Today I am with a handful of our pastors at Trinity Seminary. We’re attending an Anchor Church training and learning about new models of shared ministry that are working to sustain and revitalize congregations across our church. The event just happens to be held where I went to seminary, so for me it’s a reminder of my first experience of training for the Gospel ministry.

That was 30 years ago. Since then a lot has changed in me, in the church and in the seminary itself.

Being here, and hearing stories of shared ministry models reminds me of my first call. It was a cooperative ministry that spanned four counties and brought pastors and interns and lay leaders together in sharing the leadership of 17 congregations. The shape of that ministry benefited from the collective insights of pastoral experience, recent seminary education and the daily vocation of lay leaders.

The world has changed; and the church has changed, and it’s time once again to go back to school. Our small group is here to learn together how to be faithful in our synod in a new time. It could be that some of the old ways of being church together may be our best shape for ministry today and tomorrow.

How simple a solution.

How obvious.

How personal.

How direct: “Just ask!”

Friday evening of Synod Assembly, after a day’s discussion of budget shortfalls and funding our mission, a member of our synod said to me, “If the synod’s ministry is something worth supporting, then ask people to support it. If you need $180,000, just ask for it. I’m sure there are 180 people in our synod ready to give $1,000 to help support our work. In fact, you’ll have mine tomorrow.”

The next day, good as her word, she handed me a check for $1,000; no strings attached, just personal and joyful support of our synod’s mission. And the thing is, I hadn’t even asked!

I shared this story with our Synod Council at its meeting later that same day. The story so moved one of our Synod Council members that she handed me a check for $1,000 the very next day. Imagine that! I still hadn’t asked!

In our plans to balance the budget, we will ask for personal financial support for our synod’s mission. Our Synod Council is moving forward to establish an Annual Fund as a first step toward alternate funding streams for our important work. We plan to do that work carefully and well.

But it is the simple beauty of this story that I wanted to share with you today. See how a story of joyful generosity spontaneously motivates others to help support our mission – to serve, connect and equip our congregations to tell the story of Jesus so that our synod and our neighbors may know God’s love for them!

Last Saturday, our Synod Council met at Prince of Peace, Latrobe. Our agenda included 30 items. We began at 9:30, and by 3:45 we were all tired and ready for item #30, “Adjournment.” We were close, but we weren’t quite there.

It was during item #27, the treasurer’s report that suddenly one of the very many attachments sent ahead to our Synod Council members, the expense report, showed up sideways on the projection screen.

Now Pr. Schaefer is a computer wizard, and he immediately began searching for the right tool to rotate the image 90° right, but it was taking time, and at that moment, every further expense of time was a drain on our corporate energy. In a burst of creative response, he reached over and turned the slide projector on its side. Seeing this, Pr. Stoller stepped forward to steady the thing. We all cheered!

The first thing that came to my mind was our Strategic Initiative #4, to “foster creativity and openness to change.” Here was a visible example of collegial creativity serving our shared work, so I took a picture.

Hold this picture in your head and heart this week (sideways if you need to) as inspiration for your own use of creativity in solving the challenges that face you in your ministry. And send me a picture if you can! It’ll make my day.

The first spring flowers to appear after winter’s long gray dormancy always surprise me. Knowing that they will appear, even having experienced spring before, does not make the experience any less astounding. Suddenly, life abounds! I find gathering a bunch of spring flowers to bring inside almost irresistible.

Today I would like to offer you a bouquet of flowers that are a few of the highlights of our synod’s life together so that you can delight in them with me.

Why today? Because today I am in Harrisburg, presenting the LAMPa Serve.Pray.Speak. award for advocacy to our synod’s Church in Society Committee. Their creative application of a global concern about single use plastics provided our synod with a Lenten discipline that was both challenging and memorable.

Just last Wednesday, our Health and Wellness Ministry appreciation program said a hearty “Thank You” to the 160 volunteers that touch the lives of many people and communities in partnership with Lutheran SeniorLife. Blessing their hands was a real joy for me, for their work brings God’s love within reach for many.

