Preparing for the 2027 ELCA Youth Gathering

Posted on August 7, 2026 by megganmanlove

Originally published in the early August 2026 NWIM Synod Newsletter.

Dear Saints of the NWIM Synod,

It is already time for you and your congregation to start planning for next summer’s ELCA Youth Gathering in Minneapolis, whether you have one or more teens interested in attending. There are several things that will be different about this Gathering. From the Gathering’s website: We’ve reimagined the Gathering to meet the needs of today’s young people. Groups will no longer rotate through traditional program days (Synod Day, Interactive Learning Day, Accompaniment Day), but those experiences will continue in fresh, creative ways. You can expect interactive spaces, time with your synod, opportunities to serve (if you’d like) and moments that meet young people where they are. Further, If service is important to your congregation, we encourage you to sign up for SERVE, our all-day service and learning component on Monday.

The draft schedule says there are optional synod events on Friday, and this is what our Regional Gathering Rep Pastor Bergen Eickhoff wrote me, “I am planning to hold a Region One Gathering on that Friday morning. But it will be completely optional. the gathering I’m planning will just be for the morning…so a group can attend the gathering in the morning and still make an afternoon flight.” (Bergen has a FB Group for Region 1).

  • All ELCA congregations are invited to participate. Ecumenical partners are also encouraged to attend. Contact the Gathering office (gathering@elca.org) for more information.
  • Youth participants must be in eighth to 12th grade at time of registration (fall 2026). 
  • Adult leaders accompanying youth to the Gathering must be at least 21 years old at the time of the Gathering.
  • There will be three price brackets for hotels this year.
  • Gathering dates are June 28-July 2 (Monday-Friday).
  • Pre-events include MYLE and the tABLE
  • The Young Adult Gathering will run simultaneously to The Gathering
  • Getting Ready Materials launch this August
  • Webinars are scheduled for Aug. 17, Sept. 24, Oct. 13, Nov. 19
  • Financial Assistance opens Oct. 16
  • Priority Registration Opens Oct. 21

If you have just a few youths in your congregation, it is still possible to attend on your own OR consider partnering with a neighboring congregation. If you get stuck finding a partner or feel overwhelmed, please reach out to the synod office and we will try to partner you with a larger church.

I am a huge fan of the ELCA Youth Gatherings. When I stood for the bishop’s election in our synod in 2023, I quoted Galatians 5:13-14 as a central verse for my life and ministry. Guess where I first really heard that verse—the 1991 Gathering in Dallas when the theme was “Called to Freedom.” I attended again in Atlanta. I served as a volunteer in New Orleans, St. Louis, Atlanta (all Hotel Life—giving my first sermon in New Orleans in ’97 in a hotel ballroom) and San Antonio, TX (serving on the Fiesta Planning Team with Margie Fiedler, Mark Nelson, Janice Dick, and Maggie Wells). I took youth from Soldier, IA to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. I took youth from Nampa, Idaho to New Orleans, Detroit, and Houston. Why do I keep going back? High school youth encounter Jesus Christ, as I did, in a powerful way that has connections to life back home in the congregation and also unique!  It is amazing to be in a room with so many other ELCA Lutherans (the Youth Gatherings has been the largest gathering of ELCA adults as well as youth). I love hearing the speakers and preachers the Gathering invites. I loved introducing youth to various cities across our amazing country. I love that the Gathering creates spaces for exploring faith in new ways, building relationships with others from across the vast ELCA, play, learning, and serving. The Gathering is (along with parents passing on the faith, Sunday School, worship, campus ministry, church colleges, and outdoor ministries) one important part of an incredible ecosystem of youth and young adult faith formation in the ELCA.

My parents were part of planning and implementing many Youth Gatherings before I was born and through my first year as a volunteer in 1997. From 1985-1997 they coordinated the interaction center, but my dad had other roles before then. He’s pictured here in Madison Square Garden in NYC in 1970 for the American Lutheran Church Gathering with Rusty Halaas and Joe Bash. You can read about that Gathering in this old New York Times article.

Bishop Meggan Manlove

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Candidacy Retreat at Lutherhaven – July

Posted on August 6, 2026 by megganmanlove

Last Monday-Wednesday, July 27-29, we had our inaugural NWIM Synod Candidacy Retreat at Camp Lutherhaven. This was for all of our current candidates preparing to become pastors or deacons and our entire Synod Candidacy Committee. We stayed in Lutherhaven’s beautiful North Garden Lodge and several sessions were led by ELCA Deacon (and coach and retreat leader and beautiful person) Tammy Devine. We also squeezed in a Positive Approval (final) Interview for candidate Lori Tharp.

