E-News 10-21-2024
Featuring news on Hurricane Relief, Ramping Up In Retirement
News and events for Election Year
E-News 10-7-2024
Featuring Bishop Manlove’s column
This column will be a little unusual as I am mostly going to point to some other writing I have been doing.
E-News 9-16-2024
Featuring a message from Pastor Phil Misner, Assistant to the Bishop
Recently I received the honor to be named one of fifty recipients of the Reflective Leadership Grant awarded by Leadership Education at Duke Divinity School. In short, the grant provides leaders in Christian organizations the opportunity to step out of the busy-ness of ministry to think about and plan for key pivots, or shifts, that they might anticipate. Allow me to share some reflections with you here.
E-News 9-3-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Megan Manlove
I am filled with hope and energy and ideas after spending a day and half this past week at the inaugural National Tribal Housing Ecosystem Summit organized by Enterprise Community Partners.
E-News 8-19-2024
Featuring a message from Liv Larson Andrews, DEM
Bega kwa bega is the Swahili phrase we have used over the years to exemplify the mutual nature of this companion synod relationship we enjoy with our siblings in the UKD. It means shoulder to shoulder and illustrates how we walk together in mission. But our time in the UKD was a full body experience. Face to face, we shared our stories. Hand to hand, we ate together and prayed as one body…
E-News 8-5-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Megan Manlove
In a recent email to rostered leaders, ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton wrote, “Recently we have heard one thing loud and clear: our candidates and future seminarians need more opportunities for discernment. As we listen across the church to learn how the churchwide expression can best support you, a constant theme is the need for more discernment resources. Therefore, in partnership with all seven of our ELCA seminaries, we are launching online discernment groups.
E-News 7-15-2024
Featuring a message from Rev Phil Misner, Assistant to the Bishop
When I meet with a group of people in the NWIM Synod—whether it is a group of deacons and pastors, a council, call committee, or any other group—more often than not I start that meeting with a spiritual practice called “Dwelling in the Word.” This exercise, which includes prayer, hearing a scripture passage read twice, sharing curiosities and where attentions lie, and wondering together what God might be up to has a way grounding whatever conversation comes next in God’s tender mercy.
E-News 7-1-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Megan Manlove
Since preachers following both the Revised Common Lectionary and Narrative Lectionary were in Mark this year, it seems appropriate to revisit these all-important words near the beginning of the gospel. July 1, 2024, also marks one year of me serving as bishop of the Northwest Intermountain Synod and I have been reflecting on the many ways I have seen the reign of God coming near all across our synod.
E-News 6-17-2024
Featuring a message from Liv Larson Andrews, DEM
Pride. It’s not a simple thing. Listed among the seven deadly sins. Noted for coming before a fall. Rarely praised as a virtue except in the case of school spirit. And the collective noun for a group of lions. But in the old song Deb led us in as we walked the streets of Spokane with our supportive signs and smiling faces, we came to a stanza that sings, “and we’ll guard each one’s dignity and save each one’s pride.” Pride!
E-News 6-4-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Megan Manlove
Luther, and Ministry in Daily Life
Why do we gather for worship, for Bible Study, for prayer? Why do we care about what is read and preached in our assemblies? We worship so we can collectively communicate with the Triune God. We also hope that we will be nourished for the time when, at the end of worship, we are sent forth into the world.
Find ways to celebrate how you and others in your congregation are being salt and light wherever you are.
E-NEWS 5-20-2024
Featuring a message from Rev Phil Misner, Assistant to the Bishop
The Holy Spirit, Like the Wind, Blows Where She Chooses
When you catch a glimpse of the Spirit blowing through your life, call others to notice as well for the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh. She is blowing through the world and our lives, our congregations and communities. Be blessed by the Holy Spirit!
E-News 5-6-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Meggan Manlove
These Things We Call Clusters
No one is going to prescribe exactly how to be a cluster. I have told the deans that I expect them to pull together the active rostered leaders every other month online or in person to check in on one another. Many rostered leaders do meet weekly or monthly in person for text study. Lay and rostered people should come together before regular synod assemblies, as our constitution states, though I celebrate those clusters that come together more often for business or recreation or worship.
E-News 4-15-2024
Featuring a message from Liv Larson Andrews, DEM
A Joyful Procession
“We are a people on the move” could also describe our synod staff lately. We have been out and about on the highways and byways, visiting parishes, meeting folks, connecting. Discovering what the holy Spirit is up to. It is inspiring and sacred. Perhaps we have been engaging in a long procession throughout our synod geography!
E-News 4-2-2024
Featuring a message from Bishopo Meggan Manlove
Back to the Basics
We are called to be the church, the Christian community gathered and sent week after week. We gather around Word and Sacraments and that is unique. When I say that we would do well to get back to basics I mean we need to read scripture well, create worship experiences that are faithful to the tradition and our local contexts, and love and care for our neighbors.
