Sitting in her office on the top floor of the Lutheran Center in Chicago, Sue Rothmeyer, a deacon and the secretary of the ELCA, looks out the big windows at an urban vista that has become familiar to her over her 30 years of service in the churchwide organization. It’s a view that constantly reminds her that the church exists in the world, for the sake of the world.
After serving as a campus minister at Iowa State University in Ames, during which time she also served as secretary of the Southeastern Iowa Synod, Rothmeyer first started looking out these windows in 1995. For 17 years, campus ministry was the consistent part of her portfolio. In addition, she also related to early childhood through high school education, ELCA colleges and universities, youth ministry and the Youth Gathering, outdoor ministry, and hired the first director for Young Adult Ministries.
In 2012 she moved into the Office of the Secretary as executive for administration. She was elected ELCA secretary by the 2019 Churchwide Assembly and will complete her term and retire at the end of October.
When asked what has mattered most to her across the years, she said without hesitation, “It’s the gift of relationships, and seeing how people live out their sense of vocation in the church and in the world.”
As she looks toward the future, her hope is that the ELCA can keep finding fresh expressions of how we are church and how we “do” church, while remaining uniquely Lutheran in identity.
The Office of the Secretary sometimes has a reputation for a focus on “rules and regulations,” but Rothmeyer is particularly animated when she speaks about the ways in which the work of this office and the churchwide organization helps facilitate healthy relationships throughout this church, supporting synods, congregations and rostered ministers in their service to the world.
She is especially grateful for her relationships with her predecessors and mentors in the office she holds: Lowell Almen, David Swartling and Wm Chris Boerger.
Rothmeyer has seen—and lived—a great deal of change in the ELCA across her more than 40 years of vocations within the church. As she completes her term, she recognizes that this church is at one of those points on its journey where it must find new ways to make Christ known in a rapidly changing context—reforming, while remaining grounded in our rich heritage and tradition and deeply rooted in our Lutheran identity and theology. As she looks toward the future, her hope is that the ELCA can keep finding fresh expressions of how we are church and how we “do” church, while remaining uniquely Lutheran in identity.
Rothmeyer often cites the fourfold emphases around which Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton has focused the ministry of this church:
- We are church.
- We are Lutheran.
- We are church together.
- We are church for the sake of the world.
For her, this sums up the Christ-centered, neighbor-centered purpose of the ELCA.
You don’t have to talk to Rothmeyer for very long before the subject of vocation comes up, as it is one of her favorite ways to frame her understanding of life from a Lutheran perspective. So, after the many vocations she has lived out in this church and in her own life, what is her next vocation? The self-described “Iowa farm girl” will be returning to her roots near Decorah, Iowa, where she will have a very different view from what she sees through the windows of her Lutheran Center office.
No matter what the view through her window, though, she is looking forward to discovering what God is calling her to next. Given her energy level, it is fairly certain that the next vocations will not involve sitting still for extended periods, as she will continue to nurture the many relationships she has formed across this country while living out her previous vocations in service to this church.
