Current News
The Synod staff will have reduced office hours December 23 - January 1.
The office will be closed December 24-26 and December 31 and January 1.
Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC) is a full-time service and leadership program operating in many cities across the United States.
We heard you—and listened. We have found a way to bring back the magazine’s print publication in a quarterly fashion. Each issue (spring, summer, winter and fall) will feature the stories you know and love, along with updates on the church and your ELCA community. The cost for one year will be $19.95 for an individual subscription and $17 per year for a congregation group subscription.
Please read for all the upcoming documents to be submitted for the new year.
At the heart of this ministry is the belief that effective leadership begins with the individual and is honed in community. This ministry helps each person learn how to appreciate who they are, how they are embodied, and manage the way they personally respond to challenges and conflict. Through engaging in this work,
Tuesday, December 17th | 10:00 AM MT / 12:00 PM ET | Via Zoom
Border Servant Corps, a social ministry organization of the ELCA, is partnering with key migrant-serving organizations to prepare for upcoming political changes in 2025.
There’s a classic horror film gimmick that feels apt this season. (Hmm, that’s telling that tropes from horror films are seeming appropriate!) When the final survivor is nearing the film’s end, the phone rings. She picks up the receiver and tries to trace the call, only to realize “the call is coming from inside the house!” Eeek!
The Synod Council encourages each congregation to put into practice a congregational sabbatical policy appropriate to its context. The Synod's policy includes a model congregational sabbatical policy that your congregation may adapt and adopt!
New cohort 13 month is starting
This ministry helps each person learn how to appreciate who they are, how they are embodied, and manage the way they personally respond to challenges and conflict. Through engaging in this work, individuals are then able to show up more effectively in places of anxiety, conflict, and frustration.
As faith communities, we are not merely bystanders in a transition to clean energy—we are leaders. Guided by our shared values of care for one another and the Earth, we have the potential to drive significant change. By leveraging new federal programs and financial incentives, we can make impactful energy and resiliency improvements that inspire others to follow our lead.
Pastor Moses Nwaka recently inquired of the NWIM Companion Synod Team about the purchase of a threshing machine for Tumaini school. This would not only help them save money when they harvest their crops but would also produce income by renting out its services for other local farmers.
The synod’s EcoFaith Action Network is planning its first offering of 2025. What should it be? A book study? A workshop? Something else?
We’re considering several possibilities. Please tell us what you think about them by answering three simple questions at this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QCRQFV2.
Dear Friends in Christ,
Advent brings with it many wonderful characters and stories and gifts. Here are three words I commend to you as we enter into this joyful and hopeful season and look ahead to the new year.
DEM Pastor Liv Larson Andrews will be leading a series on Dan Erlander's classic Manna and Mercy on Thursdays, beginning January 9, at 6pm Pacific/7pm Mountain Time.
The day after the 2024 presidential election, Bishop Eaton reflects on the many expressions of our church being woven together as strands of a large tapestry, even as individually people are experiencing joy or grief. She reminds us that regardless of who is elected president or to other leadership positions in our country, our call to be Christ in the world doesn't change. "As we're moving through these next years, no matter what happens and what befalls ... imagine all of us woven together and in Christ, and we will continue to serve the gospel and to serve the world."
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.
“If you had asked me my junior year of college if I had ever thought of being a Lutheran pastor, I would have said, ‘absolutely not.’” recalls Mariah Mills. Mariah attended an ELCA college but was deeply involved in an evangelical campus ministry. Later on in her junior year, though, her involvement with that ministry was disrupted.
You may have seen that a new film about German Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer will be coming to theaters Thanksgiving Weekend.
Here is what I suggest. If you want to see the film, go see it and understand that it is entertainment AND see it with some friends and have a discussion about the film afterwards.
The linked 2025 compensation guidelines for clergy were approved by the Northwest Intermountain Synod Council at their September 2024 meeting
Join Rev. Dr. Barbara Rossing and Rev. Dr. Ben Stewart at the annual Recreation & Revelation (R & R) Conference February 9-14, 2025. R & R takes place every February at Winter Park, Colorado, and has a rare approach to continuing education.
Registration closes December 15th, 2024.
Gifts to Lutheran Disaster Response equip us to respond to Hurricane Helene and other disasters, whenever and wherever they strike.
This column will be a little unusual as I am mostly going to point to some other writing I have been doing. But first, October is Clergy Appreciation Month and so, you pastors and deacons who said “yes” to the call of public ministry, thank you!
I began my work and call as Assistant to the Bishop just over six years ago – August 2018. As I look back over those years, they are broken into three distinct chapters.
“Leadership Education aims to create lasting change in U.S. congregations by supporting Christian leaders and the institutions they serve. Leadership Education designs educational services, develops intellectual resources and facilitates networks of institutions that cultivate a coherent vision of Christian institutional leadership and form Christian leaders. Leadership Education is a non-degree-granting initiative of Duke Divinity School funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. and based in Durham, NC.”
Monday through Friday, January 6-10, 2025
Grace Pomroy, our 2024 Regional Gathering speaker and an instructor at Luther Seminary, has a book available now for pre-order (published by Fortress Press).
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.
“Stewardship in a Box” 2024 is dropping! “The (im)Possible Promise of Enough” is a new resource from our friends at ChurchAnew.org (remember “Lent in a Box”?) and has been updated for this year’s lectionary and focus. “Stewardship in a Box” is an affordable, customizable guide to an annual campaign that takes congregations and their leaders through conversations about faith and finances on Sunday mornings and throughout the week of any given stewardship push.