2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly
The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly was the eleventh biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It convened in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from August 17–23, 2009. The Churchwide Assembly is the 'highest legislative authority' of the ELCA. At the time of the Assembly, the ELCA consisted of nearly 4.6 million members organized into nearly 11,000 congregations. The Assembly consisted of 1,045 voting members and was chaired by The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the ELCA from 2001–2013. David Swartling served as Secretary of the ELCA from 2007–2013. The 2009 Assembly was dominated by debate on the proposed Social Statement, and its accompanying Recommendations for Ministry Policies. The Statement allowed for differing understandings of same-gender sexual relationships within the ELCA. The Recommendations proposed the development of a process in which congregations, synods, and churchwide units that chose to do so could call pastors and other officially recognized church leaders who were in publicly accountable same-gender lifelong monogamous relationships. The assembly's agenda also included a proposed agreement of full communion between the ELCA and the United Methodist Church, the UMC's first such agreement, along with other business matters, including: the passage of the ELCA Churchwide organization's