I am also grateful for the slow and steady work of our Synod Council and synod staff to guide and sustain our mission. Like the soil of a flower bed, their love for the people of God is expressed in service that connects and equips the flowering of the ministry we share, and I find that just as beautiful as the bluebells pictured above.

Thank you for the flowers that your life of discipleship adds to your congregation, your community, and your synod this spring!

Last Wednesday evening, on the Gettysburg Campus of United Lutheran Seminary, the bishops of regions 7 and 8 were invited to join the seminary community in “Beer and Hymns.” For two hours students and faculty and visiting bishops gathered around the piano and sang hymns.

All kinds of hymns: 19th Century favorites like Leaning on the Everlasting Arms (ELW 774); contemporary curiosities like Unexpected and Mysterious (ELW 258); spirituals like Give Me Jesus (ELW 770); and even national songs like O Canada (ELW 892) – we stood for that one! Although I did not formally request a hymn, I was particularly pleased when the stirring 17th Century Slovak hymn, God, My Lord, My Strength, (ELW 795) was sung.

Looking around, I saw young “pipeline” students and older “second career” students. Some belonged to families with generations of Lutheran pastors in their ancestry; others were new to the Christian faith. But this community was rehearsing together a repertoire of music much, much wider and more varied than their own gathering. Hundreds of years of history and a geography that spans the globe, distilled into song, was forming the faith of these people.

They say our theology is formed by how we pray. This is true. And by how we sing. If this is so, our seminarians are being formed in a theology that is deep and wide. Thanks be to God!

Most probably you have heard the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” You may even know that the memorable quip was first penned in 1839 by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. But can you identify this pen?

This pen commemorates the signing of Senate Bill 554, the Safe Harbor Bill, which provides for “special relief to restore victim’s dignity and autonomy and for safe harbor for sexually exploited children.” This pen was given to Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania for its five-year labor of patient and creative persistence in speaking up for those without a voice.

Learn more about how this bill cares for vulnerable children, or to say a word of thanks to your legislator for this work here.

Thank you for your support of LAMPa through your personal engagement in advocacy, and through your gifts of mission support. As St. James teaches us, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress.” (James 1:27)

With you in Christ,

+Kurt

On the wall of the main entrance to the dining hall at the Capital Retreat Center in Waynesboro, PA, is this saying from Rabbi Tarfon (c. 70 to 135 CE): “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

What work, exactly? The Hebrew title above the quotation, “Tikun Olam,” answers that question. The phrase (sometimes spelled “Tikkun Olam”) is used in contemporary American Judaism to mean the repair of the world.

But Rabbi Tarfon was neither contemporary nor American; this phrase clearly has a larger resonance than our immediate context. The world, after all, is a bigger place than what we can see from our daily commutes. And the work of repair truly belongs to God, not to us. Scripture declares (Isaiah 61:1-4) that God is about the repair of ruined cities, and that God’s people are invited to participate in that work as stewards. In every time and place, God’s people comfort the bereaved, put out fires, participate in the political process, raise children, tend the earth, and teach the faith, neither expecting to come to the end of their work, nor believing God would do it if they sat idly by.

Here is the truth of the mystery of stewardship, as I see it: people discover meaning and purpose in their lives as they participate in God’s healing work in their own time and place. Our joy is not reduced to those few times we get to do the victory dance, and our freedom is seldom gained by walking away from a challenge. But both joy and freedom do result from being engaged in God’s work in our time and place, for as long as we draw breath. For that work is truly divine and that work is truly eternal – which is to say, worth it!

With you in Christ,

+Kurt

Suddenly, the Tree of Life has found its way into our daily conversation. Saturday morning’s violent crime at the Tree of Life Synagogue drove the greater Pittsburgh community into a shared grief. Within that space, momentarily closer to our neighbors than we had been before the trauma, we found and raised a common voice: how can we find peace in our day?

