This week, we honor The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who preached a message of love. A message of unity where all of God's people could walk together. Where people of faith stood as a beacon of light to those struggling against injustice.
In my travels throughout the Grand Canyon Synod, I am grateful to see the myriad ways in which our congregations and people shine.
Read MoreDear Church,
With sadness I bring you the news that Presiding Bishop Emeritus Herbert W. Chilstrom died at home early this morning. His wife, Pastor Corinne Chilstrom; his son, Chris Holt; and family were with him.
Read MoreThe current crisis between the United States and Iran is worrisome for many of us in our church, in our nation and in the world. Our country and Iran need urgently to find ways to resolve our differences through a de-escalation of the current crisis, using diplomacy and other peaceful means. Our social statement, "For Peace in God's World," offers guidance.
Read MoreLast week, in a flurry of misleading headlines, many of us read that the United Methodist Church had split. This is not, in fact, what happened.
Many of you may be pondering the good Lutheran question: What does this mean? For the UMC? For our full communion partnership? It is simply too soon to have clarity on those questions. I assure you that there are leaders, both ELCA and UMC, who are carefully and faithfully tending to these questions.
Read MoreFrom Mosaic’s Jim Fruehling, Vice President of Behavioral and Spiritual Supports: Looking back over a career inevitably prompts some nostalgia – not necessarily because the “old days” were always that good, but because of colleagues, friends and coworkers who came alongside to cast a light on the path. It’s these relationships that many of us recall the most, the content of which made life meaningful, as they continue to do, even today.
Read MoreIn the January 2020 issue of Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reflects on white privilege (reprint of her June 2108 column): “We aren’t free until all of us are free.” Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/36BvljB and in Spanish at https://bit.ly/39UNISW.
Read MoreFrom Allie Papke-Larson: Now that Christmas day has come and gone, the presents opened, the second turkey of the season stuffed and eaten, and 25 million tons of packaging and old Christmas trees are in our landfills, it’s time for Americans everywhere to consume the next thing: our New Year’s resolutions, plumped up and stuffed by our self-help culture.
Read MoreYou are light and hope as you answer God’s call in your life, as you do your quiet work which few may see, as you discover and rediscover Jesus Christ in both the friend and the stranger, as you listen to people share their painful stories and wishing we could fix them, or as you listen when people rejoice at small and large victories.
You are hope and light. God uses you for good in the world. Here is to 2020: for your good health, fearless courage when you need it, and steadiness in the work you are called to do in the Grand Canyon Synod and in your circles of influence.
Read MoreFrom Allie Papke-Larson comes this reflection. Papke-Larson is Program Coordinator for Lutheran Campus Ministries/Canterbury Episcopal Campus Ministries at Northern Arizona University and Youth Director at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Flagstaff.
When I was in college I studied abroad in Northern Ireland. I was studying under a Northern Irish professor leading me through a semester of study of what some in his country call The Troubles. One of the first things I learned was that if you thought you had it sorted out, you were wrong.
Read MoreIn her December column for Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reflects on the mystery of the season: the expectation and longing of Advent and the true gifts of Christmas—“the helpless baby in a wooden manger, a broken man on a cross.” Read her column in English and in Spanish.
Read MoreAs Thanksgiving approaches, we are reminded to notice God’s abundance and “count our blessings.” You may even practice this at a Thanksgiving table of family, friends and food.
It’s easy to think of Jesus at such a table. The Gospel gives us numerous examples of Jesus and the disciples giving thanks for the bread of that day, and then returning to the dusty road of service with nothing more than simple clothes and sandals for walking.
Read MoreFrom Allie Papke-Larson comes this reflection. Papke-Larson is Program Coordinator for Lutheran Campus Ministries/Canterbury Episcopal Campus Ministries at Northern Arizona University and Youth Director at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Flagstaff.
