Last Monday I made it to Wartburg Seminary for the CaSTLE Project (Country and Small Town Lived Ecclesiology) Conference (their grant supporting rural ministry). Pastor Ramie drove me down from Wisconsin, where she lives and I was last weekend. She had meetings and set-up as the conference didn’t not start until late afternoon. So I did some laundry in the Residence Hall basement (hooray for clean clothes) and then joined the Washington State VOAD Call at noon Central.

Here’s what I wrote to the NWIM Synod about the Zoom call, “I want to take a moment to tell you about the Washington VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster) meeting I attended Wednesday. Ray Sherjven, WA VOAD representative for Lutheran Disaster Response invited me to join the statewide Zoom meeting at 10 am Pacific. The VOAD President Christie Merrill of the American Red Cross warmly welcomed so many members by name as they entered the virtual space. She introduced the board. She then asked for county and tribal participants to name their needs. There was a beautiful moment of synergy and Spirit when hay for livestock was requested. “Bails or Rolls?” “Either.” “We’ve got hay. Can you find a way to transport it?” “We can help with transport!” Next each agency represented was asked to raise their hand and share what they had, what area of expertise they brought. We heard about people who could help with childcare center, lots of food, hazardous material gear for people going into burned areas. We heard about this website for after urban wildfires: https://washington.postfire.org (organizations passing along everything they learned from the wildfires in Los Angeles two years ago). Our United Methodist Church and Disaster Response siblings will be offering Disaster Case Management Training in October. I wonder if some of you might be willing to take this excellent training and then put it to use as a form of neighbor love. Watch our synod newsletter.”

We often say, because of all the rivers in the synod and because of the way our Lutheran tradition has us returns to baptism, that our ministry sites are Wellsprings of God’s Love and that we swim in ecumenical waters, just the way of life in the Mountain West.

The CaSTLE Conference was a lovely reunion with old friends and a delightful meeting of new friends. I met Joel and Amy from the Tangled Blue music group over twenty years when I was back at my hometown congregation of Custer Lutheran Fellowship in SD and they were the musicians for the week at Outlaw Ranch’s family camp. I never knew those were the early years of Tangled Blue. Now they are both pastors and Joel serves on the SD Synod Staff.

Last year there were many bishops at the conference as the project was just getting started. This year most synods have other staff running their projects so there were only Bishop Dee from SW MN, Bishop Lisa from Western ND (who had just begun her term), and me. Bishops emeritus Shelley Wickstrom and Andrea DeGroot-Nesdahl serve on the grant’s advisory team.

Every synod that receives a grant has to send two people to the summer conference. Our Assistant to the Bishop is on sabbatical. Our Director for Evangelical Mission was on a family vacation. Since our grant is about ecumenical experiments, I decided to invite an ecumenical partner- UCC Conference Minister Pastor Tyler Connelly, who lives in Portland and serves Oregon and Southern ID (and a few churches in WA). Oh my goodness! Having Tyler there with me was such a gift.

Tuesday was our big day for content. The Central/Southern Illinois Synod presented on their five-year grant: “Our objective is to cultivate an ecclesiological transformation in small town and rural communities of disciples across the Central/Southern Illinois Synod, focused on baptismal renewal and mission.”

The other synod spotlight presentation was the NWIM Synod! Put simply, “The NWIM Synod’s rural CaSTLE grant is built around rural ecumenical gatherings called United at the Font: Partnering for the Future and also includes team coaching and annual retreats for middle judicatory (synod, conference, diocese…) leaders.”

That afternoon we had affinity groups and the one Tyler and I were in was geographical–we were with colleagues from Sierra Pacific Synod, Rocky Mountain Synod, and the TX-LA Gulf Coast Synod. Did I mention I got to reconnect with Pastor Jen from this synod, who used to be the pastor at Lutherhill Ministries, now serves a four-point parish, and wrote her synod’s CaSTLE Grant application.

New Testament Professor Troy Troftgruben is on sabbatical this summer but he wandered over to the refractory from his office during a break. It was wonderful to meet him in person and thank him for his excellent book Bearing Witness in Acts and Today. I highly recommend this text for church council reads!

On Wednesday morning, I had breakfast with Pastor Kristen Van Stee from the Virginia Synod. Kristen told me she grew up at Grace Lutheran in Mountain Home, ID, as her dad served in the military and they were at the Mountain Home Air Force Base. She talked about the simple church building and the warmth of the community; that in a time that could have felt quite lonely, that congregation served as a hub of love and welcome.

Speaking of baptismal ecclesiology, I have about 100 of these cards with me now, so if you see me and you want one, please just ask. I recently wrote to the synod about how my answer to so much right now is to remember our baptisms.