Magnus to Lead ELCA's Division for Outreach

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Richard A. Magnus, 53, was elected March 21 to a four-year term as executive director of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Division for Outreach. With the approval of the ELCA presiding Bishop H. George Anderson, the division's board named Magnus to succeed the Rev. M.L. Minnick Jr. who will retire July 15.
     Magnus will move to Chicago from Denver where he is a mission director for the division and an assistant to Bishop Allan C. Bjornberg in the ELCA's Rocky Mountain Synod.  The synod covers a territory including Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the western panhandle of Texas.
     Magnus impressed the board with "his passion for and work with multicultural issues in outreach ministry," said the Rev. Gary A. Marshall, Escondido, Calif., an assistant to the bishop of the ELCA's Pacifica Synod and chair of the ELCA Division for Outreach board.
     The board noted Magnus' work with new ministries along the U.S.-Mexico border and with the synod's anti-racism training, said Marshall.  "Dick has significant experience with the Division for Outreach and its operation at various levels," he said, and he demonstrated his "integrity in administration."
     Marshall said the process to find the division's next executive director was unique in that the board appointed a prayer support group at the same time that it named a search committee.  The prayer support group sent letters to applicants, board members, staff and other interested people giving regular updates on the selection process and requesting prayers for those involved in it.
     "Just keeping that before people seemed to be recognized as a dynamic and meaningful factor in the process," said Marshall. The candidates and the search committee knew they were not alone in the process, he said.  "This isn't just us making these important decisions; we have everyone; and we have the Holy Spirit."
     In 1981 Magnus joined the staff of the Rocky Mountain Synod in the former Lutheran Church in America. He was campus pastor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the Auraria Higher Education Center, Denver, 1975-81; a part-time instructor, Metropolitan State College, Denver, 1977-80; and coordinator for Lutheran Campus Ministry of Colorado, 1977-81.
     Magnus is a native of Foley, Minn.  He graduated from St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minn., in 1966 and from Northwestern Theological (now Luther) Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., in 1970.  He was community pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, an urban ministry in Denver, 1970-1975.
     Board members asked Magnus how he intended to balance the division's work with ethnic-specific strategies, new ministries, urban ministries and rural ministries.  "They also wanted to hear a lot about my style of work," he said.
     "One of my strong concerns is that the division be very much a team player with the rest of the church," said Magnus, "an active participant in helping the whole church to see the work of outreach within the United States and Caribbean as critical."
     "We also need to assist the whole church in becoming more aggressive in identifying, mentoring, supporting and encouraging new leaders for our whole church," he said.
     "One of the directions given to the division has been to increase outreach to gay and lesbian persons," said Magnus.  "I am looking forward to learning how we might encourage our brothers and sisters throughout the church to strengthen this outreach to brothers and sisters who are gay and lesbian."
     This summer the ELCA Churchwide Assembly will consider two proposals to enter into full communion, one with the Episcopal Church and the other with three Reformed churches -- Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and United Church of Christ.
     "We could make a strong statement to the United States and whoever else might listen that Christians can work together, that we can put behind us some of the things that have separated us in the past for the good of strengthening our mission outreach wherever we are," Magnus said.
     "There are unchurched persons all around us, throughout our society.  We need a wide variety of ways to reach those people. It seems to me these proposals give us some brand new opportunities that will help us to think new thoughts.  They may attract attention from people who in the past have said the church is not the place for me because they can't get things together."
     Magnus married Kathy J. Magnus, who is vice president of the ELCA, in 1966.  They have two children, Erica Koser and Cory Magnus.

For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html