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Our Savior, Pinehurst Installation – July 26

Posted on August 5, 2026 by megganmanlove

Matthew 5:1-16, Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 46, Ephesians 4:1-13

Pastor Amy Sperline’s Installation, Our Savior, Pinehurst

Happy Installation Day Our Savior, Pinehurst! It strikes me that the Beatitudes are often the gospel reading for All Saints Sunday and an Installation Worship recalls so many themes of All Saints Sunday. We give thanks for the saints who have died, those who started this congregation years ago in the Silver Valley, wanting the good news of God’s gift of grace through faith apart from works to be proclaimed in this community. We give thanks for the saints who served this congregation, incredible lay leaders and faithful pastors, including during the past five years. Today we also give thanks for all the saints who have been part of Pastor Sperline’s journey to this call—family, friends, professors, candidacy committee members, internship site, and first call. 

And finally, we give thanks for the larger communion of saints, for the Spokane Valley and North Idaho Clusters, the Northwest Intermountain Synod, the ELCA, the Lutheran World Federation, and the church universal. ELCA Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry has been emphasizing that we are a connected church, and surely those connections are embodied a bit today. Praise God.

The Beatitudes, the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, present some challenges. Are they simply descriptive of Jesus’ life (his birth, his Baptism, the calling of the disciples) or are the Beatitudes descriptive of our life as Jesus’ followers? The answer, you might have guessed, is a resounding yes.

Let us start with how the Beatitudes are descriptive of Jesus’ life and ministry. This is a messiah, a savior, who quite literally walks the talk. Before climbing the mount and preaching, Jesus has been very busy. He went throughout Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. He cured diseases and every sickness among the people. It’s no wonder his fame spread. So, the one who preaches the Sermon is the one who is physically making all things new. The sayings of the Sermon on the Mount are the interpretation of Jesus’s life.

There were times Jesus was all those things he names in the Beatitudes. He was the ultimate peacemaker. His life and death encapsulate those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake. He mourned for individuals and for our broken world. And in emptying himself for the world he showed us what it meant to be poor in spirit. 

That Jesus lived what he preached may be a faithful reading of the Beatitudes. But it does not fully answer the question of what this sacred and iconic text means for us living some 2000 years later and in a different place. For that, it’s helpful to remember that the Sermon on the Mount was not addressed originally to individuals but to a community that Jesus began through calling the disciples. The demands of the Sermon on the Mount are designed to make us depend on God and on one another. The sermon is a description of the life of a people gathered by and around Jesus. And the Beatitudes are the interpretive key to the entire sermon. 

[Eric Barreto] One scholar likens Jesus’ trip up the mountain to Moses before him. Like during the time of Moses, Israel suffers under an oppressive ruler. Like Moses, Jesus’ life is threatened in its earliest days. Like Moses, Jesus must flee the threat of death. Like Moses, Jesus too emerges out of Egypt to follow God’s call to liberate the people. Like Moses, Jesus wanders in the wilderness and relies on God for sustenance.

Like Moses at Mt. Sinai, Jesus interprets God’s vision of a world aligned with God’s concerns. In this way, Jesus’ sharing and interpreting of these commandments is not so much an imposition of rules for an obedient life. It is instead a guide to a life of wholeness aligned with God’s creation and grace. So, both the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments are not rules as much as they are visions for communal wholeness rooted in God’s liberation of the oppressed. This vision includes the community being salt and light. 

The Ten Commandments start by recalling God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20:2).

In a similar way, the Sermon on the Mount is not detached from God’s faithfulness. It is mirrored in the exorcising of demons, the healing of the sick, and the resurrection of the dead. The Sermon on the Mount is not just a list of wise insights. It is an outflow of God’s own goodness as reflected in Jesus’ ministry. From Moses to Jesus, the call to live a life of righteousness is not moralistic as much as it is a response of gratitude for God’s graceful deeds.

And so, we learn that Jesus’ teaching is not innovation but a vibrant recalling of tradition. Jesus’ words are not new so much as they are deeply rooted in God’s ancient promises and the ancient vision Moses shares on Mount Sinai. These are not new commandments so much as echoes of ancient visions of God’s hopes.

What does this look like? Jesus does not suggest that everyone who follows him will possess all the Beatitudes, but we can be sure that some will be poor in spirit, some will mourn, and some will be meek.” All of these gifts, named in the Beatitudes, suggest that the diversity of these gifts will be present in the community of those who have heard Jesus’ call to discipleship. Indeed, to learn to be a disciple is to learn why we are dependent on those who mourn or who are meek, though we may not possess that gift ourselves. Part of what we celebrate today as you begin the mutual ministry of pastor and congregation is the discovery of gifts in one another and in your neighbors in Pinehurst.

Think for a moment of people you have encountered in your own lives who possess the traits Jesus names: a relative who is mourning, a co-worker who is poor in spirit, a neighbor who is meek, that friend who is a peacemaker. There is something transformative that can happen when we really get to know those people, when we hear their stories and when they hear ours. Part of the real work of ministry this first year is simply to share these stories.

