E-News, Event
Lin Carlson
Synod Assembly 2025

NWIM Synod will hold an ONLINE Synod Assembly this coming year, 2025. Saturday, May 3. Mark your calendars to save the date! Exact times TBA.

E-News, Event
Lin Carlson
Preparedness for Faith-based Organizations

A Zoom Event - December 2, 5:30-7-30pm Pacific, 6:30-8:30pm Mountain

Special Announcement, E-News
Lin Carlson
Compensation Guidelines for 2025

The linked 2025 compensation guidelines for clergy were approved by the Northwest Intermountain Synod Council at their September 2024 meeting

Event, E-News
Lin Carlson
ELCA Region 1 Discernment Event

Join us for a Zoom virtual discernment event.

E-News, Event
Lin Carlson
Byberg Preaching Conference

Registration closes December 15th, 2024. 

Bishop's Message

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Thank You for Your Faithfulness

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The Northwest Intermountain Synod has come to the end of our fiscal year, and we are writing to thank you for your faithfulness in sharing mission support to enable our work.

It was a rough year for many of our congregations, which translates into a rough year for our synod—a reality that was not unexpected, but causes the Synod Council to take serious consideration to the synod budget, much like congregational councils are forced to take serious consideration to their budgets. In these days, it’s part of our life together.

This reality makes us even more grateful for your support. We know that hard conversations were had in Sunday School classrooms, fellowship halls, fireside rooms & Zoom gatherings as you struggled to make money go further. We know that every dollar of mission support you send on to the synod could have easily gone to many other ministries and still not have been enough to meet the needs that the last few years have brought to our communities.

Valuable Life-Giving Changes During a Pandemic

I’m getting really tired of writing to you about COVID, took a couple of months off to see if I was going to get to stop, and it appears that was a fruitless hope—we are still living daily with the impacts of the global pandemic.

And while the pandemic has been a burden to carry, there have also been valuable, life-giving changes that have taken place as a direct result of our time living with SARS-COVID19. Some of the changes that have taken place at the synod level:

We Gather

As I write this, we are in the process of preparing for our first-ever digital synod assembly! There are a lot of logistics to work out. In some respects, a digital assembly is easier than an in-person assembly. In others: there are added layers of complication. How do we allow for fair conversation when we don’t have numbered microphone & red, green, and white cards? Do we allow nominations from the floor? How do we make sure that any debate that takes place takes place fairly? What do we do in the event of technical difficulties?

It’s easy to lose track of the why in the midst of the how.

We come back around to March

We come back around to March.

March 2020 was when our worlds shifted dramatically, when horizons shrank, and much of our lives became ruled by something called “Zoom”.

I confess to you, people of God, I am tired. I am tired of Zoom. I am tired of my house. I’m even tired of only seeing my family face-to-face. As an introvert, I lasted longer than some. But the other day I found myself thinking longingly of airport security check lines, and that was when I knew that COVID had broken me.

We come back around to Lent.

The Sacrament of Holy Communion

I want to speak with you all today about the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Seven months ago, I asked congregations to fast from the Sacrament until I could get a liturgy pulled together for “virtual” communion, and I promised to have that available in time for Holy Week. I kept that promise, providing for the synod the resource “Spirit and Life Home Communion Document” designed to help support a home-based communion. Some congregations have made use of that document, some congregations continue to fast from the Sacrament—both are valid interpretations of our Lutheran Confessions.

Extending Grace

On our staff Zoom call the other day, we were remarking on the weirdness of time right now. It’s simultaneously stressful, boring, never-ending, and flies by. How is it possible that time can be all those conflicting things simultaneously?

We continue to live under the oppressive shadow of COVID-19.

I confess that I have felt like I have been spinning my wheels in sand. Early on—in March and April—there was a sense of urgency. Information to be distributed, guidance to be offered, congregations to be supported. But in more recent months, we’ve settled into what has become our new normal. Zoom or recorded worship. On-line committee and council and staff meetings. On-line bible study. Our computer and phone screens have become our access to the world as we use them to make contact with those who live outside our “COVID bubbles”. And I’ve wondered: what comes next? Why are we working so hard? What are we paddling this canoe toward? Anything?