I recently read A Journey of
Grace: The Formation of a Leader and a Church, the autobiography of Herbert
W. Chilstrom, the first Presiding Bishop of the ELCA. It was good! I’d
recommend it to anyone interested in modern Lutheranism, Christianity in North
America, or who just want to read the witness of one man’s faith and life.
At the end of his time as Bishop he
offered a series of reflections to the Church Council for how to make sure the
ELCA was sustainable. One of them was significantly reducing the number of
Synods. On pages 518-520 he offered a reorganization of the ELCA synod structure
from 65 Synods to 38. I’m a visual person when it comes to geography, so I
pulled out MS Paint and recreated the proposal in map form. Below is the map of
what he envisioned.
As a humorous aside, he forgot that
the states of Delaware and Alabama existed; I lumped them with their current synods.
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