Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Dear Fellow Faith Family Members and Friends:

I can see you now. You look like somebody who’s ready to make a difference.

As you probably know, our congregation voted to become a founding member of Common Ground. I am hoping that you will be able to help make it a success.

Common Ground is a new broad-based organization in the Milwaukee area. Our leaders and members come from diverse racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and political backgrounds. What they share in common is the desire to achieve positive changes in our community.

The development of Common Ground began in 2004, when a group of 38 religious, civic and business leaders raised $700,000 in seed money to launch our grassroots organization, then known as Greater Milwaukee Sponsors. The seed money came from the congregations and religious groups affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), Presbyterian, Episcopal and United Church of Christ (UCC). Foundations, individuals and unions have also contributed.

Common Ground exists to build and support an organization to address Greater Milwaukee’s critical social issues in an effective, non-partisan way. We spent our first year listening to over 1,400 people discuss their concerns including health care, education, jobs and economic development, crime, mental health, youth activities, immigration and housing. We have prioritized these areas of concern for research, which is now underway. We’ve also been conducting Leadership Institutes to teach volunteers the basics of organizing.

With a paid, professional organizer, Mark Fraley, and volunteer leaders from all walks of life, we are organizing support from congregations, religious groups, schools, civic associations, social agencies, unions and businesses. All these people will gather on April 13, 2008, as one powerful voice to begin to address the important social issues facing our community. But we won’t be strangers. We’ve spent the past two years setting up one-on-one and small group "relational" meetings to get to know each other and begin to build a common vision.

Just southeastern Common Ground?

We are a local organization effecting change where we can, but we are also part of something much bigger. Common Ground is just one organization in a national network affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF). IAF is the oldest and largest institution for professional organizing in the United States. IAF organizations have been successful in passing universal health care legislation in Massachusetts, getting 3,000 affordable housing units built in New York, instituting school reform and effective job training in Texas, urban reinvestment in Washington DC and many other social issue campaigns.

As a congregation member you are already involved, and we are already receiving benefits from being part of Common Ground: Leadership training and Stewardship Planning Support.

Individually you can become part of one of groups studying the issues and preparing for action. Please talk to me about this if you would like to make a difference through this unique opportunity.

What indeed? On March 23^rd we gathered to celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. We have passed through our Lenten journey, during which we reflected on the meaning of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ for our lives. We have remembered again how all the forces of evil were arrayed against Him, and how He overcame them. We have been encouraged by the forgiveness assured us by the Word of God, which is communicated by speaking and by sharing in the sacrament of Holy Communion.

To what end? That we may glorify God with our lips and our lives. And how are we to do that? The instruction that we have received from Jesus is that we are to love God and to love our neighbor. Jesus made it clear in his telling of the story of the Good Samaritan that the proper question is not "Who is my neighbor?" but rather, "Whose neighbor am I?" And how are we to love our neighbor? Of course we are to love in thought, word, and deed, both by what we refrain from doing and by what we do. Certainly, this may be shown and should be demonstrated by each one of us who seek to follow Christ. Collectively, we can work for the good of our neighbor. We can join with others to see to it that our neighbors in the surrounding community have access to affordable and excellent health care. We can demonstrate that love of neighbor by working to the end that he or she may not be filled with fear because of violence growing and oppressing a neighborhood. Following our Savior, we can join with others to bring hope, hope that arises because somebody cares and is willing to sacrifice so that evil is overcome with good.

But what about loving ourselves, our families, our congregation? After all, Jesus said we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. If we’re busy looking after our neighbor and trying to deal with all those problems out there in the world, what’s going to happen to us?

This may help: There’s a story told about a Midwestern corn farmer who took the prize for having the best corn at the State Fair. When asked, "What’s the secret of your success?" he answered, "I provide all my neighboring farmers with my prize corn seed." When he was asked why he would give his prize seed to his competitors, he answered, " The wind blows. If my neighbor has substandard corn, I’ll have substandard corn." This is another way of saying that we are all connected. None of us live on isolated, insulated little islands. What affects our neighbor, even those in neighborhoods far removed from ours, will affect us. Thus, loving our neighbor in practical ways does benefit us and those closest to us.

To be sure, our response to God’s great love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is to honor God and: to call others to know the love of Christ ,and to receive life and salvation through the working of the Holy Spirit as we proclaim the Gospel. It does appear to be true, however, that "People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care."

I look for the Holy Spirit to enable us all to be all that God intends, to be followers of Jesus who went about doing good and "came to serve, not to be served."