About ELCA Global Mission

For my friends unfamiliar with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), here is a description of our understanding of “mission” encompasses. First, and foremost, we speak of accompaniment. Below is a helpful summary of what is meant by “accompaniment” that can be found on the ELCA website:

Accompaniment is a response to the changing context of global mission. For many years, North American and European church bodies established, funded, and directed mission around the world. Today, the churches they helped found are independent and self-governing. As a result, global mission is an endeavor shared by mutual participants in the body of Christ.

The ELCA Global Mission unit defines accompaniment as walking together in solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality. In this walk, gifts, resources and experiences are shared with mutual advice and admonition to deepen and expand our work within God’s mission.

For North Americans, the newest part of accompaniment is receiving. Accompaniment challenges us to move beyond the donor/recipient model into an equal exchange of receiving and giving.

Receiving a gift from one of our own is easy. Receiving a gift from someone not like us, that may change us, is harder. In the two-way street of global mission, we seek to be open to letting those who are different from us teach and transform us, even when what our companion churches have to say is difficult to hear.