Today we rejoice that new mutual ministry between Pastor Amy Sperline and the people of Our Savior Lutheran is beginning. Congregations, like people can have multiple callings throughout their existence. As the world, nation, Silver Valley, and Pinehurst have changed, so have specific callings changed here, as some of your long-time members can recall. One of your tasks together is to faithfully carry out Word and Sacrament ministry so each of you is strengthened and nourished for ministry in your daily lives. The ELCA model constitution for congregations describes this in the purpose section: “Nurture its members in the Word of God so as to grow in faith and hope and love, to see daily life as the primary setting for the exercise of their Christian calling, and to use the gifts of the Spirit for their life together and for their calling in the world.”

You will also discern what your collective love is calling you into here and now for your community and the world—how the Holy Spirit will move through you so you are a blessing. Again, the constitution states that you will “Serve in response to God’s love to meet human needs, caring for the sick and the aged, advocating dignity, justice, and equity for all people, working for peace and reconciliation among the nations, caring for the marginalized, embracing and welcoming racially and ethnically diverse populations, and standing in solidarity with the poor and oppressed and committing itself to their needs.” 

Thank you for your ministry for so many years in this place and thank you for the mutual ministry you have embarked on for the next chapter. As we will now sing, to God be the glory.

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Advent Lutheran July 26

Posted on August 4, 2026 by megganmanlove

Thanks, Advent Lutheran, for the Birthday Pie after worship.

With Advent’s Pastor Matt Larson

Advent Lutheran, Spokane Valley – July 26, 2026

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52, Romans 8:26-39

The smile on my face went big and wide earlier this week when I scanned the page in my Bible containing our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will wildfires? Will partisanship? Will loneliness? Will AI? No. In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. How we need to hear this good news right now, and how good it is to hear from Paul, who we know did suffer and came through on the other side trusting in the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

I do now know how the Apostle Paul could muster it after all he had been through, but I am ever thankful he could pen these words, “38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” They have been incorporated into our funeral liturgy. They are often read at bedsides when people are ill. People experiencing depression turn to these verses. These words remind us now, in the midst of all we are grieving, that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

At the same time, these verses do not mean that we have somehow arrived, that the work of discipleship is over, that the reign of God is here in plain sight. Paul’s words do, for me at least, give me the strength and encouragement to keep going. 

In our gospel text from Matthew today we have a whole banquet of parables Jesus tells to portray the reign of God. The two I kept returning to are found in verses 44-46, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of find pearls; on finding one pearl or great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

One scholar wrote that these two parables make clear that much is required if we are possessed by the joy of the kingdom. For it seems that the discovers of the kingdom requires the selling of all we have in order to buy the field that contains the treasure of the kingdom or the pearl of great value. The former life must be given up. But what a gift the reign of God is. For me, right now, the reign of God, the treasure and the pearl look like truth and liberation. What does that mean exactly? Heads up, this could be a little heavy, but I know enough about Advent Lutheran that I trust you can go there with me and connect these stories with life in Spokane Valley.

Bryan Stevenson, who started the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, speaks often of how important truth-telling is. He says telling the truth is intricately connected to our liberation, not just for people of color but for white people. 

Stevenson said once in an interview, “I want to talk about this history of enslavement, and native genocide, and lynching and segregation, not because I’m interested in punishing American, but because I want to liberate us. I really do believe that there is something better waiting for us. And the promise of that better thing feels more like freedom, feels more like equality, feels more like justice than anything we have yet to experience in this country. And if we are committed to this idea of America then we ought to figure out how we are going to get to that promise that we have been denied because we have been unwilling to acknowledge the past.”

Do you hear Stevenson talking about the reign of God there? Because I do. He said, “I really do believe there is something better waiting for us. It feels like freedom, more like equality, more like justice.” That’s the treasure in the field. That’s the pearl. But we, like the characters in Jesus’ parables, are going to have to give something up for that treasure and that pearl. 

For years, I have been reading about and pondering the power of storytelling. I was born during the celebration of our country’s bicentennial and so I’ve thought a lot this month about the need to learn to tell our own stories, the stories of the church, the stories of our country in a new way. We can still celebrate all of the amazing parts of our histories. But, as Stevenson says, we have got to start telling the truth. We are going to have to give up the story of pioneers settling the land, of everything being fine for people of color after 1970, for something much more nuanced and truthful. Telling the truth has the potential for transformation, of liberation, for getting us that much closer to the reign of God.

