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Bishop Hutterer: The Church continues

Bishop Hutterer: The Church continues

Recently I heard a story about a Lutheran woman from the United States traveling through eastern Europe years ago. As she talked with a group of locals, it came up that she was Lutheran. One woman in the group told the American, “I know who you are.”

The European woman went into her house and came out with a quilt. She showed the American woman a label sewn onto the quilt which gave the name of an ELCA church who had made and donated it. "I was once in a refugee camp and had nothing,” the woman said. “You gave this quilt to me.”

Bishop Hutterer, LettersBrian FlatgardApril 21, 2020Comment

Arizona Christian Denomination Leaders Encourage Governor Ducey to Extend Stay Home Order

Arizona Christian Denomination Leaders Encourage Governor Ducey to Extend Stay Home Order

The Arizona judicatory leaders of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, The United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, and The Episcopal Church jointly sent the following letter to Governor Doug Ducey.

Bishop Hutterer, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardApril 21, 2020Comment

Bishop Eaton issues Earth Day message

Bishop Eaton issues Earth Day message

As I work from home at our dining room table, I look out the front window and see the wildlife at my husband's feeders. God created such beautiful creatures. As Christians we are guided by the promise expressed in our social statement that we are empowered "to be loving servants to creation." It is our duty to care for God's earth.

Bishop Eaton, LettersBrian FlatgardApril 15, 2020Climate ChangeComment

There will be joy: Bishop Eaton's Easter message 2020

There will be joy: Bishop Eaton's Easter message 2020

Our experiences this Easter are remarkably similar to those of the first Easter. Amidst fear and anxiety and crushing disappointment, we will sing our "Alleluias" with growing hope, strength, defiance and joy, confident that God loves us completely and has brought us into eternal life. Christ is risen. Alleluia.

Bishop Eaton, ELCA, Holy Week, LettersBrian FlatgardApril 9, 2020 Comment

Allie Papke-Larson: The valley of dry bones

Allie Papke-Larson: The valley of dry bones

From Allie Papke-Larson: We find ourselves lingering between life and death, waiting for breath, waiting for the danger of this Coronavirus to pass, waiting for the uncertainty that has settled into our nation, into our churches, to pass.

And yet we are still in the season of Lent. These things that we are waiting for will not come to us yet, Christ has not died, let alone risen, and this Coronavirus and its ramifications, may be with us for months, maybe years.

Letters, Grand Canyon SynodBrian FlatgardApril 9, 2020Allie Papke-Larson, High Country ConferenceComment

Bishop Eaton: Freed in Christ

Bishop Eaton: Freed in Christ

In her April column for Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reflects on this paradox found in Martin Luther’s treatise On the Freedom of a Christian: “A Christian is lord of all, servant of all, completely free of everything. A Christian is servant, completely attentive to the needs of all.” Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/2XkCvqQ and in Spanish at https://bit.ly/3aSOcJ6.

Bishop Eaton, ELCA, LettersBrian FlatgardApril 8, 2020Comment

Bishop Hutterer (video): Waiting in the Garden

Bishop Hutterer (video): Waiting in the Garden

This Holy Week, we are tired.

We know an Easter is coming—an Easter of hugs and alleluias—but for the first time for some of us, we are not sure on what day this Easter dawn shall burst forth.

Bishop Hutterer, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardApril 8, 2020 Comments

Bishop Eaton video message: Be of good courage, dear church

Bishop Eaton video message: Be of good courage, dear church

Bishop Elizabeth Eaton encourages us to be of good courage while we move towards a Holy Week unlike any other.

Bishop Eaton, ELCA, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardApril 1, 2020Comment

Bishop Eaton's March 2020 shelter-in-place message

Bishop Eaton's March 2020 shelter-in-place message

During these times of COVID-19/Coronavirus, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton provides some thoughts as many of us are quarantined.

Bishop Eaton, ELCA, LettersBrian FlatgardMarch 31, 2020Comment

Bishop Hutterer: Worship during Lenten quarantine

Bishop Hutterer: Worship during Lenten quarantine

Dear church, how quickly our world has changed.

Two weeks ago, I sent a letter urging our congregations to suspend in-person worship until early April. And now, I write to urge you to suspend in-person worship until early May, possibly longer.

As we near the end of Lent, what about Holy Week and Easter?

Bishop Hutterer, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardMarch 26, 2020 Comments

Church Together: Pray the Lord's Prayer at noon, 3/25/2020

Church Together: Pray the Lord's Prayer at noon, 3/25/2020

ELCA presiding bishop Elizabeth Eaton extends an invitation to join in the Lord's Prayer on Wednesday, March 25, 2020 at noon local time.

I am writing to extend an invitation we have received from Pope Francis, through the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches, to join in the Lord's Prayer on March 25, 2020 at noon your local time. Please share this invitation through your synods, congregations, ecumenical communities and individual networks.

Bishop Eaton, Prayers, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardMarch 25, 2020Comment

Bishop Hutterer: Our help comes from the Lord

Bishop Hutterer: Our help comes from the Lord

My how things have changed in just one week and how they will continue to change in the coming days.

For today, please remember that we are church together for the sake of the world. We are better together. We get to model a different kind of community than one that is motivated by fear and hoarding.

Bishop Hutterer, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardMarch 18, 2020Comment

Allie Papke-Larson: Lent is a time to leave our Gardens

Allie Papke-Larson: Lent is a time to leave our Gardens

Maybe Lent is a time when we look at the Gardens we are in, the safe places that have kept us whole, but are no longer nurturing us. Perhaps it is a time when we decide to risk expanding ourselves, risk stepping out of the Garden into the Wilderness, to see what can be learned in this mysterious, unfamiliar place.

Letters, Grand Canyon SynodBrian FlatgardMarch 13, 2020Allie Papke-Larson, 2020 Lent, High Country Conference Comments

Bishop Hutterer: Being church in a time of pandemic

Bishop Hutterer: Being church in a time of pandemic

This Lenten season we live in a time of pandemic. We also live in a time of rapid change. Coronavirus—ignoring the human boundaries of nation-states, class, culture, race, and religion—spreads with the exponential inevitability of a mathematical formula.

As we struggle to understand the virus and its effect on our daily lives, we also wonder how best to be church together. We are a church whose practices literally go hand-in-hand with sharing the virus.

Bishop Hutterer, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardMarch 12, 2020Comment

Bishop Eaton's March letter: Take and eat

Bishop Eaton's March letter: Take and eat

This Lent, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reflects on Paul’s stormy journey to Rome and the Lord’s Supper. In her March column, she reminds us that our Lord’s holy meal is an act of faith, trust, love, strength for the journey, forgiveness and resistance—it’s an intimate communion with God and each other. Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/3cKxNIc and in Spanish at https://bit.ly/2xnTn54.

Bishop Eaton, ELCA, LettersBrian FlatgardMarch 10, 2020Comment

Bishop Eaton addresses concerns about COVID-19

Bishop Eaton addresses concerns about COVID-19

In 1527 the plague returned to Wittenberg, Germany. Two hundred years earlier the plague had swept across Europe killing up to 40% of the population. Understandably, people were anxious and wondered what a safe and faithful response might be.

In answer to this, Martin Luther wrote "Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague." In it, he emphasized the duty to care for the neighbor, the responsibility of government to protect and provide services to its citizens, a caution about recklessness, and the importance of science, medicine and common sense.

ELCA, Bishop Eaton, Covid-19, LettersBrian FlatgardMarch 8, 2020Comment

Ashes to Ashes, Earth to Earth : #NoPlasticsforLent

Ashes to Ashes, Earth to Earth : #NoPlasticsforLent

When I was growing up on a small 3 acre farm in Tacoma, Washington with my two parents and three siblings, I HATED going outside and doing yard work. It was the last thing I wanted to do.

I would rather have been inside the house watching movies on our VHS player. On top of the mandatory all-family yard work on the farm, we lived frugally getting everything second-hand, including my school outfits which did not fit my fashion standards. At all.

ELCA, LettersBrian FlatgardFebruary 24, 20202020 Lent, Youth and Young Adult, Faith LensComment

Bishop Eaton: We are broken

Bishop Eaton: We are broken

In the February issue of Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reminds us of our uniquely Lutheran understanding of the gospel and renews her call for studying Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. “Luther said he needed to study it every day—and he wrote it! Let’s do the same.” Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/2uhqshX and in Spanish athttps://bit.ly/2vXv90F.

Bishop Eaton, ELCA, LettersBrian FlatgardFebruary 13, 2020Comment

Remembering Bishop Emeritus Herb Chilstrom

Remembering Bishop Emeritus Herb Chilstrom

Remembering Bishop Emeritus Herb Chilstrom, we look back to a short video of a 2013 devotion delivered from his garden, where he compares the messy work of building a church to composting.

Full obituary and info on services available at gcsynod.org/news/chilstrom.

ELCA, In Memoriam, LettersBrian FlatgardFebruary 6, 2020Herb ChilstromComment

Bishop Eaton issues statement on new travel ban

Bishop Eaton issues statement on new travel ban

Dear Church: Last week, on the third anniversary of the original executive order, the administration extended the travel ban to the United States from seven majority Muslim countries to thirteen. The ban suspends the issuing of immigrant visas that can lead to permanent residency for those from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Nigeria, as well as visas available through a diversity lottery for applicants from Sudan and Tanzania.

As Lutherans, these actions should concern us. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God has set us free from ourselves to serve our neighbor.

Bishop Eaton, ELCA, Advocacy, LettersBrian FlatgardFebruary 6, 2020Comment