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COVID-19 relief in India with Lutheran Disaster Response
Over the past two months, a surge of COVID-19 cases has ravaged India. Padhar Hospital, a ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Madhya Pradesh, has a ward dedicated to COVID-19 patients. Unfortunately, the hospital is currently being forced to turn away patients because it lacks the space and oxygen to support them. Lutheran Disaster Response is helping Padhar Hospital purchase an oxygen generator for its COVID-19 ward so it can treat more patients. For the past year, Lutheran Disaster Response has supported companion churches and partners throughout India and around the world as they raise awareness about COVID-19, provide personal protective equipment and distribute sanitation supplies to vulnerable communities.
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Living Lutheran: “Let There Always Be a Song”
“As Lutherans, we rejoice in music as a gift of God, a gift of the whole creation,” writes Jennifer Baker-Trinity in the May issue of Living Lutheran. “Since the morning stars sang together and the trees of the field clapped for joy, there has always been song. What has changed in this pandemic year has been our experience of this gift of song. This most basic human impulse, to sing, now comes with warning labels. The same breath that animates the song can spread a deadly virus that has stolen the breath of over half a million people in the United States alone. Out of love for our neighbor, our songs have temporarily ceased in the ways that we have known. We’ve faced many questions about our experience of music in this pandemic time, specifically our experience of assembly song. How will this time of reduced assembly singing shape our song in the months and years to come? How will it impact the church musician’s vocation?” Read about the ways Lutherans have altered their musical worship during the pandemic, and be reminded that “there will always be a song.”
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Remembering the Emanuel Nine
As part of the 2019 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, voting members adopted a resolution designating June 17 as a commemoration of the martyrdom of the Emanuel Nine — the nine people shot and killed on June 17, 2015, during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. A collection of resources is available to help synods and congregations mark this commemoration. These resources can be adapted for virtual worship, online conversation or individual reflection and devotion. Synods and congregations are encouraged to mark this commemoration locally. Please email worship@elca.org if your synod or congregation is planning a dedicated, online commemoration service that you wish to share with others. May God continue to guide us as we seek repentance, renewal and racial justice and reconciliation among God’s precious children. Learn more.
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WATCH THIS
Love thy neighbor. Get vaccinated. | Faiths4Vaccines: A Multifaith Movement
As part of the Faiths4Vaccines initiative, prominent faith leaders explain how receiving the vaccine is an expression of love for one's neighbors.
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MARK YOUR CALENDAR
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FEATURED RESOURCES
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Strategy Toward Authentic Diversity
How strategic and authentic is
our diversity? This resource is a
call for confession, reflection
and healing action.
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“Lutheran Disaster Response: Relief Today, Resilience Tomorrow”
Lutheran Disaster Response brings God’s hope, healing and renewal to people whose lives have been disrupted by disasters. Check out LDR’s brand-new promotional video, and share it with your church community to help tell the story of Lutheran Disaster Response.
WATCH
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A free regathering resource for congregations
“Thriving Beyond COVID” is a Scripture-based resource to encourage, inspire and challenge congregations for the post-COVID journey ahead. This small- and large-group study is available for free download and includes leader and participant guides and videos.
VIDEO | DOWNLOADS
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BULLETIN BLURBS
These snippets are available for you to copy and paste into your bulletins.
Sparkhouse Digital: Summer activity kits
In addition to the usual benefits of using Sparkhouse Digital, such as ease of planning Sunday school and confirmation, Sparkhouse has been increasing the number of exclusive extras available on its platform. Following the popularity of the Lent digital activity kits, which included over a dozen downloadable activities for each age group, Sparkhouse released summer digital activity kits on May 6. Subscribe to Sparkhouse Digital to access leader guides for all its curricula, all its videos for children and youth, and exclusive extras such as the digital activity kits!
New this fall: Certificate in Climate Justice and Faith from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
This certificate offers a cohort-based, online curriculum that empowers participants to cultivate moral, spiritual and practical leadership in the work of climate justice in communities of faith and in collaboration with others. Topics covered include theology, ethics and spirituality related to climate justice; climate change knowledge; and social change practices that connect ecological well-being with racial, economic and gender justice. Lay and rostered leaders throughout the Lutheran World Federation and from other faith traditions are invited to apply. The program is scheduled for September 2021–May 2022. Learn more.
Director, Lutheran Theological Center in Atlanta
The ELCA seeks its next director of the Lutheran Theological Center. This is a full-time, deployed position based in Atlanta near the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) campus. The director will create a national leadership center for a new, younger and more diverse church; lead and recruit participants for degree and nondegree programs in theological education and spiritual growth (with an intentional focus on African descent pedagogies) and in the development of African descent leaders and communities; equip all leaders for the gospel-centered work of doing justice and dismantling racism and systemic oppression; and deepen relationships with historically Black communities of faith, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA. Learn more and apply.
“The Future of Tulsa’s Past: The Centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre and Beyond” — 2021 John Hope Franklin Annual Symposium
The Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod invites all our siblings from across the ELCA to join us digitally May 26-29 for the 2021 John Hope Franklin Reconciliation in America National Symposium. This annual event, sponsored by the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation, gathers speakers from around the country to learn about and discuss ways to work against racism and for racial reconciliation. Following the symposium, everyone is invited to join a Zoom conversation in which participants will continue addressing the themes of the symposium and talk specifically about how those themes speak to us as a church. Register for the symposium through the JHF Center website. If you would like to join the post-symposium conversation, register here to receive the Zoom link and password.
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