Stevenson told this story of truth telling in the same interview. His organization invites people to go to lynching sites and collect soil. Give them a jar with the lynching victim’s name on it and an implement to dig the soil. A middle-aged woman got her memo, jar, and tool. She was scared to go by herself. She drove to her location in West Alabama, a very scary place on a dirt road but she resolved that she would dig soil where the lynching took place. She got down on her knees to dig the soil, when a truck drove by and there was this white guy in the truck, and he stared at her as he slowed down. Then the man parked the truck and started walking toward her. And as he walked toward her, she was afraid. They tell people when they are doing the collections that they don’t have to tell anybody what they are doing. If they want to say they are getting dirt for their garden, they’re allowed to say that. And that’s what she was going to do, and this man walked up to her and asked, “what are you doing?” She looked the man in the eye and said, “I’m digging soil because this is where a black man was lynched in 1937 and I’m going to honor his life today.” And she started digging really fast and the man just stood there. And eventually the man asked, “Does that paper talk about the lynching?’ and she said, “it does” and he said, “can I read it.” And she gave the man the paper and the man read while she was digging. And the man shocked her when he asked, “would it be okay if I helped you?” And she said “of course.” The man started throwing his hands into the soil and putting it in the jar. She said he did it with such conviction and commitment. And before she knew it, she had tears. And the man stopped and said, “I’m sorry I’m upsetting you.” And she said, “No, no, no. You’re blessing me.” And they kept digging. The jar was almost filled. 

She looked at him and could see his shoulders shaking and tears were coming down his face. And she put her hand on his shoulder and asked, “are you okay?” And he looked at her and said, “No, no, I’m not okay. I’m just so worried that my grandfather might have been one of the people who lynched that man.” They took pictures of one another with the jar and she brought him back to the museum in Montgomery where they put the jar in the exhibit.

Stevenson says beautiful things like that story do not always happen when we tell the truth. “But until we tell the truth, we deny ourselves the opportunity for beauty. Justice can be beautiful. Reconciliation can be beautiful. Repair can be beautiful…. We deny ourselves redemption when we insist on denying our broken past.”

We may think, that’s all well and good. We don’t have those problems in Eastern Washington; they are just in the South. But you know better. You’ve been walking alongside your neighboring congregation who has had some members deported.

Redemption and repair and reconciliation are all available to us. How in the world can we mere mortals do this work? Not on our own. That’s for sure. We return to the message found explicitly in Romans 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35, 37).

Paul’s choice of the term, “more than conquerors” (better translated verbally as “hyper conquer,” hypernikomen) is interesting.1 Victory, in the context of Romans 8 is not defined militaristically. It’s not about conquering people, nations, or territory. Instead, we “conquer” because we are unbreakably attached to Jesus Christ. No force, circumstance, or event can sever this attachment. We absolutely can do this work of truth telling, the work of relearning and retelling our stories. Liberation and freedom are treasure accessible to us. There is absolutely no way we can do this work without God’s strength and through Jesus Christ, that strength is always available to us. 

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Holy Trinity, Ephrata’s 80th – August 2

Posted on August 2, 2026 by megganmanlove

Matt. 14:13-21

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

It is so good to be with you Holy Trinity, Ephrata and friends for this 80th anniversary—80 years of memories, of faithful Word and Sacrament ministry, of passing on the Lutheran Christian faith to the next generation, of sharing the love of Jesus Christ with your neighbors in Ephrata and across the globe. Today we rejoice that through so much, ministry and this expression of the Body of Christ continue. I trust, knowing this congregation, that on your 80th anniversary, you are looking ahead to the next chapter, entrusting this congregation to the triune God who has accompanied you for so long, committing to sharing that same life-giving good news of Jesus Christ. 

So now, let’s turn to this feast of a gospel for this celebratory day. There are two details in this story that I absolutely love, and think are so crucial for our lives today. First, Jesus cares about actual bodies. This is an important reminder to us now as we spend more and more time online, as the wealth gap continues to grow and people struggle with food and housing security, as what some have called the loneliness pandemic persists. Today we think about friends and neighbors who are hosting evacuated bodies due to the wildfires impacting Spokane and our entire synod.

At the same time, we celebrate that through the power of the Holy Spirit, Holy Trinity Lutheran in Ephrata has, like Jesus, remembered that humans are embodied. Whether it was the Holy Communion Table, Hosanna Preschool, OMNY, or a funeral luncheon, this expression of the church as fed embodied people with actual bread.

The larger church body to which we belong, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has a social statement titled, “A Message on People Living with Disabilities.” It states, “This church believes that God, as creator and sustainer, intends that society regard all people as of equal worth and make it possible for all—those without and those with disabilities—to participate freely and fully as members of society in all important aspects of common life.”  

When Jesus cured the sick and facilitated the feeding of the 5,000, he said with his actions that physical bodies matter to God. Of course, mercy, forgiveness, and love matter and he wanted people to be emotionally and mentally and spiritually well too. But you can hardly hear and take in “I love you” if you are hungry, beaten up, or sick. As we continue to navigate this new chapter of our lives as people of faith, we do well to remember that God, through Jesus, cares about physical bodies, ours and our neighbors. Thank you, Holy Trinity, for caring for actual bodies—yours and your neighbors.

