This past weekend, the Region 1 bishops and the bishop of Western ND traveled to Billings, MT for the installation of the Montana Synod’s new bishop: Bishop Ben Quanbeck. Several former Montana Synod bishops were present for the occasion and the Episcopal bishop attended as well.
American Lutheran in Billings
Bishop Eaton and Bishop Quanbeck in the center
I spent three summers working at Camp Christikon, north of Yellowstone National Park, on the Bolder River near the Absorka Beartooth Wilderness. In 1995, after finishing my Mat-term oversees, I spent 24 hours with my parents in Rochester, MN (they were interim camp directors at Good Earth Village that year) before joining a caravan of four cars heading from the Midwest to Montana. Heather Wigdhal, the new Executive Director of Christikon, was in that caravan.
Joe, one of Ben’s cousins, and I worked on staff together in 1998. Pastor Ken and I worked at camp at different times but served together in the Boise area for over eight years.
The Region 1 bishops Zoom every Wednesday. I always am grateful to be with them in person!
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)
Vice President Lisa leading us in discussion at All Saints Lutheran, Spokane
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.
I am so grateful to be with you today Salem Lutheran. Human beings have always needed joy and real celebration and our need for such moments is heightened now. What’s more, I know that this day of celebrating this next chapter with your new pastor comes after a season of good and holy discernment.
Last Wednesday and Thursday I was in Boise with an ecumenical group of faith leaders for the Interfaith Countering Hate Summit hosted by Interfaith Alliance and Western States Center.Whether we call today’s service the fake installation or “Invitation to Extended Service,” what is clearer to me than ever is that our ecumenical and interfaith relationships are going to become increasingly important in the years ahead as we continue to proclaim and work collectively for God’s shalom.
I am delighted that Pastor McPherson selected these familiar verses from Matthew for today, because they mirror the ethos of Salem Lutheran in West Central and they inform the mutual ministry that a congregation and pastor share.
Matthew’s gospel submerges us in a series of encounters Jesus has with religious leaders who oppose him. First, he is asked about paying taxes to the Roman Emperor, then comes the question of whether or not the dead are resurrected, and next we overhear the question about the greatest commandment.
Jesus answers by quoting Deut. 6:5, the Shema of Israel. The commandment to love the Lord with all one’s heart, soul, and might is prefaced by “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God. The Lord alone.” The command to love God is a command that presumes God’s love of Israel. Such a love is no vague generality but rather is manifest in the concrete and daily care of God for God’s people. We know what it means to love God only because of God’s love for us through the law and the prophets, Stanley Hauerwas wisely writes. This love can be harsh and dreadful, because to be loved by God is to be forced to know ourselves truthfully.
Jesus continues by quoting Lev. 19:18, that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. On these two commandments, Jesus tells the lawyer, hang all the law and the prophets. This is the same Jesus who told us in the Sermon on the Mount that he came not to abolish the law and prophets and that not a letter of the law would pass away until all is accomplished.
If we have any questions about what neighbor love might look like, or if we want to write our own edition, we can look back at the same chapter of Leviticus where we are commanded not to steal, deal falsely, lie, swear falsely by God’s name, defraud, revile the deaf, put a stumbling block before the blind, or render unjust judgment.
Now here is a crucial layer of the text that I’m not sure I heard growing up in my Lutheran church in Western South Dakota but I am confident has been proclaimed from this pulpit or shared in Bible Studies at Salem: to learn to love our neighbor as ourselves, means me must learn to love ourselves as God has loved us (1 John 4:11). To learn to love ourselves truthfully is not easy because we most often desire to love ourselves on our own terms. The challenge that Jesus presents by joining these commandments it to learn that one is loved by God so that one is thus able to love God and others.
I think I finally understood the relationship between these loves when I first read Martin Luther’s Freedom of a Christian, in which he declares, “The Christian is a completely free lord of all, subject to none. The Christian is a completely dutiful servant of all, subject to all (Freedom, 10). For Luther, everything begins with God’s actions towards human beings. We are loved. How then can we not spontaneously share that love with others?
