While your congregation may not be worshiping in person over the next few weeks the mission of God’s church continues. Whether keeping a food pantry open, adjusting community meals to a take-out only option, or ensuring some of the most vulnerable in your community are cared for, the congregations of this synod and church are still doing vital ministry in our communities. Those ministries continue to need your financial support to continue.
Read MoreBig words can be REALLY scary. Examples: accompaniment, solidarity, year-long journey in international service. Okay, that last one is a phrase but you get the idea.Most of the time we find things scary because we don’t know a lot about them or because we haven’t seen them working in our own lives. And these specific words just happen to be some of the biggest themes and driving theology for the ELCA’s Young Adults in Global Mission program.
I had never thought about what any of these words meant, honestly, until I was sitting in Chicago for orientation getting ready to live in a different country for a whole year. But really there is only so much “getting ready” you can do before you just need to be pushed into the deep end. Once in that deep end I realized that the more learning that happened the easier it was to float. I learned from my host father how to tell when an avocado was just ripe, and how to slice it up and put it on toast.(Avocadoes, by the way, are literally as big as your head in Southern Africa.) My host sisters showed me how to use the public transport system and when I inevitably got lost, how to call my family and have them talk to the drivers when no one on the bus could understand my siSwati. I learned about the history and the struggles and the joys of a country I barely even knew existed. And I also learned (or re-learned) that no two journeys are quite the same.
Read MoreOn my way home from the Buffalo area earlier this week I stopped at my local Home Depot to pick up three items needed for home. As I walked in the door I noticed that lining the aisles of the stores were stacks of something or somethings wrapped tightly in black plastic. As I bent down to read the first one, hoping for insight into what was inside, I read the following: “Do Not Open Until Black Friday.” Stacks were all over the store. A part of me wanted to peek and see what was inside these mounds of merchandise but upon second thought, I let that go. Instead, in what was record time for me, I found the three items needed and checked out.
As I left the store I reflected on Black Friday for a moment and those stacks in the aisles. It seems to me that this year almost every day, leading up to Black Friday, beginning with the week after Halloween, was or is Black Friday. Commercials have been relentless, as retailers have worked overtime to get the attention of those who will be spending more money than they have to buy gifts for others. I know personally that I’m going to run out and purchase that new Mercedes Benz (or pick a car), put a huge bow on it and try to hide it from Lin until Christmas Day arrives.
Read MoreThree years ago I helped to found Hope Lutheran Church in N. Greebush (born from the consolidation of Trinity, West Sand Lake and St. Timothy, N. Greenbush). Not long after we began worshiping together I started talking to other people about the community dinner I used to help serve at Gilead Lutheran Church in Brunswick and wondered if we could do the same at Hope, certainly there were hungry people in our neighborhood too.
Read MoreThis ministry, part of the national Laundry Love initiative, appealed to our congregation because we have always been generous in giving food and money locally and to the ELCA and this ministry provided the opportunity to interact personally with people in need. My niece was an Associate in Ministry (now Deacon) and worked with her clergy husband in Pennsylvania and had started Laundry Love in their congregation. Our Pastor and Social Ministry Committee liked the idea and so we had a ham dinner and raised $1300.00 for the first year. The second year we applied and received a $2000.00 grant from the ELCA’s World Hunger Domestic Hunger program. Last year we applied and received $11,500.00 for a 3-year period.
Read MoreOn Thursday afternoons shortly after school lets out, you can find several students from 3rd and 4th grades at Fletcher Elementary School not headed home but headed down the hall to yet one more classroom. However, this classroom isn’t for more book learning, this classroom is for games, music, snacks, a side of STEM studies and, most importantly, relationship building. Members of Tree of Life Lutheran Church, Jamestown are the adults in this classroom and they are there through the Chautauqua Striders school mentoring program.
Read More“On Nov. 9, 2019, the world will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As we look back to remember this important moment in human history, we are reminded that there is much work to be done to tear down the walls that divide us today. We are called in this moment to advocate for an end to division and oppression in our own communities and throughout the world. My friends, I encourage you, your congregations and your communities to join together in proclaiming this truth — that we are one human family.”
— The Rev. Rafael Malpica Padilla, executive director for Global Mission, ELCA
Narrative budgets make a direct connection between God’s story and mission taking place through a congregation and the financial resources entrusted to them
Read MoreA year in the making, Generosity 365 from the Ecumenical Stewardship Center is a year round, financial stewardship resource that includes ways to approach an annual financial response (sometimes called pledging). Read the whole article to learn how you can get these resources for a nominal fee or even free!
Read MoreALL on the SAME DAY. Together in different places. Learning together and practicing what it means to be synod. Resources for playful, active models of multi-generational learning, with the Gospel of the day as the focus Biblical text, will be available March 15th.
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