The other detail I love in this story is this: Jesus insists that has disciples make compassion their own work as well. This feeding is not a razzle-dazzle spectacle to boost Jesus’ image with the crowd. It begins with the insistence that the disciples themselves give the people something to eat. This is a story of Jesus charging those who follow him to be agents of God’s compassion and power. 

Ministry does not just belong to a few leaders. We end worship with the words “Go in peace, serve the Lord.” Sometimes I think we should begin worship, not with announcements but with a question, “How did that serving the Lord go this week?” (Tiede)

We are not the first generation of Jesus’ disciples to need continual reminders that ministry belongs to everyone. One of the great gifts of the Reformation is the Priesthood of All Believers. In 1520, Martin Luther wrote “An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom.” He did not have a good editor yet to help him with titles. We will forgive him that because of what he writes in the document. This was his document calling on the ruling class to reform the Church, since the Church was not reforming itself. 

Luther wrote, “The fact is that our baptism consecrates us all without exception and makes us all priests. As St. Peter says, ‘You are a royal priesthood and a realm of priests.”” Luther goes on, “For all Christians whatsoever really and truly belong to the religious class, and there is no difference among them except in so far as they do different work.”

Most of the time that work looks different, based on our various gifts and passions and callings. Many of us get to put all of the gifts God has given us to work in our actual place of work. We also do ministry, as Luther wrote about elsewhere, in various communities—families, friends, congregations, other nonprofits. Sometimes we come together, as Jesus and the disciples did in our story this morning, for some big joint venture.

Again, Holy Trinity has lived out Luther’s Priesthood of All Believers throughout its history. It’s there in the many ministries you started that so many people took leadership in. It was there in the equipping that happens in every worship service, every bible study, and every time people prayed for one another’s many vocations—job, parent, friend, volunteer, citizen. And I love that today, towards the end of worship, after we will feast on God’s abundant bread and wine and receive grace and forgiveness once again, we will all affirm our Chrisitan vocation together. We will commit to pattern our lives, all our lives, on the Lord Jesus Christ. We will pray for courage, patience, and vision for our daily callings. Alleluia!

Life can feel overwhelming right now. It’s felt that way for saints before us, but that does not make it any less heavy. Whatever God is leading us into right now, however the Holy Spirit is blowing, know that the work is going to take all of us, going in peace and serving the Lord in our daily lives. You were all made ministers in the waters of Holy Baptism—joined to Christ for a life with God. 

That life will not always be easy. If we are honest with our callings, there will be a cost to discipleship, to following Jesus’ way of love and mercy. But God is faithful—faithful on that hillside feeding the multitude, faithful for 80 years of ministry at 10th Ave and C Street, faithful today as we share the Lord’s Supper, faithful as we will once again be sent out. Jesus, Immanuel, is with us still. And in that there is hope and assurance. Amen.

With current Interim Pastor Laura Olson, daughter of Holy Trinity Pastor Yvette Schock, and former Holy Trinity Pastor John LaMunyan.

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Remember Your Baptism

Posted on July 16, 2026 by megganmanlove

Originally published in the early July 2026 synod e-newsletter:

Dear Friends in Christ,

I have recently been saying around lunch tables and in sermons that my answer to just about everything in this moment is, remember your baptism. As you participate in the life of your congregation, remember your baptism. As we celebrate our country’s 250th birthday, remember your baptism. As you read the news, remember your baptism. As you interact with neighbors, businesses, family members, and friends, remember your baptism. Remember that you are not alone out there living as a disciple of Jesus Christ; in baptism you were united with the same Jesus Christ. Remember that the power of death was defeated by Jesus’ death and resurrection, but the forces that defy God are still present in the world—that’s why we renounce them in each service of Holy Baptism. Remember that you are freed by God’s grace and mercy once and for all and again each day when you remember your baptism. Remember the promises you made in baptism or affirmation of baptism that do not need to be lived out in one grand gesture, but through hundreds of small acts that few people will witness: to live among God’s faithful people, to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. The longer I serve as bishop, the more humbled I am to hear more and more stories of you living out your call to daily discipleship—in your places of work, volunteering, family, and community. Remember that you can continue to grow as a disciple but that often that growth is cyclical—we grow, we forget, we have an insight, we hurt someone, we receive God’s mercy again and again. You already have everything you need through the gift of the Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in God’s presence. Often these gifts come to us through other people, sometimes we receive them anew in worship or while reading scripture, and sometimes they come when we quiet our hearts and minds and simply listen to God in prayer. You are already disciples, followers or Jesus Christ living your faith out each day. Freed by God’s grace to live faithfully, witness boldly, and serve joyfully.

