that we find a unity that is ours in our baptismal identity." -- Dr. Dan Olson, Faithful Conversation

---

"When I began my study of homosexuality some years ago, I believed that the topic was primarily about matters of human sexuality. If we study Scripture carefully and pay attention to the findings of science, this will lead us to the answers we are looking for. Clearly in this book I am committed to offering my best understanding of the Biblical witness and my most thorough reasoning about the particular questions before us. What I have discovered, however, is that our discussion of this particular controversial issue has as much to do with ecclesiology as it does with sexuality. As we enter into pointed debate about an issue so hotly contested, we are challenged to examine our core commitments about the nature of the church. What does it mean to be church together with people with whom I vehemently disagree? What suffices as the basis for the unity of the church? How much difference of opinion is permissible, before we have betrayed the truth? Thus this book is not only about homosexuality but also ecclesiology." -- Dr. Craig Nessan, Many Members, Yet One Body

---

"If only we can define "mission " as something that happens in other places, then we can be done with it by contributing money to send other people to other places and support them while they are there. But we could probably do that rather easily without being "clothed with power from on high." When Jesus called upon his followers to be his witnesses, it is clear that he sent them out to make authentic and persuasive verbal presentations of the gospel message to others.

But it is equally clear that speaking the gospel message to others was not the only witness Jesus expected of his followers, or even the most important one. It was also through the quality of their life together that they were to witness to the transforming power of the gospel. It was through living together as a community in a way that transcended the built-in limits on empathy, compassion, and forgiveness that his followers were to witness to Jesus. Clearly, to do that requires receiving the Holy Spirit."

"I believe that the mission of the church in our present discussion of sexual orientation is this: to demonstrate to the world that it is possible, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to disagree vigorously about important, emotionally charged issues without attacking one another in moral indignation and without turning away from one another in moral disgust. I believe that there are some persuasive biblical reasons for claiming that this is a significant dimension of our mission as Christ's church at this time, in this place." -- Dr. Dan Olson, Faithful Conversation

________________________________________________________________
© 2010 Indiana-Kentucky Synod, ELCA | About This Site | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use