The March, 2023, bimonthly e-newsletter for ELCA congregational and synodical leaders is here, featuring: updated tax guides, Rostered Ministers Gathering early registration, ELCA Federal Credit Union ministry card, unemployment exemptions for churches, and how to keep your building safe from wayward vehicles.
Read MoreWorld 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.
Read MoreI 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreWe thank the 74 active and 60 retired rostered ministers who completed their rostered minister report. Your feedback is crucial in weaving the fabric of our synod. And your answers to financial questions help us promote the financial health of our leaders.
It’s not too late to complete your required report. Access the report on our rostered minister report page.
Read MoreFor all who are anxious for their financial future after this week’s bank collapses and for keen and collaborative wisdom among those crafting policies in response…
For peace and protection for our transgender siblings, and especially transgender youth, as 41 state legislatures consider bills restricting and revoking their rights…
For a path forward and a renewed commitment to the common good amidst continued political partisan division in the United States and across the globe…
For people on the west coast of the United States, Australia, and Kenya who are living with extreme flooding; for those facing threat of sever storms on the east coast of the United States; and for victims of Cyclone Freddy in Malawi…
In thanksgiving for recently negotiated peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia…
For the people of El Salvador, living under a century of civil conflict…
For Muslim siblings preparing for Ramadan…
For all caregivers who provide for, educate, and nurture children…
For all navigating news of pregnancy, expected or unexpected, and for their support systems…
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.
Read MoreMountain View Lutheran Church has an opening for Office Supervisor. For a job description and more information, please visit mvlutheran.org/jobs.
Read MoreLutherans ages 18 – 30-something are invited to a BBQ meet up on March 26, 2023, 12:30-2:30pm MST at the ASU Polytechnic Ministry House (7165 E Thistle Ave., Mesa, AZ 85212). Text 480-231-2575 to RSVP.
Read MoreA 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.
Read MoreYvonne Shortt is an artist who uses grasses, clay, moss, and other natural materials to create beautiful sculptures of people’s heads. Slowly over time Yvonne began losing her eyesight because of a rare genetic disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa. Her story is part of a documentary called Adapt-Ability by filmmaker James Robinson which highlights how her limitations are really a gift to her art.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreDuring the summer of 2024, the ELCA Youth Gathering, MYLE, the tAble and Young Adult Gathering will center around the theme of “Created to Be” which comes from Psalm 139. To learn more about the 2024 Gathering, visit elca.org/Gathering and watch the video in this post.
Read MoreIf 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.
Read MoreKeah Brown, a journalist, has filled this book with her essays. In each standalone essay, Ms. Brown addresses a particular issue of life as a black woman living with Cerebral Palsy in a mostly able-bodied white America. She discusses the depression that comes from internalizing the “idealized body” of the able-bodied world we live in.
Read MoreThank you so much for your support of what we do at ELCA Disability Ministries. Especially, we thank God for you and the way the Spirit is moving you to make accessibility and equity for people with disabilities a priority in the lives of your ministries.
Read MoreMariia 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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