Bishop Meggan

Sea of Galilee – photo from bishops trip in January 2026 to Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
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Trinity, Nampa – July 12

Posted on July 13, 2026 by megganmanlove

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

So often when we read this parable of Jesus’ during a Bible Study or hear it preached during worship, the focus is on us planting seeds of faith in others or being good soil. The scripture passage becomes a command. I have preached that sermon. But as we worship today, as you continue to walk together through a time of transition, it may serve us well to remember Jesus’ audience for this particular parable.

The Parable of the Sower is the first in a series of parables that convey mysteries of the kingdom of heaven to Jesus’ disciples. By this point in Jesus’ life and ministry, there is a growing distinction between the disciples, those who have embraced Jesus and his ministry, and those who challenge or reject Jesus. You, here today, have embraced Jesus and his ministry. Despite conflict, hardship, disagreements, despite missteps made by me, and despite the changing landscape of the church in our society, when you walk by the baptismal font, you remember that you were claimed in the waters of baptism and that with these siblings in Jesus Christ, you are trying to follow that same Jesus.

Somewhere along the way, early in life, later in life, in the middle, or all of the above, you received a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven, God’s inbreaking reign. You heard Jesus’ proclamation of love and mercy and saw it enacted when he healed the sick, liberated the oppressed, and ministered to the rejected. And you cannot give up that vision of God’s reign. 

Although Jesus’ proclamation of the coming reign of God’s mercy and justice is good news, it does not take root with everyone who hears it in every time. This is reflected in the parable by the various types of inhospitable ground upon which some of the “seeds” of Jesus’s ministry fall. It may be telling that most of the parable describes the circumstances in which the seeds are lost rather than the one in which they flourish.

And I want to propose that we as individuals are not one type of soil our entire lives of faith. Nor is every congregation always the same soil. So, as we think about the different soils, take it as an invitation to celebrate the seeds planted in your own life of faith and in the long history of Trinity Lutheran, Nampa. Consider the times of good fertile soil.

First in the parable, the evil one steals the seeds that fall on the path. Then we learn that seeds that fall on rocky ground represent those who hear the word of the kingdom but quickly fall away from it when faced with opposition. Next, we hear of the “thorns” of worldly concerns strangling the word so that it has no yield, no trust in Jesus. Jesus draws us into a bleak picture that reflects the reality of much of his own ministry experience.

Against the backdrop, the conclusion of the parable comes as a welcome surprise. Although threats to seeds of the kingdom abound, some of the seeds do land in good soil and produce abundant fruit. God is faithful. 

And here I want to interject some modern science into an ancient parable. My colleagues in the Mountain and Pacific Northwest have become rightly enamored by the notion of refugia. Refugia is a biological term for many tiny pockets of living organisms in places of seeming desolation: climate catastrophes, toxic dumps, extreme burns. 

Consider Mount St. Helens in the aftermath of the explosion in the spring of 1980. A refugium (singular) on Mt. St. Helens might be an unexpected cluster of fungi and bacteria that survived the blast. It began the slow process of bringing life back to a place utterly devastated by the force of the explosion. Folks wondered how many decades it would take for life to recover on the blown-apart mountain. But under the thick layer of ash, the fungi were already laughing. Already plotting and partnering up. Already becoming the new life that was not yet seen.

Author of the book Refugia Faith, Debra Rienstra asks how can we find and nurture these refugia, not only in the biomes of the earth, but in our human cultural systems and in our spiritual lives? In our congregations? How can we apply all our love and creativity to this task as never before? And I would add, how do wait on and make room for the Holy Spirit?

I know there are refugium all over this community. Who were the people, what were the experiences, who were the communities who were part of your good soil? Parents, grandparents, or others who taught you to pray? Sunday School teachers and pastors who emphasized the gift of God’s grace? Other church members who, by their example, showed you what it meant to follow Jesus’ command to love your neighbor? Friends at church who explained that faith and following Jesus were not simply swallowing a set of doctrine or promises about the afterlife but meant something for your life today? This community of faith holds saints who the Holy Spirit used to nurture faith. Some of those saints have died or moved, but their refugium remains, even as we grieve their absence. 

Returning to the gospel text, while we cannot be sure just how impressive a yield of a hundred, sixty, or thirtyfold was to Jesus’ ancient audience, the fact that anything at all grows in these adverse conditions is amazing. Despite significant obstacles, God will bring about God’s kingdom. And it will be good.

God’s reign takes root and spreads through those who hear the word, understand it, and then spread the seeds of the kingdom. Jesus’ disciples, you all, are the ones who have received his word and have grasped it. God alone brings about the reign of God, so too, God alone can give the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. 

