Missional imagination

We’re posting highlights from our recent Mission Fair online. The first posting is Bishop Burkat’s keynote presentation, “Missional Imagination,” in which she outlines six core Lutheran characteristics that can fuel mission in the 21st Century.

Go to our website to read about her address or download audio/video. More resources will come shortly. Or, use the link below to listen to or subscribe to our podcast.

Claire Burkat installed as 1st female bishop of synod

Amid all the excitement, newly installed Bishop Claire Schenot Burkat once said “confusion” when she meant “confessions” while installing her staff. Later, during the installation recessional, she left the stage without the bishop’s crozier, which minutes before had been presented to her by her predecessor, Roy Almquist. She ran back to get it.

No matter. The human foibles and the self-effacing way their new Bishop dealt with them only served to warm the assembly’s ceremonial embrace of Burkat. During the two-hour-plus service, she became the first woman to head the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod with its 174 congregations across Philadelphia, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks and Chester counties. More than 1,000 onlookers, clearly thrilled to be part of the occasion, attended. The congregation included friends, family, Lutheran and Episcopal clergy, ecumenical and interfaith participants.