On Monday evening, I attended the Faith in the City governance meeting. Faith in the City is a collaborative group of seven Lutheran-heritage organizations, based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St. Paul. These seven organizations are Augsburg College, Central Lutheran Church, Fairview Health Services, Luther Seminary, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, and Augsburg Fortress. The Minneapolis Area Synod and St. Paul Area Synod of the ELCA also participate with us. The level of commitment from these organizations is such that for most of our governance committee meetings, at least 5 of the 7 Presidents/CEO’s attends along with either Bishop Craig Johnson and/or Bishop Peter Rogness. The one or two who are absent are usually only absent due to travel or other scheduling conflicts. These leaders are all very busy people, so the fact that we are all willing to commit several hours to this joint venture says something about how important we think this initiative is to our home communities.

Faith in the City seeks to be a catalyst for collaboration among people, neighborhoods, congregations, community organizations, and others of good will to develop innovative initiatives that benefit the city and its people. On Monday evening, we not only held our quarterly governance & steering committee meeting, but we also celebrated the opening of the Augsburg Academy a charter school that will open next week that will focus on health careers education for high school students. This is quite a success story in that their first class already has almost 80 students enrolled.

There are many reasons that each of these seven partner institutions participates in Faith in the City. For some, like LSS and Fairview, whose missions are primary Minnesota-based, the reasons are clearer than for those of us whose missions are of a national & international scope. One of the reasons Augsburg Fortress elects to participate in Faith in the City is because among our “values” as an organization is that we want our employees to actively “give back” to the community through volunteer efforts and donations to worthy social service & charitable organization (not just in the Twin Cities, but in all of the communities where our staff members work and live). Faith in the City has provided some of our Twin Cities based employees with opportunities to participate in various volunteer activities, such as planting a garden in a public park in a low-income neighborhood, putting together gift baskets for low-income families, assisting with tax-planning for low-income families, etc.

This is not the only way that Augsburg Fortress encourages our employees to be active participants in their communities. We also provide matching funds for donations to United Way. And, beginning in 2004, we offer each full-time employee one paid day off per year to do volunteer work in the agency of their choice. This can be at their church, a local school, a food pantry, etc.

As the ministry of publishing for the ELCA and ELCIC our business is to provide resources that have value for faith formation, education & worship. But, we don’t leave it at that. Participating in Faith in the City, providing a paid day off, etc. is one more way that we live our faith, both as individuals and as a community within the ministry of publishing where we work.

Beth A. Lewis, President & CEO
Augsburg Fortress

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