I know that love is not just an intellectual exercise in this community of faith. Pastor Ian, you have probably kept learning, from the interview through today and into to tomorrow, that this is a space where love is truly embodied—from the Lord’s Supper to soup and bread brought to those hurting, putting your bodies in harms way, splashing in the font to remember your own belovedness, and the list goes on.
I’ll be honest, the reality of God’s love for me is something I have to keep learning and leaning into. Perhaps because I grew up in the forest and have spent hours in the out of doors, it was the stuff of faith that came with physicality that resonated with me most. I remain eternally grateful that the triune God we worship somehow understood that we human beings would need promises paired with simple water, bread, and wine to be reminded of Gods’ abundant love for us. The language we hear at the font and that we will hear today at the Lord’s Supper is pure gift and God’s love for creation. That love received, then is shared when we leave this place.
Salem Lutheran in West Central has been, is, and will be an incubator for love. Through sacred friendships, hearing the old old story of God’s love for you and all of creation, in the love feast that is the Lord’s Supper, you receive God’s love and are sent forth to love. You are freed from sin and brokenness and death and freed for love. And oh how desperately our world needs that love right now, as events each and every week remind us.
Any reflection on these two interconnected commandments Jesus points to is a reminder that we simply cannot follow Jesus on our own. To love well is really hard. To know we are loved can also be hard. We need the Holy Spirit and we need that Spirit moving through local expressions of the body of Christ, a congregation.
Today we rejoice that new mutual ministry between Pastor Ian McPherson and the people of Salem Lutheran is beginning. Congregations, like people can have multiple callings throughout their existence. As the world, nation, Spokane, the West Central neighborhood 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. 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 neighborhood 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.
A few weeks ago, I attended an event at the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights in Boise. The Wassmuth Center is named after Bill Wassmuth, a priest at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Coeur d’Alene. In the 1980s he found himself confronted with the misuse of theology for hateful aims by white supremacists in northern Idaho. He lived through a vindictive bombing of his home and built coalitions to battle the Aryan Nations as a chair of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations.
The presenter at the Wassmuth Center was a retired librarian and junior high English teacher who talked about literature being a mirror, a window, or a sliding door, using the seminal 1990 essay by Rudine Sims Bishop. Has a book or movie every transported you to another world, let you walk in the shoes of someone whose life is so different from your own? That’s a window. When the lighting is right, a window can become a mirror. Have you ever read a book or article and felt so seen, like you could see so much of your own story in it? A mirror, right? Some windows can become sliding glass doors, where readers just have to walk through in their imagination to become part of whatever world has been created.
On the best days, the clearest days, I think the cross at the center of our faith is both a mirror and window. Let’s start with where we all are. Take a few moments and consider what the cross means to you personally? Pause. And what do you think it means to others, those in this sanctuary and those a world away? Pause.
Before exploring further what the cross means to us and our faith, I find it helpful to rule out what the cross is not. One of my favorite scholars lists several of the most common and harmful false crosses: “The cross of Constantine for 1,700 years justified war in the name of God.” Other false crosses she lists are the the cross of “‘bear your suffering meekly, like a lamb’ which drives abused women and others back into the hands of their abusers,” and the “medieval cross that retains Jesus nailed to it, forever dead or dying.” (Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, “Being Church as, in, and against White Privilege”).
What then is the true cross, the life-giving cross, that we celebrate today? As John 3:14–15 insists, abundant life comes to believers this way: “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
In Numbers 21, poisonous serpents have been let loose in the camp of Israel as punishment for the people’s grumbling and unfaithfulness. The story tells us that the serpents bite the Israelites and many people die. Desperate, the people repent and ask Moses to talk to God on their behalf. Moses does so, and God commands Moses to raise up a bronze serpent for the people to look at. When they gaze upon the lifted serpent, the people who were poisoned live.
The word translated as “lift up” also means “exalt.” We are asked to hold these two meanings together simultaneously. As the serpent in the wilderness was lifted up, to the Son of Man must be lifted up on the cross. The double-meaning implies that physical act of lifting up is also a moment of exaltation. That is, it is in the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension that Jesus is exalted. The God we worship shows saving power where we least expect, in the form of power’s opposite—a cross.
When I see the cross, I am reminded that Christ is present in our brokenness and bondage to evil and draws forth power that we did not know we had. A favorite professor [Moe-Lobeda] writes, “This truth enables us to see the structural brutality of which we are a part without being destroyed by that knowledge. . . . In Martin Luther’s own words, when reality seems ‘distorted and sinful, and seemingly God-forsaken . . . a theologian of the cross is not afraid to recognize reality for what it is.’”
What does any of this mean in Troy, Idaho in 2025 after yet another week of violence in our nation and across the globe? I think sometimes we forget just how seemingly absurd the cross is in our culture. When Jesus walked on earth, the cross was an instrument of terror, torture, and death wielded by imperial power. It was used against all those who challenged the dominance and supremacy of the Roman Empire. In his love for the world, the whole world, including each of you, Jesus endured suffering and death on a cross.
This makes the cross a symbol of nonviolent resistance. Followers of Jesus respond to Jesus’ love by trusting in the non-violent love of God to work all things for good (even terrible things like suffering and death!). This is how God heals the world, and it’s the paradigm for how we work with God in the renewal of all things. When we gather for the Lord’s Supper today and eat the bread of life and the cup of salvation, we remember Jesus’ broken body and his blood spilled out for the life of the world, as we say during the distribution of Communion, “For you.”
The symbol of the cross and the name of Jesus Christ have been co-opted over and over throughout the centuries—Constantine, the Crusades, the removal of Indigenous peoples in this country under the guise of spread the gospel, and now in the form of Christian Nationalism. In this moment, communities of faith like yours which as faithfully passing on the abundant love and grace of Jesus through generations for decades, are needed more than ever. The world needs your welcome and hospitality, your rejection of evil, your care for those most vulnerable, your sharing of Jesus’ love for all people.
I’ve spent a lot of time here trying to help us think about what the cross means to us, to put up a mirror. I want to close with words from Reverdy Ransom, an African American Christian who lived in Ohio and Pennsylvania from 1861-1959. His experiences and those of the people he served as an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) bishop, were probably more like those of both Jesus and the Apostle Paul (whose words we heard in the First Corinthians reading) than our own. Let’s close with this window into another’s understanding of the cross of Christ:
“But our highest goal is not a unified church, a but a unified humanity in the bonds of brotherhood. The wise men from East were guided by a star, but wider men of our unfolding, coming from the four corners of the earth are guided by a higher vision. They seek not a manger but a cross where all men stand with equal footing on common ground. It is the final stand of humanity’s last retreat. All other meeting places have failed. For all ages men have tried the decisions of the battlefield, the prerogatives of kings, the decisions of courts, the enactments of parliaments, and union of great power seeking to underwrite the peace of the world. All these have left in their trail misery and chaos, division, and strife. But at the cross one man is lifted up so high above all other causes that divide, and his arms are extended so wide that they enfold in their loving embrace every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, to bind them together with his wounded hands in the everlasting bonds of brotherhood and love,” Reverdy Ransom, “The Coming Vision.”
The Bishops’ Holy Land trip I was scheduled to participate in this September was postponed for obvious reasons. To say I lament the genocide, the violence, the tragedy that we have been witnessing in Israel and Palestine seems inadequate. And as I write those words, I don’t want them to minimize bloodshed and tragedy in other parts of the world, like Sudan. And all of those words give me a measure of guilt in writing that it felt like a gift to have a week of my life back to spend at home among friends and familiar places during one of the Boise area/Treasure Valley’s most pleasant months–September.
Faith Lutheran in Caldwell – This is my home congregation and I love being able to simply attend worship and be nourished by the Word and Sacraments.
I went to brunch at Rembrandts in Eagle (a place that’s had many transformations during my time in Nampa/Boise) with some friends and met a woman who works for the Idaho Human Rights Commission–what a gift they are to the state.
I attended the Labor Day Rally at the Capital and it was good to be with strangers and friends speaking about the wealth gap and wages and labor.
I finally made it to the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights’ Speakers at the Center series and heard a wonderful retired librarian/junior high English teacher speak about the power of books and stories to feel seen and to step into the stories of others.
I attended Saturday Worship at St. Michael’s Cathedral–where I go when I want to be quite anonymous–except that Boise is still really a small town and of course I ran into people I know.
