Posts in News
Mission Investment Fund (MIF) raises rates on Term and Demand Investments

Demand Investments are now earning as high as 2.50% APY*. These Demand Investments allow you add and withdraw funds from your savings whenever you like. To open a new account, visit us at mif.elca.org or call 877-886-3522.

At the same time it’s helping you build your savings, your investment in the Mission Investment Fund will help fund loans to ELCA congregations and ministries so they can continue doing God’s work in the world. That’s two compelling reasons to connect with MIF.

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Registration is open for the 2023 Grand Canyon Synod Assembly

Under the theme Be Bold in Your Baptism, we gather at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Oro Valley, Friday and Saturday, June 9 – 10, 2023, for our annual synod assembly.

Registration is now open. Voting members can access $150 early bird registration through 4/17/2023. Visitors can register for $100, with ministry partner tables available for $100 as well.

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World Water Day March 22

World Water Day is observed each year on March 22 to promote the responsible use of water and access to safe water for everyone. This year, consider ways that you might observe World Water Day.

One of LAMA’s Policy Priorities for 2023 is Water: its scarcity, its quality, its sustainability. If you have information to share or an interest in discussing water resources, please contact Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Arizona at director@lamaz.org.

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[re]imagine Lent: 3/15/2023

I can really sympathize with Samuel . He was called by God to anoint Saul as king over Israel, only Saul disobeyed God – and God decided to go another route. Reading 1 Samuel 15-16 over again, it doesn’t even seem like Samuel and Saul were good friends, and yet Samuel grieved that what was potentially going to be a good thing never panned out.

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Ordination of Dan Potaznick

The Ordination of Dan Potaznick will take place at 1pm EST, 10am MST/PDT, 11am MDT, on Saturday, March 18, 2023 at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church (411 Susquehanna Road, Ambler, Pennsylvania, 19002. Bishop Deborah K. Hutterer will preside and Rev. Timothy B. Johansen of Temple Lutheran Church in Havertown, Pennsylvania will preach. Click here to watch the livestream or archived video on YouTube.

Your prayers and presence are requested. Rostered ministers are invited to process, color of the day is red. Dan is our synod’s new Director of Generosity and Strategic Development.

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High Country Conference Spring Gathering is Mar 25, 2023

Members of all Grand Canyon Synod congregations and ministries, including active and retired leaders, are welcome to our online spring gatherings.

Our final gathering is the High Country Conference Spring Gathering: Saturday, March 25, 2023, 11:00 AM – 1:30 PM at Christ Lutheran Church in Sedona.

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A Binational Young Adult Gathering

A Binational Young Adult Gathering is taking place Saturday, 3/18/2023, 10am-4pm. More information and registration @ donorbox.org/events/419139. Meet at 10am at Carl’s Jr. (105 5th St., Douglas AZ 85607), to cross to Agua Prieta, Sonora.

Come learn about service, justice and faith on the U.S./Mexico borderlands with other young adults from the U.S. and Mexico.

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[re]imagine Lent: 3/14/2023

The daffodils in the courtyard at the Synod Office started poking through the ground this week. Seems a little early to me, but these beautiful green shoots are just one more reminder that this world is bigger than this moment. It’s bigger than the war in Ukraine, it’s bigger than hateful legislation, hungry people struggling to get out of poverty, and my own brokenness.

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Reinterpreting John 9 

The healing of the blind man in John chapter 9 is one of my favorite healing stories in the whole Bible.  I love this story because in this story Jesus confronts and rejects the common belief that disabilities are somehow caused by sin. 

I commend to you the book A Healing Homiletic: Preaching and Disability by Kathy Black.  Kathy Black is an ordained Methodist minister who has served as the chaplain at Gallaudet University and pastored two churches for deaf persons.

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Nourishing community and cultivating joy in Federal Way, Wash.

If you visit the Saturday-morning farmers market in Federal Way, Wash., you might see Kay (Kyong Yon) Mattingly smiling and dancing with her friends from Dasom Bi-Cultural Cooperation, a ministry of Light of Grace Lutheran Church. The ministry hosts a booth with a variety of Korean goods for sale, but the members also seek to bring joy to those around them – and create it for themselves.

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Roma refugees from Ukraine face racism, discrimination

Mariia Simian, from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, is living through war for a second time. Just three years old when World War II tore across Europe in the 1940s, she says the memories haunt her.

“I remember everything,” she says. “I often remember. My mother hid our whole family from this horror wherever she could – in the basement, in fields behind the house – because the Nazis were looking for Roma.”

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