⁴ For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. Romans 12:4-5 (NRSVue)

Pastor:

Since our spring meeting at Lutherhaven, I have visited the following congregations for Sunday worship or an ordination: Faith, Kamiah (at Community Presbyterian Church); St. John’s, American Falls; Trinity, Pullman; Zion, Deer Park; Immanuel, Boise; First, Ellensburg; Prince of Peace, Spokane; Grace, Mountain Home; St. Paul, Ontario; Christ, Walla Walla-Installation; Christ the King, Goldendale; and Grace Community, Potlach. Following the Council meeting I’ll visit Troy Lutheran and preside at UCC Pastor Ian McPherson’s rite of welcome at Salem, Spokane. I also visited our newest congregation, Christ the King, Milton Freewater on my trip home from the Walla Walla installation. 

I have no idea under which of these headings Synod Assembly belongs, but we had a wonderful online assembly. Yes, it’s hard not to be in person every year, but the feedback I have received about who could participate because it was online and just one day, makes me grateful for our pivot. Pastor Phil pulled together a gifted team and followed through on so many details. Our synod worship team grounded us beautifully throughout the day.

Our synod currently has eight individuals somewhere in the ELCA Candidacy process with 2-4 more who could begin the process/Entrance at our February meeting!

Pastor Liv is pulling together our fall Preach, Pray, Preside, (and Polity) Retreat in October and reports that we’ll have around 12 participants. We hope to have a similar retreat in the spring in Southern Idaho.

Servant: 

At our June Region 1 Bishops’ Retreat, anticipating two new bishops begin to serve in our region, we adjusted our assignments. My last PLU board meeting will be in October and this fall I will begin serving as the Region 1 liaison bishop to ELCA Church Council. I commissioned the summer staffs at Camp Lutherhaven and Luther Heights Bible Camp. I led devotions for Lutherhaven’s Wild Women Retreat at Shoshone Mountain Retreat. I attended ELCA Churchwide Assembly with the other six voting members from our synod—what a wonderful group of people we sent! I highlighted actions from CWA in my August newsletter column. 

Symbol of our unity in Christ’s church:

I attended and preached at Montana’s Synod Assembly and attended the Southwestern WA Synod Assembly. I’ll return to both synods this fall for bishop installations. I will travel to Minneapolis in October for ELCA Church Council, Installation of Bishop Curry, and Conference of Bishops. 

I recruited Lutherhaven’s Outdoor Ed Coordinator Josh Kramer (a Concordia, Moorhead alum who worked at Camp Metigoshe in ND) to be our synod’s ELCA Young Adult Network liaison. He will travel to Chicago in October for an orientation. I worked with NWIM’s ELCA World Hunger coordinator Pastor Ethan Bergman to recruit Diedre Jacobson (St. Mark’s), Ryan Lawrence (Cameron Emanuel), and Nick Tinker (King of Glory) to attend the ELCA World Hunger Gathering in Columbus, OH Sept. 18-21 (this gathering happens every 18 months).

Learn about our ecumenical work thanks to the CaSTLE grant later in this report. I also continue to meet with ecumenical leaders both up north (those covering N. Idaho and Eastern WA) and down south (covering S. Idaho and Oregon). I’ll be part of Boise Pride’s interfaith worship in September. In November, Mennonite Drew Straight (Liv’s friend) will be in Boise speaking about his book Strange Worship: Six Steps for Challenging Christian Nationalism. I worked with Spokane Alliance and the Spokane Episcopal Diocese to bring Foundations of Community Organizing Training to North Idaho Oct. 3-4.

CEO:

Thanks to everyone who helped prepare for Cathy Steiner’s sabbatical and gave the synod staff grace when we missed something. Thanks to Diana Abken for filling in. We have such an amazing staff. I chose the Romans 12 text because it is our theme verse for the United at the Font events, it’s a text I am leaning on during these hard times (we can each do and be something to heal the world now and it can look different for each person and even each community), and I think we truly live out these verses as a small and lean synod staff. I am so grateful for the gifts Cathy, Phil, and Liv bring to this ministry. Eugene Peterson translates a portion in The Message this way: So, since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

Each month I convene a group from across Region One to be a sounding board for Rudy Vazquez, our new Financial Services Office coordinator (the group includes Cathy and former Region 1 Coordinator retired Pastor Mark Nelson). 

This summer we finally received and distributed gifts to ELCA recipients from Faith, Toppenish’s closing:

$15,000 to the NWIM Synod as an undesignated gift (Ex Committee followed our gift policy and designated 10% to churchwide $1500.00, 10% to Campus Ministry Endowment $1500.00, 10K to Bequest, and 2000.00 as a gift).

$15,000 to ELCA World Hunger

$15,000 to Lutheran Disaster Relief

$15,000 to Tumaini School in the Ulanga Kilombero Diocese (NWIM Synod Global Mission team designated: $5000 to scholarships, $5000 to flood relief, and $5000 set aside for hopes of the future solar kitchen at the school)

$15,000 to the NWIM Synod Fund for Leaders

$15,000 to NWIM’s WELCA chapter

$15,000 to Katie’s Fund (ministry of the national WELCA org)

$10,000 to the PLU Archives Department (holds all archives for Region One)

The Faith, Toppenish remnant still has some local distributions to make, and they gave a generous gift already to their neighbors at Our Saviour’s Lutheran, Sunnyside.

In late April I submitted a grant application to Wartburg Seminary’s CaSTLE Project for equipping rural and small-town ministries. We were one of two synods who applied for and received grant funds in the ecumenical experiments category. With our $20,000 we are holding three ecumenical events for church leaders this fall: Moses Lake, Clarkston, and Pocatello. We will also have a retreat in December for middle judicatory leaders from five denominations so we can better understand each other’s theologies and polities.