The best silver lining to the trip being postponed is that I was in town for Boise Pride – Trans Rally and Parade Friday and Pride Interfaith Worship, Parade, and Festival on Sunday. I led a blessing during worship and marched with Luther Heights Bible Camp in the parade, which had a new route this year.
I dropped off a bunch of old electronics at Reuseum on Chinden and trust that they will be recycled or repurposed.
A friend and I saw Peter and the Star Catcher at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. I had no idea what to expect but found myself laughing at lines and nodding knowingly at other pieces of the story.
On one day, I stayed home and joined the last online session in a series by the Idaho Nonprofit Center on financial development. I was wearing my LEAP Housing board hat that day.
Because of Boise Pride and some other events, another denominational leader was in town so we had a Southern Idaho Ecumenical Judicatory Gathering. We spend a lot of time on Zoom and it was fun to be together.
Finally, I attended the Interfaith Countering Hate Summit hosted by Interfaith Alliance and Western States Center. The latter is an organization I’ve been following since I was elected bishop. This event was at once sobering and hopeful. I’m still reflecting on all I heard.
Originally published in the NWIM Synod’s e-newsletter.
Dear Friends in Christ,
We are preparing to open registration for our three one-day United at the Font: Partnering for the Futureevents this fall. As I wrote in our grant application to Wartburg Seminary, these three locations were chosen in conversation with ecumenical partners. However, I see no reason why the entire synod cannot join in on the learning and growing.
I love this paragraph from the 1982 World Council of Church’s document Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry:
Christian baptism is rooted in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, in his death and in his resurrection. It is incorporation into Christ, who is the crucified and risen Lord; it is entry into the New Covenant between God and God’s people. Baptism is a gift of God, and is administered in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. St Matthew records that the risen Lord, when sending his disciples into the world, commanded them to baptize (Matt. 28:18–20). The universal practice of baptism by the apostolic Church from its earliest days is attested in letters of the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles, and the writings of the Fathers. The churches today continue this practice as a rite of commitment to the Lord who bestows his grace upon his people.
Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry is foundational to all of the ELCA’s full communion agreements with other denominations, and even though it is over 40 years old, it remains an excellent piece to study, especially for those of us in the Mountain West who are always swimming in ecumenical waters.
With this newsletter column we are inviting all of you to engage this fall in the United at the Font pre-work, whether you’ll be joining us in Moses Lake, Clarkston, Pocatello or not.
Finally, we encourage all ministry sites to make Affirmation of Baptism by the Assembly part of All Saints Sunday this fall. (We know this is already a tradition for some of you). Watch for a special Affirmation of Baptism liturgy to be sent out mid-October.
Why revisit the promises made by God and the promises we make in Holy Baptism? Here’s the opening paragraph of Article 20 from the social statement Faith and Civic Life, adopted this summer by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly:
All the baptized must wrestle with the relationship between their faith, the church, and civic life as they live out their responsibilities to “care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.”34 This church’s involvement in civic life is primarily borne out in the lives of its members as they embody discipleship in their communities and relationships. Consistent with the testimony of the Scriptures and the Lutheran tradition, the ELCA is clear in its teaching that all Christians share in the calling to civic and political participation. This church strongly affirms this shared calling of all the baptized.
This post contains our Northwest Intermountain Synod’s grant application to Wartburg Seminary’s Castle Project for small town and rural ministry. I did most of the writing after good conversations with Episcopal Bishop Gretchen Rehberg and Presbyter Sheryl Kinder-Pile up in Spokane, but DEM Pastor Liv Larson Andrews added poetic and biblical language to our answer on baptismal ecclesiology.
We are very excited about our upcoming events in the synod and Assistant to the Bishop Pastor Phil Misner and I enjoyed our time at Wartburg this August with other grant recipients.
Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry in the Rural Intermountain West
Description of Project (500 words or less):
The pillars guiding us are relationship building and equipping our lay leaders. We will host events across our synod bringing together members of at least four denominations (ELCA, PCUSA, Episcopal, and UMC). Our three locations will be Grant County, WA (Moses Lake area), Palouse of WA and ID, and Southeast ID (American Falls to Idaho Falls). These areas were strategically chosen by teams of middle judicatory leaders. For geographic context, the Northwest Intermountain Synod is 80 congregations between Jackson, WY and Leavenworth, WA. This is roughly the same distance as the trip from Chicago to New York City. Grounding our time together at these three in-person events will be a deep dive into the historic 1982 World Council of Churches convergence text, Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry. We want our lay and rostered leaders to recognize what they share with their siblings from these various denominations when it comes to the sacraments and the life-giving and love filled gospel we proclaim. Further, we want to equip our leaders to share these gifts with their larger communities. Judicatory/synod leaders will do theological framing and teaching. We would bring in a neutral outside facilitator (hopefully someone connected with Gonzaga University’s leadership school. These early fall gatherings will be followed by coaching sessions which help leaders keep the conversation going locally. As I, Bishop Meggan, sat with an Episcopal bishop and Presbyter, dreaming about how this grant could help us equip our leader, we quickly realized that we also need guidance. Though we have many shared ministries, see below, there is so much we still need to learn. We seek guidance as we figure out what skills and knowledge we need to support our local leaders. The final component of our fall project is a retreat for judicatory leaders during which we will take a deep dive collectively into one another’s polities and sacramental theologies, all so we can better guide thoughtful and faithful ecumenical congregational partnerships and mergers. We would also use Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry and would teach one another, a cooperative learning retreat. We might Zoom in some of our churchwide staff or seminary professors.
How does this project support the furthering of a baptismal ecclesiology? (250 words or less)
Our ecumenical relationships in rural areas equip us to be a special and united voice witnessing to God’s compassion, mercy, and healing in areas dominated by Christian nationalism. We seek to dial up the volume on this voice, not to castigate or shout at our neighbors, but to be a steady presence of peace, calling each other and our neighbors into deeper humanity. As the fragrance of Mary’s oil filled the house, we wish to share the good things we have been given: the abundant presence of Christ in word and sacrament, baptismal dignity and blessing, and works of mercy that transform the world with God’s love. We believe we can share these gifts even more fully alongside our ecumenical partners. To put it bluntly, we are in no hurry to close our small congregations in rural areas because we know the voices that will fill the void if that happens. Our lay leaders often understand this as well and are hungry to step up and learn and lead. The way forward, particularly in the mountain west, is ecumenical consortiums and ecumenical mergers oftentimes led by lay leaders with several pastors and deacons mentoring and supporting. We are deeply committed to partnering for the sake of the Gospel.
How does this project fit with the current priorities of the synod? (500 words or less)
In the case for support for our synod, workshopped and owned by our large synod council, we name five Cs: Cultivating Leaders, Candidacy, Call Process, Companion Synod, and Campus Ministry. Cultivating Leaders is listed first intentionally and prioritizes the cultivation of lay leaders. Our synod staff’s purpose is to serve, accompany, and equip ministry sites and leaders of the NWIM of the ELCA so they can point to and participate in the gracious work of Jesus. Finally, our staff goals for 2024-2025 include:
Develop and raise up discerning leaders who proclaim and further the gospel.
Amplify collective gifts and resources by deepening and broadening relationships and partnerships.
Equip and empower partners to practice stewardship towards solidarity in Christ.
Cultivate a team culture that enables our collective work and individual thriving.
The proposed project aligns with our priorities of raising up and equipping leaders and deepening and broadening partnerships within our synod and ecumenically.
We refer to our ELCA ministry sites as Wellsprings of God’s Love claiming boldly that “as the waters of our synod all flow into streams and creeks that run into the Snake and Columbia Rivers, our ministry sites make up the watershed proclaiming the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ.” We know that our full-communion partners share this vision and commitment and that they are part of the same watershed.
A final theme this project aligns with, not named explicitly in synod documents, is of returning to basics. Online book studies have included God is Red and the draft of the ELCA’s social statement Faith and Civic Life, but they have also included Bible Studies and Dan Erlander’s Manna and Mercy. It is hard to think of something more basic than looking at baptism, eucharist, and ministry with our full communion partners.
