Do advocacy together as people of faith requires conversation, prayer, listening and moral discernment to identify why and how our advocacy is done. The following resources provide support for new advocates or those initiating new advocacy ministries:

• Starting an Advocacy Ministry in Your Congregation provides a step-by-step process to introduce advocacy as a congregational effort.
• ELCA Communical Discernment Task Force  report, explores theology and models for communal discernment and offers step-by-step methods for conducting community discernment.
• Difficult Conversations: Taking Risks, Acting with Integrity by Katie Day
• The Public Conversations Project
• ELCA publication Talking Together As Christians About Tough Social Issues
• Biblical references to Advocacy and Justice

Congregational Advocacy

1. Involving Involving Congregations in Advocacy Now (ICAN) is an ELCA guide to developing an advocacy ministry within your congregation
2. That We May Speak is a step-by-step guide for congregations to choose an issue and begin a ministry of advocacy

Congregation and Nonprofit Political Activity Guides

Political and Lobbying Activities Guide for churches and religious organizations from the Internal Revenue Service

Education

Convene a Bible study or small group with a focus on advocacy in Scripture and implications for Christian life today. Consider the following examples:

Called to Be Political (But I Don’t Want to be Political!) reviews Martin Luther’s teachings on the role of Christians in politics and explores how those teachings still speak to us. A two-hour program from the Women of the ELCA.

The Poor You Always Have With You, Part 1 and Part 2  examines faithful responses to poverty, written by Dr. Foster McCurley for LAMPa.

Poverty Study  Guide  from the Pennsylvania Council of Churches

God’s Love for the Poor study from the National Council of Churches

Convene a congregational “book club” to read and discuss a book about the role of the church in advocacy. Start with “Exodus from Hunger by David Beckmann of

Bread for the World hunger resources

Study the ELCA Social Statements and Messages in an adult education class. Many have study guides available.

Use and promote/display the following public witness one pagers:

How to write a letter to an elected official
How to make a visit with an elected official
How to write a letter to the editor
The latest issue of LAMPa Highlights e-newsletter and/or Annual Report.

Ask LAMPa for brochures to display with other materials from Lutheran agencies and institutions – you never know who might pick them up!

The Journal of Lutheran Ethics hopes to provide reading material to stimulate thinking and conversation among academics, clergy, and laity. To this end, this new section will be included in each issue of JLE in order to encourage constructive discussion within congregations about the topics discussed in JLE. Consider using this section in formal adult education classes or in informal small group discussions. Read More.