This is the longing of every generation. And in every generation, the image of the Tree of Life suggests an answer. Our hymn, There in God’s Garden (ELW 342) uses this image to proclaim the gospel of hope: that life grows out of suffering.

Thorns not its own are tangled in its foliage;

our greed has starved it,

our despite has choked it.

Yet, look! it lives!

its grief has not destroyed it

nor fire consumed it.

It is life that overcomes death, not further destruction. It is reconciliation that ends hate, not further polarization. Love displaces anger. Hope takes despair into itself and fashions peace. The Gospel we proclaim turns the tomb into a womb.

With you in Christ,

+Kurt

It seems to me that classified ads starting with “Free to good home,” offer something inherently too valuable to dispose of, but contextually not a high enough priority to keep any longer. Have I got that about right?

It could be a baby grand piano, or a collection of “collectibles.” Sadly, it’s often a pet that has suffered the traumatic change from being a once-beloved member of the household to something now too much in the way.

We are already some distance into a new era of the history of the Church. In this new era, collections of reference books, the once-treasured staple of an institution, have been replaced by digital search engines. In this new era, the ever- pressing mission of living and sharing the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection person-to-person needs a different kind of resource to thrive.

At the synod office, we are refreshing our shared workplace to prepare for a Synod Communicator to join the staff. We are also seeking to live out the Synod Council strategic initiative to foster creativity and openness to change. Martin Luther is still important to us, of course, as is sharing the Good News that he proclaimed so boldly. It just seems that Latin block letters on a plaster bust and 110 pounds of paper may not be our best tool to do that right now.

(By the way, this actually was a real offer, but the books and Luther bust have already gone to a good home.)

+Kurt

When you think of William Passavant, do you think of him as an editor? Probably not.

William Passavant is remembered among us with a blend of local pride and holy reverence for founding congregations, social ministry organizations and institutions of learning in Western Pennsylvania, and in several other states as well. But look: in a stained-glass window that graces the nave of St. James, Emsworth, “Wm. A. Passavant” is celebrated first and foremost as an “Editor.”

William Passavant founded and edited “The Missionary” and “The Workman” journals, and was on the staff of “The Lutheran Observer” as well.

I am blessed to have a photocopy of the November 22, 1894 issue of “The Workman” in my office, an issue dedicated to William Passavant’s life and work not quite six months after his death. That historical artifact, when held together with the witness of this stained glass window, helps me see in a new way the profound role that communication holds in the growth and vitality of the Church’s mission.

Improved communication was identified in the Landscape survey as our synod’s most pressing need, and is named by the Synod Council as the first of our strategic initiatives. This “new” direction, it would seem, is taking us back to our roots!

+Kurt

Sometimes pictures communicate more than words can say. But at other times, it’s just not possible to capture the wonder and energy of an event in a picture. The ELCA Youth Gathering was one of those times.

About 31,000 youth and adults from all across our church assembled in Houston under the theme, This Changes Everything. When we were all together every evening, the wonder and energy of the event was nearly overwhelming. Half of the NRG Stadium was filled, floor to ceiling, with Lutherans celebrating the grace of God. Sometimes the place was deafening; and sometimes it was still, with thousands of cell-phone flashlights creating the look of the night sky indoors.

Pictured above is our synod Eucharist, a crowd of about 300, (or 1% of the whole group). Even this more manageable picture does not do justice to the lively and moving experience of being with the youth of our synod and of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod for worship. But at least it’s a glimpse. It was a real blessing to church together for this once-every-three-years assembly.

Thank you for your prayers for our group. Thank you for your financial support that made it possible for youth from our synod to go. And be encouraged that our church is filled with young people eager to bear witness to the gospel in their lives, and with adults who planned and staffed this astounding event!