What supports are already in place to further the success of this project? (250 words or less)
A robust and grounded culture of ecumenism already exists across our synod. Our synod includes four federated PCUSA/ELCA congregations, all in rural areas and one is currently served by a UMC pastor. There are additional ministry partnerships with PCUSA ministries (sharing pastors or supply pastors). In two communities, an ELCA pastor or Episcopal priest serves both of those respective congregations. Three more ELCA pastor serve additional full-communion congregations. There are numerous ecumenical endeavors in small towns and our three more urban hubs (Spokane, Boise, Tri-Cities—rural to most of the United States) addressing food insecurity. There are too many ecumenical Martin Luther King Jr., midweek Advent, midweek Lent, and Holy Week worship services and summer Vacation Bible Schools to list here. Several of our congregations have participated in the Spokane Presbytery’s Land Stewardship Project. The Episcopal Diocese’s College of Congregational Development has welcomed one of our ELCA churches, with hopefully more following this year. Middle-judicatory relationships are fostered regularly across the synod, including with two Episcopal dioceses, two UMC districts, two UCC conferences, one Mennonite conference, and five Presbyteries. Leaders are dedicated to these relationships not motivated by survival of institutions but because of our commitment to make sure the Gospel of God’s abundant love continues to be shared through Word and Sacrament.
How will you measure the success of this project? (250 words or less)
We will work with the ELCA Research and Evaluation team to create three surveys: pre-ecumenical gathering, post-gathering and before coaching, and one for after the three coaching sessions. These surveys will help us evaluate the events and, equally as important, capture understanding, learnings, and stories. Each judicatory leader will also commit to doing one-on-one interviews with three lay leaders. Through the surveys and interviews, participants will report on new ecumenical relationships, deeper understandings of baptism, eucharist, and ministry, and opened imaginations for partnered ministries and mergers. Judicatory/synod leaders will be listening deeply and discerning next steps. By the end of the leadership retreat, we will have a clearer path forward for better supporting and equipping our local leaders.
Grace Community Church in Potlatch is one of our synod’s four ELCA/PCUSA federated churches, meaning it is fully a member of both denominations. The two churches began sharing a pastor in the 1970s and fully federated just over ten years ago, according to what I heard today. They kept the PCUSA building for its size and I can see the sanctuary filling up for funerals. The congregation is a site for the Idaho Food Bank each month. I loved that many people led different parts of worship. Four different pastors rotate through each month, each assigned a different Sunday. This was not a Holy Communion Sunday so I offered to lead Affirmation of Baptism by the Assembly–such a joy.
Good group for mid-August
Exterior – nice ramp for mobility
Aug. 24, 2025
Luke 13:10-17
This gospel passage can so easily be simplified and we can be too quick to judge. What was it really like for the crippled woman and the leader of the synagogue? Settle in and walk in their shoes.
For eighteen years she has strained to see the sun, the sky, and the stars. She knows people in her community by their sandals and feet, maybe the bottom of their tunics. Most of us look into one another’s eyes. She looks down at children and small animals. Most people’s landmarks are buildings; hers are large stones and tree roots sticking out of the ground. She has grown accustomed to looking down. It is always difficult to look up. She turns from side to side to see what you who stand upright can see with just a glance. They say her illness is caused by Satan.
Jesus has come to our community. He is teaching in our synagogue. The woman is a faithful Jew and so has come here this Sabbath day. We all have heard that Jesus is a healer. He has done extraordinary things. Still, she dares not ask him to heal me, or even to approach him. She is here to listen, to learn from this teacher. She can barely see his eyes; it is so painful to look up.
Jesus sees her. He calls her over and says, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” He lays his hands on her. Immediately she stands up straight. She give thanks to God, with the whole assembly. We are rejoicing. But a leader of our synagogue is fuming. Why?
The Sabbath is a day for rest and renewal. Honoring it has been a law since the days of Moses. In Egypt our people, the Israelites, were slaves and worked under the command of our masters. We never rested. Then Moses came down the mountain with a command to set aside one day of the week to rest and pray.
It is all too easy to start making exceptions to this rule, to any rule. It is the woman’s job as a spiritual leader of the people to help them hold fast to the laws. What will happen if we decide that we are going to go out and work in the field because it has been neglected? What is to stop us from making another exception to the rule? Where will we stop? Will we start making exceptions to lying or gender roles? Doesn’t this Jesus, an Israelite himself, know that he is threatening our way of life—the way God gave us to live?
