Missing Body Parts!

May 18, 2007
Update on the "missing" project
We need your help. For several months you have received messages and seen Concord articles and web postings about the "missing" project. I want you to understand why LC/NA is supporting this project and how the statistics gathered will be used.
For LC/NA the purpose of the project is to gather statistical information on everyone who has been excluded from the ministry by Lutheran denominational policies precluding partnered LGBT people from rostered service.
LC/NA and our goodsoil partners will share this statistical information with the voting members of the ELCA at the Churchwide Assembly in August. While statistics can never convey the pain of each story, they attempt to quantify the degree of loss to the church, loss contrary to God's call. Our silence keeps our church blissfully in the dark.
Who is invited to participate:
If you ever considered the ministry and decided against it because of the policy of exclusion;
If you went to seminary and quit somewhere in the middle;
If you finished seminary but were never ordained;
If you were ordained or rostered as a lay professional and then left the ministry:
Through voluntary resignation;
Through forced resignation;
Through trial and removal;
Through denial of on leave from call status;
Through expiration of call;
Through expiration of on leave from call status;
If you left the Lutherans for greener pastures in a more welcoming denomination;
If you are rostered or pursuing roster status with the Extraordinary Candidacy Project.
If you are an ally and left the ministry or the denomination because of the policy.
You get the picture. We need all of you to answer, if these questions apply to you. Think hard about people you know who qualify for this study.
Please don't blow this off as another on line survey.
The instructions are simple: if you qualify send an email to missing@lcna.org. Pastor Vicki Pedersen, project researcher, will take it from there.
If you know people who qualify, have them email missing@lcna.org. Your confidentiality is assured as requested.
There are thousands of you out there who have stories to tell. God knows who you are. The church needs to know how many you are.
Please help.
Blessings,Emily EastwoodExecutive Director