+Kurt

This spring our church elected six new bishops: Patricia Davenport, Vivianne Thomas-Breitfeld, Sue Briner, Laurie Skow-Anderson, Deborah Hutterer, and Idalia Negrón. This is the first all-female incoming class of bishops that our church has been blessed to receive. And this class welcomes the first two African American women to the Conference of Bishops.

I am thrilled, because I believe the Conference of Bishops serves our church best when our collective voice includes a wide range of insights and perspectives.

Our six bishops-elect will gather in Chicago for the summer formation event in July. While the Lutheran Center on Higgins Road will already be familiar to those who served as Directors for Evangelical Mission before being elected bishop, the office they are being called into requires learning how to carry new and different responsibilities. The Formation Committee seeks to share two powerful words with all our new bishops: You have been called. You are not alone.

Please do remember each of these new bishops in prayer, and the synods that have elected them. We are not alone; and together we all pray for the strength and compassion to answer God’s call.

+Kurt

This picture is not posed. By which I mean to say, it is a snapshot of real life and not a few things staged in order to create a dramatic picture. I was simply cutting grass, came inside for a break, and left my gloves where I usually leave them – on the handle of the lawn mower.

It was only when I came back out of the house and saw this from a distance that I was struck by what I saw. These gloves, from use, had been formed into the shape of my hands.

When they were new, these gloves were flat and smooth. But through much use, by the dust and sweat and scrapes that come with work, they have taken on the shape of my hands, and they now retain that shape even when they are at rest.

I wonder ... when we do God’s work with our hands ...

+Kurt

It was immediately obvious to me, and at the same time beyond my capacity to comprehend, when I saw this picture in the Panera Bread in Irwin, and suddenly realized, that the very means by which our Lord Jesus had promised to be present to the Church required human labor to bring into being.

Bread does not naturally occur. Obviously! But how can I possibly comprehend the mystery that our God has promised to be present to us in something that remains entirely in our power to create? Does our Lord’s sacramental presence depend on our labor? Of course not – and clearly yes! What a tremendous mystery!

The Incarnation itself bears witness to the truth of this incomprehensibly obvious situation. The baby Jesus did not fall from heaven intact, but was born of the Virgin Mary. And in this child, the product of human labor (pardon the pun), as Colossians declares, “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” (Col. 1:19)

Popular theology would presume to teach us that anything of God that is mediated by human labor is tainted, sullied, less than authentically divine. The Holy Gospels tell a different story. God has chosen to be most present to us in things only humans can make: a human person, bread, wine, the mutual conversation and consolation of the community of saints. Imagine that!

+Kurt

So it was the first really nice weekend of the year, and 150 people had signed up to attend the Synod Resource Center mission event, “Heading into Uncharted Territory without Google Maps.” What do you suppose happened? They showed up!

They really did! Almost all 150 of them. And they spent all day in a church, thinking about church. Which led presenter Dave Daubert to conclude that we were all a little odd.

Actually, his point was that since so small a percentage of Americans attend services of worship any given week, those who do are already outside the norm. And those who are interested enough to spend the first really nice weekend of the year inside talking about how to make church a more inviting and meaningful community are an even rarer group. But there we were, all the same.

Church matters. And why is that? Because church not only declares, but demonstrates that Jesus is here with us. And where Jesus is, the promise of life and peace and reconciliation is close at hand, actually within reach.

Nice days beg to have you make the most of them. Turns out, we did!

+Kurt

Look closely, and you’ll see William Passavant photo-bombing this group picture of Glade Run’s senior staff.

On Tuesday I was invited to come and install the Vice Presidents of Glade Run – again! I was glad to do it. It’s generally a low-profile event, just a few of us in the conference room, but it notes an important reality: we are partners in ministry.

