NEEDED: ELDER LIONS ON DIVERSITY & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (ADLA-Chicago Global Elders Center on Racial & Social Justice)

"Let envoys come out of Egypt; let Ethiopia hasten her gifts to God"-Psalm 68:31

"SOS

"Calling all black people

"Calling all black people, man woman child

"Wherever you are, calling you, urgent, come in

"Black people, come in, wherever you are, urgent, calling you,

"Calling all black people 


"Calling all black people, come in, black people, come on in."

Amiri Baraka, Circa 1967-Black Arts Movement Period

Just in case no one has noticed it, the need of rebuilding, maintaining and developing  the African Descent Lutheran Association (ADLA) inside and outside the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is an urgent one. 

Note: the ELCA currently holds the dubious distinction of being the 2nd least diverse "mainstream" national Christian church denomination in the USA.

This said, the ELCA houses a meager 4% membership of Africans in America and other peoples of color combined.  

This ice cold fact creates a sense urgency for concerned Black Lutheran self-organization today as the need of Black social movement organization appeared to author Amiri Baraka in the referenced 1960s Black Arts Movement poem above.

To address today's Black Lutherans concerned sense of urgency we are:

1) fundamentally committed to participating in reviving ADLA nationally as the best possible hope for significant African Descent and other people of color inclusion within the ELCA.

2) fundamentally committed to making a significant contribution to reorganizing the ADLA-Chicago Chapter itself tragically dissolved in recent years and in need of the Good Samaritan intervention and restructuring-now underway.

3) fundamentally committed to convening, within ADLA-Chicago, a much needed sub-structure or an  affinity grouping of ADLA seniors-operating under the working banner of ADLA-CHICAGO ELDER LIONS FOR DIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT.

More, the goal of ELDER LIONS is to establish, strengthen, and expand  an African Global Elders Center at Lutheran School of Theology Chicago (LSTC) for Racial and Social Justice Understanding inside and outside the ELCA.

More still, ELDER LIONS will also seek to organize a series of educational forums, on current and ongoing critical issues, out of the Community Room of South Side Englewood's Bethel Terrace Co-op Senior Apartments, at the hub of S. 63rd & Halsted, that has been the residential base of this proposal writer for the past ten years.

The working organizing slogan of ADLA-Chicago ELDER LIONS is: "Act III for Kwanzaa Holiday Grounded Simba Wasais-elder lions.  Note: Simba Wasais is Swahili for elder lions.

We hope our readers are ready for it.  Because the time for ADLA-Chicago ELDER LIONS is now.

Respectfully submitted: Pastor Joel Washington (Khunanpu Sangoma), Reformation Church-Chicago ("Young Barack Obama's community organizing sanctuary"), and Convenor of ADLA-Chicago ELDER LIONS, 2-4-16