The Church Council of the ELCA met in Minneapolis Oct. 2-3. The council welcomed 19 new members who had been elected by the 2025 Churchwide Assembly. The meeting was held in advance of the Oct. 4 installation of Yehiel Curry as presiding bishop of the ELCA.
The council, which serves as the ELCA churchwide organization’s board of directors and interim legislative authority between meetings of a churchwide assembly, took the following actions on three memorials referred to the council at the adjournment of the 2025 Churchwide Assembly:
- Authorized the development of a social policy resolution that applies the ELCA social statement “Abortion” to the challenging personal struggles and pastoral issues that have emerged since 1991, when the statement was adopted by the churchwide assembly. The council declined, at this time, a request to update or revise the 1991 statement or to create a new social statement on abortion.
- Directed Theological Discernment staff in the ELCA churchwide organization to review a request for a new social message on rural, remote communities and sovereign tribal nations, and to bring a recommendation to the ELCA Church Council, no later than its spring 2026 meeting, on what means should be authorized to address the questions involved.
- Reaffirmed this church’s commitment to justice for Palestinians and Israelis and asked the Service and Justice unit, in consultation with the Office of the Presiding Bishop, to implement recommendations in a new memorial for continuing accompaniment, awareness and advocacy efforts. The council requested that Service and Justice provide a report on these efforts for the spring 2026 meeting.
The council received updates from its Executive Committee regarding:
- Appointment of members to the Task Force on Interdependence and Purpose, established to assess the adequacy and clarity of the several purpose statements in the ELCA Constitutions, Bylaws, and Continuing Resolutions and make recommendations for modification among other topics.
- A timeline of the “immediate action on dismantling racism” acted on during the spring 2025 meeting to develop mutual accountability measures and compliance incentives across all expressions of the ELCA.
- Deferred consideration of changing the church’s name, in light of the newly appointed Task Force on Interdependence and Purpose.
The council also received reports and approved items related to churchwide assembly and synod actions, whose subjects included: reconsideration of the ELCA’s social message on end-of-life decisions, remembrance of Indian boarding schools, advocacy for missing and murdered Indigenous women, restoration of funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development, public discourse about Palestine-Israel, and follow-up on the ELCA’s Middle East strategy.
Read a full list of actions taken at the meeting.
