Migration Project

The Center for Public Theology and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) underwent an effort to refocus work related to immigration, migration, poverty and other related issues on the notion of welcoming the stranger.  Criterion Ventures helped guide this effort, including establishing goals that included (but were not limited to):

• Increase direct service to refugees and participation in the policy process
• Be a catalyst for others
• Increase number and depth of congregational involvement in refugee resettlement
• Engage as advocates on policy issues more frequently
• Increase knowledge about how to welcome strangers into communities
• Ground conversations about immigration issues and welcoming the stranger in the practices of theology
• Serve as a point of concentration for activity

When the ELCA voted through Churchwide Assembly to call for just immigration policies and voiced their support for immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers (August of 2005), Rev. Rosemary Sanchez-Guzman, pastor of a bilingual congregation in El Paso, Tex. said, “this is not just about policy.  This means calling on our country to be more welcoming to immigrants, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares’ (Heb. 13:2).  I know the church can make a difference in people’s lives... We need to change our hearts, not just our laws."  Rev. Sanchez-Guzman came to the United States in 1989 under a work scholarship to Lutheran Bible Institute in California. She has since gone on to a Lutheran seminary and now serves an ELCA congregation.