E-News, Educational, Event
Lin Carlson
Not-Your-Average Boundaries Training

LeaderWise’s online boundaries training workshop is lively and interactive, full of reflection and conversation. Attendees have given us feedback that our boundaries training was a great experience, AND caused them to re-evaluate some of their own practices.

E-News, Educational, Special Announcement
Lin Carlson
NWIM Synod and Faith+Lead

The Northwest Intermountain Synod and Luther Seminary's Faith+Lead are joining together to provide our entire synod with free access to theological resources and training designed to equip disciples and leaders for today's ministry challenges.

Event, E-News
Lin Carlson
2025 ELCA Churchwide Assembly

The ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the primary decision-making body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is a process of communal spiritual discernment. When the ELCA Churchwide Assembly convenes, its voting members meet with confidence in God’s grace around word and water, wine and bread, to carry on their work on behalf of the entire church.

E-News, Event
Lin Carlson
College for Congregational Development

A 2-year program that focuses on (1) creating faithful, healthy & effective communities of faith, regardless of size, condition, or location (2) understanding & developing the congregation’s internal organizational life and leadership (3) the congregation’s relationship with the people and world outside of itself: potential visitors, the neighborhood, the broader world/culture (4) lay and clergy teams

E-News, Employment, Event
Lin Carlson
Volunteer & Register at Outdoor Ministries

You can still volunteer and register for outdoor ministries: Holden Village, Luther Heights, and Lutherhaven

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?

A COVID-19 Update

It has been a little while since I’ve given you all an update on the Synod’s response to COVID-19.

The Synod office (housed in with the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane) will remain closed as long as the Diocese is closed. Following a conversation with Bishop Rehberg, we are in agreement that this will be in Phase 4 at the earliest—possibly later than that if the numbers are still going up. Once again, the Phase process is closely connected to economic realities—not necessarily the realities of the case numbers in a given county, so we will be looking to those numbers to make our final decisions. Because NWIM is a tenant of the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane, we will respect their boundaries around the health and well being of our employees.