December 5, 2005

CHENNAI, India/GENEVA – Economic globalization, HIV/AIDS, violence against women and ordination of women were among topics discussed at a meeting of regional coordinators of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Office for Women in Church and Society (WICAS) in Chennai, India.

Twelve regional coordinators from Botswana, Canada, Chile, Iceland, India, Korea, Madagascar, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Peru, Sierra Leone, and the Slovak Republic, and Ms Priscilla Singh, LWF Department for Mission in Development (DMD) WICAS secretary, discussed their work with regard to strengthening the role of women in church and society, November 23-27.

"The LWF needs to give space to women's issues and women's leadership, not for liberal or democratic reasons but for theological reasons. A church without the support and participation of women would be a reduced church," LWF/DMD Director, Rev. Dr Kjell Nordstokke told participants in the women's conference. He expressed appreciation for the regional coordinators' work and reaffirmed LWF's commitment to supporting the ordination of women pastors.

Women's ordination is not yet common practice in all LWF member churches, and where it is done, women pastors are not always accepted as congregation leaders, Ms Ruth Vince from the Evangelical Lutheran Women Inc. in Canada remarked. For Rev. Magdalena Sevcikova-Forgacova, Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Slovak Republic, the issue "lies not in the fact of who is being ordained. Ordination of women means that we believe in the equality of men and women. It is a manifestation of the equality of creation."

The concept of mission as accompaniment relates directly to the WICAS coordinators as they support and educate other women. "We see women suffering physically and psychologically every day and try to help them, for example through counseling or training. I see it in my work that mission and diakonia belong together," Rev. Ken Phin Pang, regional coordinator for the South East Asia Lutheran Communion commented.

During a meeting with staff members of the Chennai-based Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute, the church representatives discussed mission and diakonia, and referred to the LWF mission document, "Mission in Context: Transformation, Reconciliation, Empowerment – An LWF Contribution to the Understanding and Practice of Mission," published in December 2004. Gurukul is one of the premier theological institutions in India. The ecumenical college offers a Master of Theology in Women's Studies.

The WICAS coordinators' work in the past three years concentrated mainly on leadership development training programs, capacity building, gender mainstreaming, economic empowerment, and women's ordination. Ms Hélène Ralivao from the Malagasy Lutheran Church, and coordinator for the Lutheran Communion in Central and Eastern Africa (LUCCEA) reported on a regional workshop, during which participants produced a liturgy on rape to be used on a designated Sunday in all LUCCEA churches.

The regional coordinators also discussed future plans. Canadian Vince is planning in cooperation with the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America a consultation titled "Consider This... Take Counsel... Speak Out! A Consultation against Commercial Sexual Exploitation." The event is part of an ongoing focus on the LWF Tenth Assembly theme, "For the Healing of the World."

The WICAS network is a model of sharing and building up leadership in the Lutheran communion. Its coordinators are nominated in women's regional gatherings and appointed for a maximum period of three years. They work voluntarily for at least six weeks annually, planning their activities on the understanding and analysis of the church contexts in their respective region.

Lutheran World Information
By LWI correspondent Julia Heyde, who attended the WICAS consultation.