From September 2015 to September 2017 I lived and worked in an intentional community located in the North Cascades of Washington State called Holden Village. My time in the village deeply shaped me and I would like to share with you a piece of what it felt like to begin to leave that place.
Read MoreIn her November column for Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton compares doubt to winter—it can seem long, cold, barren, isolating and lonely. But she reminds us that doubt is part of faith—and God will carry us through the winter. Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/2oDi1dX and in Spanish at https://bit.ly/328m8wj.
Read MoreAt the Bishop’s Fall Gathering, someone asked me, “Where do you find joy?” And, while I find many places of joy, it got me thinking. When I opened myself to serve in this role as bishop, I wasn’t thinking of joy. My prayer was, and still is, that God would use me to serve. Even though I get to do so many wonderful things, there are days when I struggle.
Read MoreIn September the synod council, staff, and conference deans gathered in Tucson for a weekend of church business, worship, fellowship, and a border immersion experience. The experience comes out of our commitment to live into our strategic plan of communicating Jesus: “We will grow our public witness through advocacy, integrating our ELCA theology and engagement with current issues and contextual realities.”
The workshop included time to examine our perceptions around border issues, to cross the border and visit our Lutheran-Episcopal ministry, Cruzando Fronteras, and worship with the GCS’s oldest Spanish speaking congregation, Iglesia San Juan Bautista.
View reports, resources, and reflections of the participants.
Read MoreI grew up the daughter of a water and wastewater engineer. On summer vacations and road trips of any length, our family made detours to visit water treatment plants.
I think it was by osmosis that I came to know that there is a relationship between human activity and the natural environment and so it is not surprising that I ended up as one of the Disaster Response Coordinators in the Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR) network. Read the full story »
Read MoreIn her September/October column for Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reflects on the 2019 Churchwide Assembly, saying the actions taken were based on “our scriptural and confessional understanding of who God chooses us to be.” In Milwaukee, she says, “we stepped out in faith.” Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/2mjiMYj and in Spanish at https://bit.ly/2oDR5KK.
Read MorePresiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton invited me and two other U.S. bishops (Bishop Susan Briner and Bishop Patricia Davenport) to participate in an annual retreat held early September for newly elected leaders by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
In addition to the three ELCA bishops, there were bishops and pastor presidents from Zambia, Ghana, South Korea, Thailand, northern India, Bolivia, the River Table (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay) and Peru.
Read MoreCentered in Christ, the 2019 Churchwide Assembly was significant in many ways: worship, thoughtful deliberation and prayer led to the adoption of memorials and resolutions that will shape this church for years to come. Among these decisions, this church was called to address the deadly power of racism and white supremacy. Martin Luther's clear exposition of the gospel — that God justifies, that we are redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and that grace is a gift — not only makes it possible to engage in this work but gives us a framework in which to do it.
The doctrine of justification is a great leveler. It acknowledges that no one group of people can claim supremacy over others. We are all deeply in need of grace, and God gives this gift to all. Standing equally under the judgement and promise of the gospel, we, as a church, can recognize the overt and covert ways that a culture of white supremacy denies full humanity to all people, and we can work to dismantle it.
We offered a public apology titled "Declaration of the ELCA to People of African Descent."
We adopted a resolution condemning white supremacy.
We adopted a resolution to establish June 17 as "Emanuel 9 Day of Repentance," commemorating the martyrdom of Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham-Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel L. Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson by a violent white supremacist, Dylann Roof, who grew up in the ELCA.
We are blessed to be church together in a time of renewal. Looking back through centuries of our faith’s history, we can imagine the anxiety and doubt of people living in times of extreme change. We can also see what must have been nearly invisible to that congregation of saints: the Holy Spirit at work.
Dr. Dwight Zscheile, of Luther Seminary, recently wrote about predictions from an ELCA Research & Evaluation project that the ELCA may be gone in 30 years. You can read Zscheile’s article at faithlead.luthersem.edu/will-the-elca-will-be-gone-in-30-years.
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