Reformation African American Lutheran Mission-Church Chicago's News & Notes

 “Let envoys come out of Egypt; let Ethiopia hasten her gifts to God.”  -Psalm 68:31-

"Thunder in the desert!

'Prepare for God's arrival!

Make the road straight and smooth,

   A highway fit for God.

Fill the valleys,

   level the hills,

Smooth the ruts,

   clear out the rocks.

Then God's bright glory will shine

   and everyone will see it.

Yes, just as God has said.

   A voice says, 'Shout.'" -Isaiah 40: 3-6a, The Message-

 WE ARE AN ECUMENICAL AFRICAN AMERICAN/AFRICAN WORLD LUTHERAN MISSION CHURCH PUBLICATION IN-PROGRESS

1.  Conceived and advanced  as a concerned Black Lutheran new media voice, we are the twin missiology sister of Reformation African American Lutheran Mission Church Chicago in-motion-Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

2.  We serve Metro Chicago from the Far South Side’s historic Palmer Park, Roseland, and Pullman National Monument communities.

3.  We are boldly an ecumenical African American, African World, and new media Lutheran mission voice in-progress striving to reach our full, organic, integrating and unifying, ecumenical mission potential. 

4.  We seek to ecumenically serve Chicago’s African American/African World communities especially, but by no means exclusively. 

5.  We are, thereby, seeking to be an ecumenically local, yet global, mission publication in-progress of the ELCA. We begin where we are by starting with, but not limited to, ongoing reciprocal relations with the ELCA’S Mission Investment Fund (ELCA/MIF). 

6.  We are also an expression of both the ecumenically international Lutheran Mission project and the currently emergent World Christianity Church Mission project now unfolding from below, multi-culturally speaking, on six continents.

7.  By ecumenical mission church voice in-progress we mean, we fully understand ourselves under the Church universal’s primary call to ecumenical mission theologically grounded in the theory and praxis of Missiology generally, African American/African World Missiology particularly.

8.  By ecumenical mission church voice in-progress we also mean we fully understand ourselves as self-publishing, via the ecumenical exhortation  of the Holy Spirit, under the second usage and call of the Church regarding ecumenical inner-city mission i.e.,

9.   "Church or parish" (expression and/or medium) "financially dependent on external resources...in a missionary phase of development... maintained in an adverse situation (e.g., in an inner city)" -read: an Africana Missiology voice born of struggle against a domineering, neoliberal Chicago, and structural racism environment.  (See Nelson's Dictionary of Christianity, Nashville TN, 2005)

"People, get ready

There's a train a-coming

You don't need no ticket

You just get on board.

"All you need is faith

to hear the diesels humming

Don't need no ticket

You just thank the Lord."  -People Get Ready Lyrics, Curtis Mayfield.

Key concepts:

Mission.  "From the Latin mittere: to send or let go...the Church's most important business."  -The Episcopalian's Dictionary-

• Missio Dei. " Literally the mission of God...on the basis of John 20:21, it has been used to speak of Christian mission as an extension or reflection of the mission of Jesus Christ on earth--'as the Father has sent me, so I send you.'  Adopted as integral to Christian missiology post "the World Missionary Conference of Willingen in 1952."
• Missiology.  "The (Post Colonial) discipline that studies mission...more a theological discipline (over ways and means with emphasis on progressively advancing African American/African World Missiology)"  -Essential Theological Terms.
• "Ecumenical. (Gk., oikoumene, the inhabited world)  1. Of, relating to or representing the whole church, 2. Promoting or tending toward worldwide Christian unity and cooperation." -Nelson's Dictionary of Christianity, 2005-
• Lutheranism.  "an interpretation of Christianity.  The name derives from Martin Luther (1483-1546), though he himself deprecated its use as a designation of the movement he initiated in the Church...Lutheranism is a reforming movement within the Western Church."  -Handbook of Christian Theology, 1958-
• Black Lutheranism.  A Black World  Religious interpretation within the Western Church reform movement within World Christianity.   -Sankofa Lutheran Chicago Understanding-

Respectfully submitted: Rev. Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma), Pastor, Reformation African American Lutheran Mission Church Chicago ("Young Barack Obama's community organizing sanctuary")., 12/9/2017, Updated: 12-30-17.

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