Situation Report: May 2022 Tornadoes

On the night of May 30, a series of storms, including tornadoes, swept through the Central Great Plains and Upper Mississippi Valley. In Minnesota, heavily affected communities included Eagle Bend, Clarissa and Browerville, where over 100 buildings were damaged. In South Dakota, a tornado impacted the area around the city of Brandon, severely damaging Beaver Valley Lutheran Church in Valley Springs.

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Situation Report: Ukraine and Eastern Europe (June 6, 2022)

More than three months since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, fighting continues to intensify as humanitarian conditions deteriorate. The United Nations’ OCHA Ukraine: Humanitarian Report estimates that 6.6 million people have fled the country and 8 million are displaced internally.

Read this situation report from Lutheran Disaster Response, including partner updates with Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary (ELCH) and Lutheran World Federation.

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Commemoration of the Emanuel Nine: June 17, 2022

As part of the 2019 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, voting members adopted a resolution designating June 17 as a commemoration of the martyrdom of the Emanuel 9—the nine people shot and killed on June 17, 2015, during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.

Our relationship to the shooter, as well as two of the slain, reminds us of both our complicity and our calling.

The resources at elca.org/emanuelnine are provided to help synods and congregations mark this commemoration.

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Watch the entire 2022 Grand Canyon Synod Assembly

Enjoy this super-cut of our 2022 Grand Canyon Synod Assembly, which is all of our various Facebook livestreams in one video, with all the breaks and pauses removed.

A special thanks to Rob Mills, the audio/video technician with our host church, Love of Christ Lutheran in Mesa, who took the time to compile this video and also filmed and livestreamed our assembly.

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4 things you can do to keep your organization cyber-safe

Cybercriminals don’t just focus on “the big guys.” Whether you have 10 employees or 10,000, human error is easily exploited by cybercriminals, and in fact a large percentage of cyberattacks are caused by human error or behavior.

Therefore, employees need to understand why protecting sensitive information is important and how to recognize threats. Here are four things you can do to keep your organization cyber-safe. Learn more at cisa.gov.

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Ordination celebrations: 6/10/2022

Today we celebrate these ordination anniversaries:

  • Rev. Harold Peterson, who celebrates 66 years on June 10.

  • Rev. Luther Tolo, who celebrates 60 years on June 10.

  • Rev. Lester Hoffmann, who celebrates 66 years on June 10.

  • Rev. Ronald Rude, who celebrates 43 years on June 10.

  • Rev. Frank Nausin, who celebrates 48 years on June 10.

  • Rev. Thomas Rogers, who celebrates 43 years on June 10.

  • Rev. John Elverum, who celebrates 60 years on June 10.

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Grand Canyon Synod Transition Team Annual Report: 2022

The Grand Canyon Synod (GCS) Transition Team in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Synod (RMS) walks with Congregations through the transition time of calling a new rostered leader (pastor or deacon). The Team is led by Bishop Hutterer with Director of Congregation Transitions in the GCS and RMS, Deacon Janice Zimbelman, Associate for Candidate Identification, Dr. Jerry Kingston, and Transition Coaches, Rev. Pat Reed and Rev. Glenn Zimbelman.

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Rev. Miguel Gomez-Acosta Annual Report: 2022

The 2022 annual report from Rev. Miguel Gomez-Acosta, Director for Evangelical Mission and Bishop’s Associate for Congregational Vitality.

“It has been three years since the last time we were gathered in one place, in-person, to conduct the business of the church. Praise be to God! In many ways this synod assembly reflects the rest of the church — we are moving in the right direction, but not quite back at full capacity.”

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