Simon To Address 2007 Assembly
Bread for the World Founder Keynote Speaker

And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
Isaiah 58:10

The Christian Church has long fought a battle against hunger. But 35 years ago Reverend Art Simon formed a group that took this crusade to another level.

Simon is the founder of Bread for the World, the nation’s premier citizen’s lobby against hunger. Since its formation, Bread for the World has been committed to helping other people of faith mobilize to influence U.S. policies that address the causes of hunger

Pr. Simon, now president emeritus of Bread for the World, will serve as the keynote speaker at the Northwestern Ohio Synod 2007 Assembly to be held at the Bowen-Thompson University Union of Bowling Green State University on Friday-Saturday, May 18-19.

Pr. Simon said his speech will focus on the topic of global and domestic hunger, but he also said the speech will anchor its motivation through the Gospel.

“Some times people are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation, but we can make a difference (against hunger),” Pr. Simon said. “We still have a long way to go, and there are a number of things we can do.”

Pr. Simon was pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church on New York’s Lower East Side, a densely populated low-income area, from 1961 to 1972. While he saw that churches and local food banks were doing good work in direct assistance to the hungry, he hoped to do more.

In October of 1972, a small group of Catholics and Protestants met to reflect on how persons of faith could be mobilized to influence U.S. policies that address the causes of hunger. Under Pr. Simon’s leadership, the group began to test the idea in the spring of 1974. Since that time Bread for the World has grown into a group of more than 58,000 people.

“I did have hope that Bread for the World would develop into something sizable with the clout it has now,” Pr. Simon said. “But I didn’t know if that was a pipe dream. But our mission has been clear from the onset, and we’ve been able to keep on track.”

Since that time Bread for the World has won numerous victories that have aided the impoverished both in this country and abroad.

Pr. Simon also has written extensively about the topic of hunger. His book, Bread for the World, won the national Religious Book Award. Other books by Simon include Faces of Poverty, The Politics of World Hunger (which was co-authored by his brother, the late Sen. Paul Simon), and Grace at the Table: Ending Hunger in God’s World (with David Beckmann, his successor as president of Bread for the World). His most recent book is Rediscovering the Lord’s Prayer.

Pr. Simon has had articles featured in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and other journals and major newspapers.

An alumnus of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, Pr. Simon served for almost two decades as chief executive officer of Bread for the World, then directed the Washington Office of Christian Children’s Fund from 1992 to 1997. He also has received a number of awards and honorary degrees, including a Presidential Award for lifetime achievement against hunger.

A native of Eugene, Oregon, Pr. Simon is the father of four adult children.

Taylor To Lead Bible Study At Assembly
Pr. Walter F. Taylor Jr., Ph.D., will serve as the leader of the Bible Study at the Northwestern Ohio Synod 2007 Assembly.

The Ernest W. and Edith S. Ogram Professor of New Testament Studies and Director of Graduate Studies at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Pr. Taylor’s Bible Study will focus on the New Testament book of Galatians and how it affects and reflects our life together as people of God.

Pr. Taylor, who first served as a parish pastor in Lincoln, Neb., from 1978-81, has been a member of the faculty at Trinity Lutheran Seminary for 26 years, accepting his current assignment in 1996. He also served as Fulbright Professor at Universität Heidelberg, in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1988-89.

He received his bachelor’s degree from Midland Lutheran College in 1969 and earned his masters of divinity from Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1973. Pr. Taylor earned his Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate University in 1981

Pr. Taylor and his wife of 37 years, Dyann, have two grown children who live in Chicago.