Storylines: "Remembering Today for the Church of Tomorrow"

---

The ordination of Pam McGee in 1976 marked the occasion of the first ordination of a Lutheran woman in Canada. Canadian Lutherans participated in ordaining women beginning in 1970 with the ordinations of Elizabeth A. Platz of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) in November and of Barbara Andrews of the American Lutheran Church (ALC) in December. 

McGee was ordained in 1976 by the Eastern Canada Synod of the LCA-Canada Section and served in Ontario. Vivian Roberts began to serve in the LCA-Central Canada Synod in Saskatchewan in January of 1977, and Lorraine Sommers Grislis followed in Manitoba in March of 1977 (her ordination was in 1975).  Ruth Blaser began to serve in Saskatchewan in 1979 and was ordained by the LCA-Central Canada Synod. Kathleen Schmitke was ordained by the LCA-Western Canada Synod to serve in Alberta in September of 1980. 

Carol Qualley began to serve the Evangelical Lutheran Church OF Canada in Alberta in August of 1980 having been ordained in the US that June.

This storyline provides the overarching frame for the Remembering Today for the Church of Tomorrow Project. 

Don Sjoberg is a leader in the development of this storyline. Don experienced the inter-Lutheran efforts towards co-operation and merger from 1954 to 2024 first as a student in Saskatoon, then as a pastor in Edmonton and finally as the first national bishop of the ELCIC, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. David Pfrimmer. is the key interviewer in this storyline.

Early Diaconal Ministers in Canada served in churches as Parish Workers, Directors of Christian Education, Youth Ministers, Church Secretaries and more. They also served in society in roles such as social workers and therapists, Diaconal Ministers have been engaged in ministry in myriad ways and in 1991 diaconal ministry was officially validated within the ELCIC.   In this picture, Sister Anne Keffer is shown with her Diaconal vestment. In this storyline Anne and other Diaconal Ministers provide insights into the life of Deacons and Deaconesses from earliest foundations in North America to emerging ministries. 

This storyline is the most multi-media storyline in the project to date. Three Campus Ministers (Stephen Larson, Ken Kuhn and Karen Kuhnert) have Zoom interviewed twenty Campus Ministry leaders who experienced Campus Ministry across Canada in the last seven decades. This storyline includes first hand stories from participants in Campus Ministry, the Lutheran Student Movement (LSM) and Lutheran Students Association (LSA). The stories reach back to the foundations in Lutheran Campus Ministry  with Don Voigts, Paul  Bosch and John Vedell. 

For Lutherans in Canada, much changed after 1976 when congregations in the Eastern, Central and Western synods of the Canada Section of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA-CS) experienced their first ordained women in ministry. In 1980, the ELCC or Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada also began ordaining women. These two groups joined in 1985-1986 to become the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the ELCIC. In 2011 the ELCIC in convention voted to adopt the ELCIC Human Sexuality Statement and passed motions "paving the way for the ordination and installation of gay and lesbian pastors".

 In this storyline Karen Kuhnert presents Archival resources to better understand the Sexuality debates that reach back in Canadian Lutheran history and continue in 2022. 

Canadian Lutherans have been engaged in "Global" ministry and service in fascinating and changing ways. Read a post-TRC writing to think about this anew...