One of the important pieces of work approved at the January 2024 Northwest Intermountain Synod Council meeting was an updated Misconduct Policy. God intends for the Church to be a safe place for all people to experience God’s love and mercy, grow in faith, and equip themselves for ministry in the world. And yet at times the church has not been a safe place and sexual misconduct has caused injury and pain to individuals and communities.
How Do You Love Your Mother (Earth)?
My passion to be an advocate/actor for creation care and justice for Earth and all life that lives here has been ignited. I’d like to hear your stories of what excites you to speak and act for creation care and Earth justice.
So, I invite you to join several of us who have been meeting over Zoom as a NWIM Synod Nurturing Creation Care group (a “working name,” for now) since November 2023. You can learn more about us here. We welcome anyone who is curious or already an advocate for creation care. Our next Zoom meeting will be April 18 6:30 PM PDT/7:30 PM MDT. (Note that this is the third Thursday for this month only.) Please contact our facilitator, Deaconess Katrina Martich, at contact@katrinamartich.com for a Zoom link for the meeting and/or any questions about the group that you may have.
BibleProject
New Health Care Partnership
Electronic Carillon Available
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. You can imagine already that the facilitators accelerated our getting to know one another on a deeper level. They also facilitated conversations in which we identified the work we must do as the synod staff and who should be doing what. 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.
Religious Art
Art has always been important to me. My walls are the same neutral color as when I purchased this house in 2011, but each piece of wall art and each three-dimensional piece of art has been carefully selected and placed. Many of the pieces of art speak to my faith, either because they capture a biblical story or some place in the natural world.