A Word from the Bishop

On the Road with the Staff

December 17

Bishop installed Pastor Lydia Ziauddin at Spanaway Lutheran Church in Spanaway.

Storytelling

Every month we feature a new story from and/or about one of our worshiping communities with the desire to inspire, inform and build community! Each story can be found on our website at https://swwasynod.org/home/news/stories-of-shalom/. Do you have a story to tell? Contact us at swwsynod@plu.edu.

“We have become a church of not doing for, but doing with.”

–Pastor Jan Otto, All Saints’ Lutheran, Auburn

In 2019, All Saints’ Lutheran in Auburn felt a need to reassess their ministry goals and develop a five year plan. (Chuckles welcome about plans made in 2019!)  Council members went out two by two into the community to ask the question, “how can our small congregation partner with or support you at this time?” 

Across all of the various community groups, schools, elected officials and non-profits, the answers quickly came around to the same topic: “we need help with homelessness and housing insecurity.”

Then the virus hit.  

Leadership at All Saints’ looked at the shutdowns, the layoffs, and the general anxiety in the world and decided that long-range planning was still important, but that they needed to consider right now the pressing issues that homeless people would face.  

What could they do immediately, this very weekend, to help people on the street and in the woods who would be having a harder time than ever finding food?

They didn’t miss a beat.  A plan was quickly made to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that could be eaten immediately or saved for later, and also get sealed meat products, energy bars, bottled water, first aid and hygiene supplies.

Next step?  GO.  Be available with items where people are.  

They went.  Every Thursday since May 2020 a group has met to make sandwiches and organize supplies.  Every Friday members of All Saints go to the parking lot of the Kent Senior Center, set up card tables, and lay out food and items that are free for all.  

Relationships have developed.  People in need first stayed to talk, then began to appear early to help set up.  They tentatively began to make requests: socks, a coat, special large and wide shoes for a man with diabetes.  The congregation has stepped up to lovingly fill these needs and more.

Since Covid restrictions have lifted, things have gotten even more interesting!  All Saints’ also has an outreach ministry at Hillside Assisted Living, monthly doing a singalong and some kind of activity.  The folks there were restless.  “We don’t need another craft cluttering our rooms,” they said.  “We want to do something useful!”  They had heard about the ASLC Homeless Outreach.  God was working.  They wanted in.  

The seniors began to fill ziplock bags with items to be handed out car windows to people asking for help on the street, and congregation members loaded them up for distribution.  Candy, hand wipes, chapstick, juice, combs, and even a few dollars were often found in these bags. They expanded to make peanut butter sandwiches, almost a hundred each month. Each bag or sandwich has a printed label: “With love from the the Give-Back Grannies and Grampa – God Loves Everyone!”

Outreach at ASLC has truly become more than ministry “for,” but ministry “with.”  From assisted living residents who are engaging with God’s restorative work to recipients of food who help distribute it, All Saints is a church that is building relationships, sharing God’s love, and most of all honoring everyone’s shared humanity as they work together.  

Stay tuned for another incredible story coming soon from All Saints’, another “ministry with” in their Community Children’s Christmas Festival!

~ by Synod Storyteller Chavaleh Forgey

Ministry Voices

Strength In Numbers at the Synod Youth Day

By the end of the ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans, I heard one persistent question from the youth of Southwestern Washington. “When are we going to do this again?”

They weren’t talking about gathering all the youth of the ELCA again. They already knew that answer. It’s June 28 - July 2, 2027 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Save the date! Get hyped!

No, the youth were asking about when they would be able to gather together with their peers from the other Lutheran churches in their area. They were already longing to gather with their peers who shared their passion to be the Church of the Future in the Present.

So with the help of youth ministers and leaders, the Synod’s First Third of Life team planned a Synod Youth Day for November 23, 2024. The plan was simple, the response was anything but.

We gathered youth from Vancouver to Puyallup at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Olympia. We introduced the youth to each other. We played an all-group escape-room style game. We ate lunch. We learned from an interactive journey put together by the Synod Hunger Team. And we closed by worshipping together and sharing in the sacrament of Communion.

It was a fast 4 hours. But conversations erupted among the youth. Relationships formed, jokes were made, fun was had, leaders emerged, and faith bloomed.

The Church of the Future—the church we all keep talking about and looking for and anticipating at every church gathering—awoke among the youth who showed up at the Synod Youth Day. Faith deepened, hearts expanded, trust opened, and one could perceive these youth believing that the Lutheran Church was their church and would be for their whole lives.

I don’t know of a single church in the whole country where children, youth (especially older youth), and young adults don’t feel like a significant minority. In power, at least, if not in number. When you operate from a position of scarcity, your imagination becomes limited. There is less that you can do. There is less that you desire to do. The concept of “Strength in Numbers” is more than an adage for the youth of the church. It is a condition of safety. Youth need to know that there are enough people their age to feel like the church belongs to them. They need their peers before they can dream their church into being.

Most congregations cannot provide a sufficient Strength in Numbers—at least not enough to truly encourage the youth of the church to dare to dream. So let’s stop trying to do it by ourselves. Let’s do it together.

Let’s keep gathering together and giving youth the space, resources, support, and numbers that will unleash their dreams of faith upon this church that seeks to always be made new. Let us give space for the youth to gather so they may reform our churches (and the whole church) through their witness.

The next Synod Youth Day will be on May 10, from 10 am - 2 pm at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church by The Narrows. We have another gathering in the works for the fall. The plan is roughly the same as the first. We will gather, eat, talk, learn, play, pray, worship, and dream. I hope that you will encourage the youth of your faith community to gather together to bring Christ’s change to God’s church.

Pastor Bergen Eickhoff

(they/them)

The Lutheran Church of The Good Shepherd

Olympia, WA

bergen@gsolympia.org

P.S. The youth also learned the “Hot To Go” Grace. Send me a message if you’d like the lyrics!

ELCA Churchwide

A Message from Bishop Eaton on the California Wildfires

January 9, 2025

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” (Isaiah 43:2). 

Dear church,

The images of leaping flames, smoke-choked skies, and the wreckage of homes and habitats in and around Los Angeles are hard to bear. The ongoing, deadly California wildfires have claimed lives, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and destroyed homes, businesses, schools and houses of worship. The devastation continues as winds spread the flames. So far we know that Bishop Brenda Bos of the Southwest California Synod and her wife, Janis, lost their home in the Eaton fire. We believe that the fires have touched the lives of many more ELCA members and several congregations as the synod continues to receive damage reports and assess the immediate needs for support. 

The prophet Isaiah writes that even when fires rage, the final word is faith, not fear. God redeems us and calls us by name to be agents of healing and hope, even amid staggering loss. In faith, we respond through prayer, accompaniment and action. 

Please join me in praying that God’s love and care be manifest among all who are impacted by these wildfires. Pray for the firefighters battling unrelenting blazes and for first responders, health care providers and public servants providing safety and support for those impacted. Pray for ELCA ministries as they care for the many needs of their communities. Pray for the long-term well-being of all who are affected by the widespread devastation and who face ongoing danger. 

Learn how your church is responding and how you can get involved. 

In Christ,

The Rev. ElizabethA. Eaton

Presiding Bishop

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America