This parable is thick. What is Jesus thinking? Is he encouraging a domino effect of law breaking? My former congregation Trinity, in Nampa partnered with the University of Idaho Extension to teach food preservation classes. Students always asked about substitutions. They asked if there were exceptions to this rule or that rule. In some cases following the rules of food preservation was a matter of serious illness.
Jesus is not encouraging a break from the rules. However, he is suspending a law for mercy’s sake. He can heal. He sees this crippled woman and knows that he can heal her, change her life. She will not only be restored physically. She will live a whole new life in her community. Of course he heals her, just as he heals you.
One of Jesus’ names was Emmanuel, “God With Us.” Jesus is God up close and personal; God as God really is rather than whom we had imagined God to be; God is often too close for comfort. And one of the main things we learn about God after watching God With Us in action is this: God is merciful.
Someone said, “I spent the first thirty years of my life thinking God was mad at me for something. Then I saw Jesus.” Jesus could have passed by that suffering woman that day, could have preached to her some sweet sermon on bearing up under misfortune. He could have averted his eyes from her and focused instead upon the well-heeled and more attractive people, the defenders of scripture, the keepers of religious rules. Jesus didn’t do any of that. What he did was to feel her pain and to respond to her in mercy.
Jesus saw her. But he didn’t just watch. He didn’t continue with his teaching. He really saw her. In the gaze of Jesus, which must have been the kind of gaze that goes directly to the heart, Jesus raised her up by laying his hands on her. She straightens up, and you can almost imagine their eyes meeting, their gaze locked. How she must have gloried in being seen, apart from her evil spirit, no longer that old, bent-over woman but now the friend of Jesus. Eye to eye, person to person, partners in the life of God. And she sees too. She sees God right in front of her.
The laws were given to order our lives. Commands to protect life (do not murder), protect relationships (do not lie), to help us rest (keep the Sabbath holy) can be and are life-giving. But the greatest command is to love. We are to love God and we are to love our neighbors. Such love has the final word, is the law above all laws, is the greatest command, is the most life-giving law there is. Such love pours from the baptismal font and the promises made there, the promises we will remember today. Love poured into you from the promises of the baptismal font. At the font, each of you was seen, claimed, named child of God, a name you can never get rid of.
What life does this love call us into? Jesus saw the crippled woman who had become invisible to the people who lived with her each day. Perhaps we, like the crippled woman who Jesus heals, are able to see things that before we could not.
Who do we not see when we are burdened and weighed down? Surely there are people today in bondage who need to be loosened from fear or grief or anger. There are people who are lost and forsaken. There are other people who no one else takes time to see. Who do we not see day in and day out? Washed, forgiven, claimed as God’s own, we know that God sees us and loves us. We have new eyes to see the lost and broken in our community of faith and beyond these walls.
God’s love for us frees us. You are recipients of this love when you are washed clean in the waters of the font. You receive God’s love and mercy when you turn to the font every week and hear words of forgiveness. You receive God’s love and mercy when you gather around the table and feast on the bread and wine—the bread of life, the cup of salvation.
Of course we can be disheartened easily. I am sure that the woman Jesus healed did not go on to live a perfect life, always praising God and never tripping up. Our work will never be done, and it will never be done perfectly. God will love us no less. God’s mercy will bend beyond our brokenness. God will never forsake you. God sees you for who you are and calls you by a name that is never erased, “child of God.” Amen.
Originally published in the August electronic-newsletter for the Northwest Intermountain Synod.
ELCA Churchwide Assembly
6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed.7 But we speak God’s wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory8 and which none of the rulers of this age understood, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.11 For what human knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:6-13)
Dear Friends in Christ,
The above text was the second passage for our Monday morning worship at Churchwide Assembly in Phoenix, AZ. It was an honor to be one of the seven voting members from the NWIM Synod at this Assembly, under the theme For the Life of the World.
Inside this e-newsletter you will find news about our newly elected Bishop-elect Curry and Secretary-elect Mills.
We also elected ELCA Church Council members, including Rev. Dr. Barbara Rossing from Faith, Leavenworth.
We adopted our newest Social Statement: Faith and Civic Life. Rev. Dr. Anthony Bateza, one of the co-chairs of the statements task force will be with our pastors and deacons this fall.