Jesus does not tell his disciples that they are able to understand his teachings because they are smarter or more competent than others. Instead, he tells them that they are blessed with this gift of understanding, a gift that must be stewarded today in intentional Christian community. But when a seed is planted in good soil, it grows and bears fruit. And even in the most barren of places, refugium is making a way. 

This community of faith has accompanied many people through tragedies that make them doubt that God is present. Instead of the prosperity gospel, you have reminded people that God is with them on the mountains and in the deepest valleys—what a gift! But not everyone wants to hear about a God who is there for everyone who is suffering. There is a real draw to worship and proclaim a God who makes insiders and outsiders. What a blessing then are you disciples who point to the Jesus who was always accompanying those who were suffering.

Freed by God’s grace and fully aware of God’s love and mercy through Jesus Christ, how can you not want to share that gift with others? In that sharing, lean on the power of the Holy Spirit, but be bold. The world needs the Gospel of Jesus’ abundant love and mercy more than ever. Beyond the news cycles, you and your neighbors continue to experience the regular but heart-breaking hardships of life. Thanks be to God, a God of refuge and refugia, who continues to show up in this space week after week, nourishing you with new life through Confession and Forgiveness, hymns of the faith, and through his body and blood—new life and forgiveness now and always.

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Rostered Ministers Gathering – Indiana

Posted on July 13, 2026 by megganmanlove

Last Monday through Thursday (July 6-9) was the third ELCA Rostered Ministers Gathering, held in Indianapolis. Previous gatherings were in Atlanta and Phoenix and they are on a three-year cycle like the WELCA gathering and Youth Gathering (minus pandemic disruptions). This was my first time attending and I loved it! I loved the keynote speakers, worship, the workshops, the pace, the places we could walk to from the hotel, and most of all the many people I interacted with.

Our theme was Woven Together and each day emphasized a different relationship–woven together with God, for creation, in community, as rostered leaders (pastors, deacons, ministry partners). I had breakfast with leaders from the Metro-New York Synod during which we ended up talking about Camp Koinonia. I sat at the closing banquet with pastors from the Atlanta area. I caught up with friends from across the church. I met a daughter of our synod whose dad pastored in Bonner’s Ferry and Deacon Erika runs field education at my alma matter–University of Chicago Divinity School!

I attended a workshop on the Old Testament and Immigration by retired New Testament scholar Pastor Mark Allen Powell. I attended a workshop on the ELCA Church Property Resource Hub. I connected with many exhibitors. I participated in a conversation between all the bishops in attendance and seminary presidents and staff on lay leadership formation.

With our Region 1 Quality of Call Grant (supporting women rostered leaders) we scholarship women with current calls to attend the event. We also hosted a dinner at a restaurant in walking distance and had some intentional discussion about sexism, when women have been supported in ministry, and how all rostered ministers build connections.

Region 1 dinner (AK, WA, OR, MT, ID)
NWIM Synod (missing just one)
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Moses Lake and Lake Chelan – June 28

Posted on July 13, 2026 by megganmanlove

Sunday, June 28 was a double-worship day. I started by visiting Immanuel Lutheran in Moses Lake, served by interim Pastor Mary Anthony from the Oregon Synod. This congregation has been through a lot in the last 20 years, as members reminded me. Thanks to good lay leadership and a steady recent pastorate (Thanks Pastor Walter) they are in a good place and certainly a wellspring of God’s love in their community.

Then I traveled on to Lake Chelan Lutheran for the ordination and installation of Pastor Lynette Rose, serving as half-time associate pastor of Lake Chelan Lutheran. Pastor Paul Palumbo preached and it was a wonderful service.

Matthew 10:40-42

Grace to you and peace members of Immanuel Moses Lake. It is so good to be with you this morning and to bring greetings from the Northwest Intermountain Synod staff and council and to worship with you.

We have a very brief gospel lesson today and I know that my first instinct is to hear Jesus’ words to his disciples as a command. This is the Jesus who preached the beatitudes, who loves to teach about what it means to follow him, what it means to be a disciple. 

Since Jesus himself says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me,” this must mean that I should welcome the stranger. After all, I am supposed to imitate Jesus. In welcoming the stranger, I am also welcoming Jesus and the one who sent Jesus.

Since Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward,” this means I am supposed to welcome a prophet, and I will receive a prophet’s reward.

Since Jesus says, “whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous,” this means that I ams supposed to welcome the righteous and then I will receive the reward of the righteous. 

Finally, Jesus says, “whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple— [will not] lose their reward.” I must offer a cup of cold water to needy and oppressed in order that I might not lose the reward.

Given all that Jesus said and did throughout his ministry, given the mercy he showed, given his preferential treatment of the sick, the outcast, those marginalized by others, reading these few verses and assuming we are to show hospitality and kindness to everyone is not a far stretch. 

