Change has come to one of America’s largest Christian denominations. Last week the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America elected its first female presiding bishop, the church’s top office. Bishop Elizabeth Eaton won in a surprise 600-287 landslide at the denomination’s triennial Churchwide Assembly in Pittsburgh. A 4-million member denomination with nearly 10,000 congregations, the ELCA is twice as large as the Episcopal Church, which elected its first female presiding bishop seven years ago. Like most mainline denominations, however, the ELCA faces a membership decline–accelerated by its 2009 decision to allow openly gay pastors. Since then, half a million members have left the denomination. Eaton, 58, is a Cleveland native and graduate of Harvard Divinity School and the College of Wooster. Her husband, Rev. Conrad Selnick, is an Episcopal priest. She will be installed on October 5, possibly at Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago’s Hyde Park, and her first day in office will be November 1. TIME caught up with Eaton shortly after her election. “I’m kind of stunned,” she says of her win. She opens up about gay clergy, spiritual direction, and, in true Lutheran fashion, jello. Many people might not know what makes the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America unique. How would you explain the denomination? If people even know what a Lutheran is, most people are stuck on the lovely homespun caricature developed by Garrison Keillor in Prairie Home Companion and Lake Woebegon and all that. We often have parodies of ourselves where we say that all we do is eat different kinds of jello and green bean casserole. That is no longer true about us. Our growing edges in this church are African national congregations and Latino congregations, which is bringing a whole new wonderful flavor to the Lutheran potluck, theologically and culturally. What does the election of a woman mean for the ELCA and for the broader Christian community in America? People tell me that they think it is pretty tremendous, I can’t figure it out, it is just me for heaven’s sake. Our current presiding bishop