We approved updates to the Human Sexuality Social Statement.
We heard the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church’s final report along with the ELCA Church Council’s response to the report.
The CRLC’s work also found its way into some of our Constitution revisions.
We adopted a Memorial that has us standing for the End of Occupation of Palestine (I have been thanked by several people for NWIM’s Pastor Dane Breslin’s words about this Memorial). We received the Common Statement on the Filioque (which I wrote about earlier here).
Our own Mondo Davilla (Celebration, East Wenatchee) served on the important Reference and Counsel Committee during Assembly, so we rarely saw him at lunchtime.
We adopted another Memorial on Indian Boarding School Remembrance.
One evening, we participated in an educational Powwow and later in the week
AMMPARO held a Candlelight Prayer Vigil for refugees and immigrants.
Our synod joined voting members and guests from the Greater Milwaukee Synod (our domestic companion synod) for a wonderful dinner.
Every day was grounded in amazing worship services. We were fed by sermons by Bishop Elizabath Eaton; Rev. Imad Mousa Dawood Haddad, bishop-elect, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land; Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie, General Secretary and President of the National Council of Churches; and Rev. Wyvetta Bullock, ELCA executive for administration.
We heard an amazing presentation from Professor Chad Rimmer from Lenoir-Rhyne University and Southern Seminary. He introduced me to/reminded me of this wonderful quote by Martin Luther: “This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise; we are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it; the process is not yet finished, but it is going on; this is not the end, but it is the road; all does not yet gleam with glory, but all is being purified.” Luther, Defense and Explanation of All the Articles (1521)
I don’t know how long the recordings of the plenaries and worship services will be online, but if you can, please watch some of them! You can also check out Living Lutheran online and watch for the next print edition.
Mondo, Bp Meggan, Pr Dane, VP Lisa Therrell, Jason Mills (Trinity, Nampa), Heidi Hellner-Gomez (Immanuel, Grandview), and Sylvia Hwang (Grace, Wenatchee)
Northwest Intermountain Synod, ELCA Receives Grant from Wartburg Theological Seminary’s CaSTLE Project to Support Rural and Small Town Congregations
The Northwest Intermountain Synod, ELCA is honored to announce that it has been selected as a grant recipient through The CaSTLE Project: The Country and Small Town Lived Ecclesiology Project, a five-year initiative led by Wartburg Theological Seminary to support renewal in small town and rural congregations.
With this grant, the Northwest Intermountain (NWIM) Synod, ELCA will receive funding to deepen rural ecumenical relationships of lay people and rostered leaders in three areas across our synod as well as relationships between midlevel judicatory leaders (bishops, presbyters, district superintendents). The project seeks to deepen baptismal identity and cultivate thriving, Spirit-led communities of faith in rural contexts.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with Wartburg Theological Seminary and The CaSTLE Project,” said Bishop Meggan Manlove, NWIM Synod. “This grant will allow us to We seek to deepen partnerships for the sake of the Gospel, equipping our congregations and leaders for a future rooted in hope and purpose.”
The CaSTLE Project, funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc., is part of the Thriving Congregations Initiative and aims to renew a baptismal ecclesiology for the long-term flourishing of rural congregational life. The first cohort of grantees will gather at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, IA, from August 11–13, 2025, for a summer conference focused on mutual learning, community-building, and innovation.
“We are excited to walk alongside the leaders of NWIM Synod in this journey of renewal,” said Rev. Ramie Bakken, Director of The CaSTLE Project.
Local Contact: Pastor Meggan Manlove Bishop bishopmeggan.manlove@nwimsynod.org
DETAILS FOR THOSE IN THE NWIM SYNOD:
July 2, 2025
Please save the date for now, as the flyer states. Talk in your leadership meeting (council, vestry….) about 2 lay leaders your congregation might send. District Superintendents, Presbyters, Bishops, and Conference Ministers have all been brought in on this collaborative effort. Stay tuned for more and thank you for all you already do to partner for the sake of the gospel!
-Bishop Meggan Manlove
Moses Lake – area from Quincy to Ritzville and from Othello up to Coulee City
Clarkston/Lewiston – north to Endicott and Potlatch
A Place at the Table 