A Centralized ELCA

I’ve made no secret that I am inclined toward decentralization in most things, including reimagining the ELCA. But let’s give the other end of things a try, a more Centralized ELCA. What might that look like? 1, 7, 9, 22.

One: The complete disassembling of Synods, and the ELCA would function as one church, two expressions. I imagine in this model Candidacy and Directors of Evangelical Mission would become part of the nation church’s prevue and most other ministries of the Synodical expression would either disappear or be reconstituted using the parish option in congregational constitutions, depending on local situations.

Seven: This model would consolidate synods around seminaries. As I said in one of my other iterations of this line of thought, this could make some cool connections between Professors, Seminarians and the wider church, it could also give a focus to each Region/Seminary. Of the options of centralizing the ELCA this seems most promising to me. A danger, I suppose, is the culture of academia could overly influence the culture of the Synod.

Nine: Alternatively, the nine regions of the ELCA, geographic boundaries already in place, could become the middle expression of the ELCA.

Twenty Two: We could consolidate approximately every three Synods into one. For example, my New Jersey Synod could become part of the Ben Franklin Synod. Franklin famously said the state was a keg tapped on two sides, NYC and Philly. What if we lean into that assessment and merge the New Jersey, Southeast PA and Metro New York Synods?