E-News 3-18-2024
Featuring a message from Pastor Phil
Green Blades Rising and Regional Gatherings
At the NWIM Synod’s Regional Gatherings later this spring, Grace Pomroy will lead us as we lean into a passage from Ezra 3. At that point of time, God’s people were just returning from the Exile to Jerusalem. Much of the city still lay in ruin—including the temple. Once the foundations of the new temple were laid, there was much joy as God was bringing to life something new from what once was barren. At the same time, there was much grief over all that once was and all that was lost. This mixture of grief and hope, of sadness and joy drive home Jesus’ words in John 12. There is dying and rising in the newness God is up to; there is joy and grief. Yet the promise remains that God will continue to bear fruit. I look forward to being with you at a Regional Gathering near you as we wonder about what new life God is bringing forth in our midst. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).
E-News 3-5-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Manlove
Purpose and Goals
In early December, Cathy, Liv, Phil, and I had a two-day retreat facilitated by two staff from Gonzaga University. We had several pieces of pre-work to do in advance of the retreat: identifying our personal values (the things that motivate us or give us direction) and social styles. They helped us create our staff purpose and our goals for at least a few years. For this work, they lifted up our synod mission and vision statements and the ELCA’s Future Directions work. They also guided us as we talked about the gifts and needs in our synod.
E-News 2-19-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Manlove
Regional Gatherings - What, Why, and Who?
I have been reading instructor Grace Pomroy’s Stewardship Leaders Newsletter for at least five years. I know the word stewardship does not excite everyone as much as it does me, so let me state clearly that there has always been something unique about Pomroy’s approach to generosity and stewardship. It is holistic, includes both data and stories, creative (but not trendy), and it is always grounded in scripture and prayer.
E-NEWS 2-5-2024
Featuring a message from Liv Larson Andrews, DEM
Talks at the Desk, Fire in our Hearts, Courage in our Actions
In baptism, there is a way that each of us is a candle in the world. "Let your light so shine before others..." goes the charge at the font. We give the newly baptized person a candle to help them remember and kindle this flame for their whole lives. February is Black History Month in the US, and so this kindling of faith for us is also a call to learning, repentance, and bold change. We are blessed to have a resource to help us stoke this fire in our hearts for ending racism…
E-News 1-22-2024
Featuring a message from Pastor Phil Mismer
One of the most formative experiences during my internship at Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN, came on Epiphany in 2009. I had preached during that evening’s festival worship. While shaking hands after service, one parishioner said, “Very nice lecture on Epiphany, Vicar. Next time, make it happen.”
All sermons should “make it happen;” should reveal Christ.
E-News 1-8-2024
Featuring a message from Bishop Manlove
As we collectively prepare for the legislative season, I think we also do well to borrow the language Franciscan Father Richard Rohr used when naming his Center for Action and Contemplation. Jesus himself modeled both of these—casting out demons, feeding, and healing and then stepping away to pray. We are called to both advocacy and prayer, always both. Some of us are more gifted or our natural charisms may lean into one or the other, but as communities of faith we should hold these two together and probably in conversation.
E-News 12-18-2023
Featured a message from Liv Larson Andrews, DEM
O Saints of Advent , Lead Us
Three saints accompany us with their own cries in these weeks of Advent. Well, of course, countless saints accompany us all the time – we are each saint and sinner at once! But in the month of December our calendar remembers two bishops and a martyr who I think can help lead us as we move through the long nights of 2023 and into the coming dawn of 2024: Nicholas, Ambrose, and Lucy.
E-News 12-4-2023
From the Bishop
Highlights of trip to our companion synod in southern Tanzania, the Ulanga Kilombero Diocese.
E-News 11-20-2023
Featuring a message from Bishop’s assistant, Pastor Phil
At this fall’s Bishop’s Convocation we had the opportunity to sing “Bless This Night” together. Bless This Night is a new setting of Vespers (Evening Prayer) created this past year in Holden Village.
As we continue to live through these days of longer evenings and nights, may this time of darkness also be a time of blessing, revelation, and assurance of God’s promise.
E-News 11-6-2023
Featuring a message from Bishop Meggan on the Gospel of Mark
We are in the middle of a three-year term in which the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) and Narrative Lectionary share the same gospel. For a great review of the RCL or just the Year of Mark, I highly recommend Gail Ramshaw’s concise A Three-Year Banquet: The Lectionary for the Assembly.
E-News 10-16-2023
Featuring a message from Liv Larson Andrews, DEM
Easy as Pie
We might say that following Jesus is “easy as pie.” Meaning, of course, it’s not easy at all. But just as a whole pie isn’t meant to be eaten alone, the life of faith is meant to be communal, shared. As my training week continued, I looked around to find others on the journey with me. Together, we were overwhelmed. (I lost count of how many references people made to drinking from a firehose.) Together, we found we still had hopes about the church. And together, we began sharing stories.
E-News 9-18-2023
Featuring a message from Bishop’s assistant, Pastor Phil
Rest and Renewal, Lutheran Outdoor Ministries
E-News 9-5-2023
From the Bishop
Former Things and New Things - God is doing something new, right now!
E-News 8-21-2023
Featuring a message from Mary Morrow, DEM
Reconciled at the Table
As a church we have forgiveness to offer, and as we are becoming more and more aware, we have repentance to offer, to many who we’ve harmed. Likewise, as individuals and in our congregations the same is true. Even though it may not be easy, and even if you don’t quite feel like it yet, don’t procrastinate in this labor.
So that when we gather round the table, we will all be there together in love.
E-News 8-7-2023
Featuring a message from the Bishop
Truth and Healing Movement