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Following
his ordination in 1976, Shafer was pastor of
Holy
Trinity
Memorial
Lutheran
Church
in Catasaqua. He was
assistant to the bishop of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod from
1983 to 1992. From 1987
to 1992, he was also shared staff with the ELCA Division for
Congregational Ministries and the Lutheran Magazine.
In 1992, Pastor Shafer was appointed Acting Director of the
ELCA Department for Communication in
Chicago
. He was formally elected by the ELCA Church Council to the position
of Director of this department in 1993 and was re-elected in 1997
and 2001 and reappointed in 2005.
Pastor Shafer has traveled extensively,
including mission trips to
Bolivia
,
Peru
,
Ecuador
,
Argentina
,
Tanzania
,
Uganda
,
Ethiopia
,
Jerusalem
,
Israel
and the West Bank,
Honduras
,
Nicaragua
, and
Mexico
. He has taught in
Madagascar
and
South Africa
and has met with the Roman Catholic Pope, the Orthodox Patriarch and
the Archbishop of Canterbury. In his work as Director of the
Department for Communication, he supervised a staff of 30
communication professionals who were responsible for the internal
and external ELCA communication efforts (see www.elca.org/communication).
He is perhaps best known for his work in bringing the
children's program, "Davey and Goliath," back to
commercial television (see www.daveyandgoliath.org).
Pastor Shafer continues to represent the ELCA
on the board of the National Interfaith Cable Coalition, also known
as Faith and Values Media, the religion partner in the Hallmark
Channel (www.faithandvaluesmedia.org).
He is also on the board of the Good Shepherd Home in Allentown (www.goodshepherdrehab.org). Recently, he served as a voting member for the 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly (www.elca.org/assembly).
He formerly served as chair of the National Council of Churches USA
(NCC) Communication Commission and on the NCC board of directors and
executive committee (www.ncccusa.org);
was vice president of Religion Communicators Council Inc. (RCC),
New York
; and was chair of the RCC's annual Wilbur Awards for excellence in
Religion themes in print and broadcast, books, and film (www.religioncommunicators.org).
Take a look at Pastor Shafer's "blog" at www.ericcshafer.blogspot.com.
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