Upcoming Events

June 13th and 14th was the 33rd Synod Assembly for the Southwest Washington Synod of the ELCA.  I've been to 19 assemblies in six different synods, and I can honestly say that this was one of the smoothest and best-run assemblies I've attended. Even more importantly than that, there was a real sense of collaboration and camaraderie among the p...

Dear Friends in Christ, A few weeks ago I shared with you a few letters that were written by leaders in our denomination in response to events in the world around us. Today I want to share two more such documents with you. Today, I want to share with you two important documents that reflect our commitment as a faith community to love, justice, and ...

One of the things that I love most about our denomination is that we build bridges.  Usually, the bridges are metaphorical: connecting across denominational lines, forging partnerships with community organizations, bringing people together to work for a common purpose. But occasionally, the bridges we build are more concrete (and steel, and wo...

I grew up in the Lutheran church. I could see the church that we attended from my bedroom window and it was pretty much the case that whenever the church building was open for an event some if not all of my family would be there. I stayed in that congregation for my entire childhood before moving on to a new congregation that I attended in college ...

Often, people tell me that they want to keep politics out of church. And while there's a certain wisdom in that, from time to time the politics of the day invoke the Church, in general, or our (Lutheran) branch of the Church, specifically. Our faith does not call us to support one political party or another, but it does call on us to have certain r...