January 27, 2009
by Frank Imhoff

Hospitality is key to growing any organization, but Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is looking beyond hospitality to providing a "Radical Welcome." Women of the ELCA participants are discussing through May online and in person "Radical Welcome: Embracing God, The Other and the Spirit of Transformation" by the Rev. Stephanie Spellers. The online discussion includes live chats and a blog that are supported by downloadable resources.

Spellers is an Episcopal priest and lead organizer for the Crossing – an emerging worship community in Boston – while she's the minister for radical welcome for the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Paul. She describes a radical welcome as "one that recognizes every person as a bearer of Christ and seriously tries to welcome each person's gifts, presence and power – regardless of the structures of oppression in the wider church and society" in an article she wrote for the January/February issue of Lutheran Woman Today, the magazine of Women of the ELCA.

Information about the online discussion is at http://tinyurl.com/dbwwxx/, on the ELCA Web site.

ELCA News Service