Free to be Faithful Essay Contest now open to pastors and church workers

Categories: Religious Liberty, Marriage and Life
Due date: June 20, 2014

Essays must be no longer than 2,500 words. Please attach the
essay as a Word document and submit to adriane.heins@lcms.org.

Free to be Faithful Wants YOU!

“The United States of America was founded on the principle that you were born with certain rights: the rights to seek and follow truth, to live according to your beliefs, to worship freely,” explains the Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. “And no one, not even the government, gets to tell you how to do that.”

Sadly, our federal government continues to threaten that right by refusing to protect religious liberty as our Constitution and the laws of nature demand. That’s why it’s time to talk about those issues — religious liberty, marriage between one man and one woman, each person’s fundamental right to life — and how we view them through a uniquely Lutheran lens.

We’ve started the discussion by way of Free to be Faithful, an educational and awareness campaign in the LCMS. (Go to www.lcms.org/freetobefaithful for more information.)

Now, we want to hear from LCMS pastors and church workers through our summer Free to be Faithful Essay Contest. The Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case? Same-sex marriage? Abortion? You choose the topic. Our future LCMS pastors, deaconesses and graduate students have already shared their thoughts, and essays continue to be submitted. We’re opening the contest to our ordained and commissioned church workers to help LCMS members think through these topics and learn from YOU how to speak boldly and faithfully in the public square.

Judges of the contest include Harrison; Tim Goeglein, senior adviser to the president and vice-president of external relations, Focus on the Family; and Adriane Heins, managing editor of The Lutheran Witness.

One overall winner will receive a $100 gift card to Concordia Publishing House, and winning entries from each of the three categories will be selected for use in special Free to be Faithful Bible studies that will be shared with congregations throughout Synod.

Email your essay — which should be 2,500 words or less — as a Word document and submit to adriane.heins@lcms.org by June 20, 2014.