Mission Support Builds Relationships from Phoenix to Wittenberg
This quarter, we celebrate how congregational mission support connects the Grand Canyon Synod with ministries and leaders across the wider church.
Half of every mission support dollar received by the synod is shared with ELCA churchwide ministry, supporting work throughout the global church—including the ELCA’s participation in the Lutheran World Federation. The other half remains in our synod, investing directly in rostered and lay leaders.
This fall, one of those leaders, Pastorá Verónica Alvarez of Faith/La Fe Lutheran Church in Phoenix, will represent our synod at the 31st Lutheran World Federation International Seminar for Pastors in Wittenberg, Germany.
Below, Bishop Deborah K. Hutterer shares the full story of this ministry made possible through your generosity.
Dear Siblings in Christ,
In a nation and a world that is so divided, I often wonder how I can help share the Lutheran witness of grace beyond myself, our synod, and even the ELCA. I have come to believe the answer lies in our relationships: with God, and with one another. Through your congregational mission support, you make room for exactly this kind of relational leadership to emerge, whether it is lived out three pews from you or three continents away.
This fall, Pastorá Verónica Alvarez of Faith/La Fe Lutheran Church in Phoenix will travel more than 5,600 miles to Wittenberg, Germany, to take part in the 31st Lutheran World Federation (LWF) International Seminar for Pastors. For two weeks, she will join colleagues from all seven LWF regions to study Luther’s own writings, worship together, and grow in relationship with God and with one another in ways that seminar alumni describe as shaping their calling long after they return home.
Pastorá Verónica was selected by the LWF Center Wittenberg, chosen from pastors nominated by member churches across the Lutheran World Federation, the global communion of roughly 150 Lutheran church bodies to which the ELCA belongs. Each year, the Grand Canyon Synod nominates one of our own leaders, rostered or lay, for these seminars and funds roughly half the cost of attending, so that stepping into this kind of responsibility is never limited by a leader’s ability to pay.
Last year, that leader was Sarah Lee, a lay leader serving Northern Arizona University’s Lutheran Campus Ministry, who returned home with deepened relationships across the global church and a renewed sense of calling to serve where she is planted.
When your congregation makes a gift of mission support, half of every dollar the synod receives is shared as our own benevolence to ELCA churchwide ministry. With this gift, together we are supporting the ELCA’s broader work around the world, including its membership in the LWF. The other half of your mission support stays in the synod, investing directly in rostered leaders like Pastorá Verónica and lay leaders like Sarah.
Pastorá Verónica will carry the story of Faith/La Fe, and of our whole synod, into a room filled with church leaders from every corner of the globe. She will carry their stories home to us in return, stories of a God already at work far beyond anything we could do alone. “Synod” means to journey together, and this November, our journey takes us all the way to Wittenberg and back.
Thank you for your gift of mission support that, whether called to serve in a congregation, synod, churchwide, or the global church, equips leaders to deepen relationships in the name of Jesus. This is what it means to be church together: to bear witness to Christ far beyond ourselves as one synod, one church, one world.
With you in Christ,
The Rev. Deborah K. Hutterer, Bishop
Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA