Eighty years ago, on a beautiful Sunday morning, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was tragically transformed from an island paradise into a bloody battlefield. After the Japanese bombed the U.S. Navy, war was declared and tragedy ensued. During times like these, the Lutheran church has always trusted our chaplains to bring a ministry of Word and Sacrament — to remind people that, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there is always a way toward peace.
Read MoreHave you ever seen somebody going through a really tough time during Thanksgiving and wondered how they could feel thankful? Or know people who are really poor and wonder how they could be generous?
What I have learned over the years is that thankfulness and generosity are intrinsically tied together and yet neither has very much to do with one's circumstances or fortunes. Read in this post or view as PDF.
Read MoreWe are thankful to share a perspective from a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.
“Violence and peace are contagious. Maintaining them depends on one’s decision. A family member who has been raised experiencing one of the two is most likely to act the same toward people around them. One act of peace can change a society, and the same of violence.”
Read MoreIn response to the verdicts in the trial of Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William Bryan in Brunswick, Ga., for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, we offer a word of prayer and healing.
Read MoreAs both a member of the Cherokee nation and a first-generation Mexican American, news stories from the southern border in 2018 were more than just headlines for me.
These stories tap into the deep, largely unacknowledged, pain that Indigenous peoples in the United States have carried for generations around the governmental and the church practice of forcefully removing Native American children to send them to residential boarding schools. The philosophy of one of these institutions, The Carlisle School in Pennsylvania, was “Kill the Indian, save the man.”
Read MoreFor most of our lives, we’ve been aware that the promise of Thanksgiving—warm and loving reunions of family and friends around a common table heaped with abundance—can set us up for disappointments.
This year, in our first post-vaccination Thanksgiving, our hopes may even be higher as we finally gather in the larger groups we’ve yearned to be in. We’re striving for a “normal” Thanksgiving.
Read MoreThis study guide for the social statement Faith, Sexism, and Justice: A Call to Action has six sessions that guide participants to engage the social statement and discern ways to take action.
In this post we share Bishop Eaton’s invitation to participate. View the study guide here.
Read MoreA.J. Striffler, a Navy chaplain, served onboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower last year. Because the ship avoided port to prevent spread of COVID-19, it set a record for the longest consecutive time at sea for any naval vessel. Read his letter in this post.
Read MoreIn her November column for Living Lutheran, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reminds us that God has given all of us a mission to invite more people into the way of Jesus. Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/3DrbK6p and in Spanish at https://bit.ly/3os6PeU .
Read MoreIt’s a sunny day in the Wind River Range of Wyoming. A group of Indigenous people and I form a circle to burn tobacco and offer a prayer of thanks to the Creator for the plants we’re gathering today. Once we pray and provide an offering to Mother Earth, we scatter across the wide-open space to dig up roots and collect berries.
For five years I’ve been listening, learning, collecting plants and building relationships with the Restoring Shoshone Ancestral Food Gathering (RSAFG) group from the Wind River Indian Reservation.
Read MoreThis week, Bishop Eaton comes to you masked and vaccinated from Church Council as they gather to make important decisions for this church.
Read MoreOn November 11, 2021, the nation will observe Veterans Day. It is a day set aside to recognize veterans’ service in the Armed Forces, past and present.
Congregations across the ELCA have chosen to recognize veterans in worship. Others have chosen not to. Both choices are faithful expressions of people’s deepest convictions. I want to offer why all congregations should consider acknowledging veterans in their worship services around Veterans Day this year.
Read MoreCaring for creation is not just a boutique issue for the few, but a faith issue for all of us. As COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, is underway in Glasgow, Bishop Eaton reminds us that we are called to tend God’s garden and be good stewards of creation.
Read MoreThis month, we commemorate two particularly inspirational Catholic saints, Martin de Porres on November 3, and Elizabeth of Hungary on November 17, who each exemplified “faith active in love” in important ways. What might we learn from these important leaders?
Read MoreGreetings! My name is Rev. Lisa Heffernan, and on June 1st I began serving as coordinator for ELCA Disability Ministries. I work remotely out of South Dakota, where I am also serving as a part-time interim pastor with a congregation.
As a person with a disability (spina bifida), this ministry is especially close to my heart and I’m excited for where God is leading us in 2022 and beyond.
Read MoreThe Lutheran movement has a distinctive voice. The world has been saved and redeemed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and it’s not our effort but God’s. And it’s a gift! Bishop Eaton encourages us to revisit the small catechism this Reformation Day and recall the Lutheran exposition of the gospel.
Read MoreThe best stewardship campaign I ever planned was not done in the fall, but over Lent. I am writing this now in case anyone wants to think about doing it next spring.
About New Year’s I asked people to begin thinking about the most generous person they knew and to write a short story about what they had observed about that person that made them think that way.
Read MoreThe Evangelical Lutheran Church in America joins 14 other Churches and church-based organizations in a letter to Secretary of State Blinken to express concerns about the recent Israeli decision to label key Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations as “terrorist organizations.” Read the letter as PDF or in this post.
Read MorePastor Kristin Engstrom writes to share her new call with ELCA Global Mission as the Facilitator for Leadership Development and Capacity Building with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zambia. She also celebrates four years of the YAGM Senegal program.
Her YAGM Senegal blog will remain online, and she is now posting to her new blog.
Read MoreHow long can you spend in silence? Did you know that God appears as “sheer silence” in the Bible? Learn why Bishop Eaton’s spiritual director recommends 20 minutes of silence each day as a faith practice.
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