So, for the record, from left to right:

• Pastor Christina Hough, Director of Spiritual Care and Community Liaison

• Sheila Talarico, Executive Director of the Glade Run Foundation

• Amy Richert, Vice President of Education

• Christopher Phillips, Chief Operation Officer

• Michelle Herr, Coordinator of Executive Offices

• Dr. Charles Lockwood, Executive Director

• Alexandra Salcido, Vice President of Clinical Services

On my way out I asked, “What would you like to share with your ministry partners in the synod?” “That we are alive and well!” came the immediate answer. Here are people actively pursuing the care of children in today’s world, building on the foundation of faith with hope and courage. Thanks for your work!

+Kurt

Isaiah’s vision of the Peaceable Kingdom is well known for its description of a world in which the wolf and the lamb live together, a community of peace where “they shall not hurt or destroy.” (Isaiah 11:6-9)

The image comes across as entirely passive: the leopard lies down with the kid. The cow and the bear graze together. The nursing child plays over the den of the adder without suffering any harm. Lovely, but not much to pay attention to, really.

But the events of this week compel us to look again. Look again! (1) There, in Isaiah’s ancient text, is an active image as well. “And a little child shall lead them.”

I confess that I have given little thought in my study and use of this text to the leadership of this child. I suppose it’s fair to say that my general impression has been that Isaiah’s vision describes a community of such pervasive peace that leadership itself amounts to nothing more than child’s play.

I think I have missed something important. Today, in our country, litttle children are leading, and in a remarkably active way. We would do well to pay attention.

+Kurt

Having suffered 18 school shootings in 45 days this year (1) , we hardly needed to be reminded on Ash Wednesday that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. We get the point, thank you. In fact we live it. Daily.

Can the Ash Wednesday liturgy still strengthen our people these days? Or is it the liturgical equivalent of adding insult to injury? The answer lies in the dismissal. (ELW p. 255) These words call the Church to be a people of hope and courage, even while our baptism into Christ draws the very sign of death on our faces:

Go forth into the world to serve God with gladness;

be of good courage;

hold fast to that which is good;

render to no one evil for evil;

strengthen the fainthearted;

support the weak;

help the afflicted;

honor all people;

love and serve God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

+Kurt

On my office wall hangs a heavy bronze crucifix. It is the art work of Rick Maas, a gift given to my predecessor when he was called into episcopal office, and it depicts Christ’s body as the earth. Christ’s head is visible, as are his hands and feet, but only these extend beyond the globe.

I Peter 2:24 teaches us that “Christ himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” In this work of art, we can see clearly both the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the world God loved so much as to give his only son up to death for its salvation.

A closer look at this globe reveals the continent of Africa, and that the wound Christ suffered in his side has left a scar across Algeria, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin. There is a profound sharing of identity suggested by this mark.

The Christian vocation is not to wound further the Body of Christ, or the world which he loves enough to die for, but being freed from sins and healed by his wounds, to live for righteousness. When we consider others around the world, may our speech and our actions resemble more the love of Christ, than the point of a spear.

+Kurt

I finally had to ask the front desk, “What does this mean?”

In bold, brass letters, on carefully matched panels of wood veneer, the words “NO VIEW POINT” appeared just to the left of the hotel elevators. For three days I had pondered what in the world these words could mean.

During the same three days, the bishops of our church and of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada listened to three excellent presentations on the First Nations Peoples, the Native Americans of our two countries. Ms. Prairie Rose Seminole addressed spirituality; Dr. Martin Brokenleg addressed theology, and Bishop Mark MacDonald addressed reconciliation. It was because their view points were so gloriously enlightening that I had to ask why in the world the hotel announced that it had “NO VIEW POINT.”

I learned that while some buildings in Vancouver have roof-top observation decks open to the public, this hotel does not. So, no point from which to view the city.

OK; fine. But now I wonder, does our church have a view point? Does my congregation? Do I? Are we, individually and together, people and places where the general public can find a view point? And I don’t mean a political or social opinion, not a point-of-view, per se, but a view point?

What would it look like for us to construct observation decks open to the public, where God’s mission in the world can be seen plainly, in all its splendor and grace? “Come on in,” we might say, “we have a terrific view point!”

+Kurt