If protestants had a Vatican City...

...this might be it!

I've thoroughly enjoyed my first few days of the course I'm taking in Geneva, Switzerland, with students from four other ELCA seminaries.

Sunday we were warmly welcomed to worship by the English-speaking Lutheran congregation in Geneva, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Geneva. The city still has laws on its books from its reformation days, when the Calvinist city fathers allowed Lutheran refugees to establish a church, so long as it didn't look like a church and didn't put its name on the building. It took months for the church council to get the city to agree to put banners outside of their mansion-like structure.

Pastor Lusmarina gave a fantastic sermon, the music moved us, the Lord's Prayer was said in perhaps 20 languages at once, and we enjoyed a meal in the cave discovered below the church during a recent renovation.

Today (Monday) was our first full day of class at the Ecumenical Center, headquarters of the Lutheran World Federation, World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and about 12 other organizations. It's intoxicating. The vision of these organizations is like that of Christ in John 17: that all may be one. That's right -- nothing short of total solidarity of humanity, global justice. They have prayer in the morning and tea in the afternoon. I think that's a pretty good start, to say nothing of the work they do with the rest of the day.