And yet, I think there is a different message for us in this text. Let us return to that first verse again. Jesus says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Jesus is placing his hearers, including you all, not in the place of the ones offering the welcome. Instead, they/you are in the place of the ones receiving welcome. 

He says, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the [Creator] who sent me.” So rather than being a commandment, what you are hearing today is a promise. And note also that the “you” here is plural. As Jesus’ followers, “you all” will be welcomed by some. And when you are welcomed, you will be making known both Jesus’ presence and God the Creator’s presence.

And so, the real command in today’s text is not so much about showing hospitality and kindness, thought that command is clear elsewhere in the gospels. To be welcomed by someone else, anyone else, means that we must go out! To be welcomed somewhere else means that ministry, living as baptized children of God, being the body of Christ is not contained to what happens on Sunday morning.

If we zoom out from our three verses this becomes all the more clear. In Matthew’s gospel, chapter 10, Jesus sends out the Twelve Apostles in mission and offers words of guidance. The chapter is sometimes called “the missionary discourse.” Matthew 10:40-42 is part of this longer discourse. Jesus offers words of guidance, warning, and promise about the disciples’ mission. Various phrases in the chapter show that the whole discourse is tied together as a whole. 

 “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town” (10:14)

“See, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves” (10:16)

“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered (10:26)

“Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me” (10:34)

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me” (10:40)

Jesus’s words today are words of promise, under the broader commandment to follow Jesus out into the world in mission. In a sense, Jesus tells his disciples, “I am sending you into a dangerous world as part of my mission to love, save, bless, and be reconciled to that very world. It is dangerous out there. But you will find welcome. Those who welcome and receive you, also welcome and receive me—and they will be rewarded.”

Part of my role as the bishop of the 85 ministries in our synod, from Leavenworth in the west to Jackson, WY in the east is to explain how we collectively go out into the community and world with the message of Jesus’ love and mercy and sometimes we are welcomed. 

But the best part of visiting congregations is learning how you are showing Jesus’ love in Moses Lake and Grant County as the body of Christ and as individual members. How are you showing up in the larger community and in circles beyond this faith community? What are those relationships like?

The truth is, the command is not necessarily to go out to different places. Each of you already lives much of your life beyond these walls, in your homes, in your places of work, in places of volunteering, and in places of recreation. How do you bring your identity as a baptized child of God into those spaces and times? 

One scholar [Townes-Feasting] argued that “our will to achieve caring relationships is within our grasp, yet all too often, if left to our own devices, we fall short of creating and nurturing genuine relationships, in which we develop into the people God calls us to be.”

What gets in our way? Price, ego, self-doubt, and their kin keep us from connecting with each other except in self-interested ways. And so, we need God’s embrace in our lives to live in this paradox and fulfill our faith.

What does it mean to live out the baptismal promises in Moses Lake in 2026? Only you can tell me how farmers, government employees, healthcare workers, educators, entrepreneurs, business owners, neighbors, parents, grandparents, friends bear God’s message of unconditional love and forgiveness into your daily lives. Only you can tell me what happens when you offer yourself up as the guest of other people’s welcome in this particular context. 

My assumption is that not everyone is welcoming. The life-giving gospel of Jesus’ abundant love and forgiveness is not what everyone wants to hear; it is not welcomed by all and so you will not be welcomed by all. This is especially true in a day and time when so many other things parade as the gospel of Jesus. But some people will be and are welcoming to you. And, most importantly, when you offer yourself up as guest for people to welcome, you manifest for all of those people the blessings of both God in Heaven and also the beloved Son, Jesus Christ. 

That is the amazing thing about living out our baptismal identity. Simply by offering yourself up as the guest of another person’s welcome, you reveal for them the very reign of God. Today, we receive a glimpse of that reign at the table. Bread and wine become gifts of abundant life and mercy. And at this table, Jesus is the host and welcomes you graciously, beloved children of God.

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Region 1 Bishops Retreat – Walla Walla

Posted on June 20, 2026 by megganmanlove

Every June, the bishops of the NW WA, SW WA, NWIM, Oregon, Montana, and Alaska Synods go on a three-night retreat together. In 2023 we were in Seward, AK. Last year we were in Cascade, MT, and this year I hosted in Walla Walla, WA. I planned a few excursions–to Palouse Falls State Park, to the Whitman Mission National Historic Site (I scheduled a 40-minute tour), and to the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute across the border in Oregon. Our first night, we sat outside and watched a gorgeous sunset. For our final evening, we walked around Walla Walla and ate at Saffron Mediterranean Kitchen.

But the real treasure of our trip was all the conversations (in the kitchen and in the car and around the table) and the prayer and worship time together. I’m grateful for the friends who aren’t in the church world and who I can bring my full self to, but I am equally grateful for colleagues in this role with me during these challenging days.

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