The Weekly Five

Five Things to Know This Week in the Southwestern Texas Synod

ELCA Human Sexuality Podcast and Study Guide

The task force leading the ELCA in the reconsideration of one section of the social statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust is excited to share two important opportunities to engage with this summer.

The task force is releasing a podcast called Learn and Discern as an educational tool as we journey together through the reconsideration process.

The task force has released a new study to foster conversation across this church and to generate feedback that will guide its work.

Click here to learn more.

ELCA Texas Bishops Letter on ICE Shooting 

To the People of Faith in Texas and to All Who Grieve,

"When one member suffers, all suffer together." (1 Corinthians 12:26)

On the morning of Tuesday, July 7, 2026, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by an agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Houston's East End. He was 52 years old. He was a husband and the father of three United States citizen children. For nearly thirty-five years he made his home among us, rising before dawn to build houses across this city and to give honest work to others. His family knew him as "El mundo entero” - the whole world.

Click here to keep reading.

Apply for a Tiemann Leadership Grant TODAY!

• Purpose: Supports continuing education and leadership development.
• Who should apply: Rostered and lay leaders, especially those supporting lay-led, pastor-supported ministry.
• Growing support: Synod Assembly offerings have raised about $53,000 for the endowment, and a new synod lay school is being formed.
• Apply: Visit the Tiemann Endowment website or contact Deacon Darcy Mittelstaedt to learn more and apply.
• Deadline:  August 15.

Apply Now for a Love in Action Grant

YOU can make a difference! What service or project can YOU do that shows God’s Love to your neighbors? Project Radical Hospitality wants to help you do it! The Love In Action Grants are available to anyone with a great idea to help their neighbors, but needs a little bit of $$$ to make that happen. Apply here for grants between $100 to $500.

Click here to learn more.

Bishop Curry Statement on Supreme Court Immigration Decisions

Beloved in Christ,

Grace and peace be with you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today, I write with a heavy heart.

Recently, the Supreme Court issued a decision that will allow this administration to proceed with terminating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for more than 330,000 people from Haiti and 3,800 from Syria, many of whom have lived in this country for decades. They are not strangers. They are part of the fabric of our whole society. The termination of TPS threatens to separate families, destabilize local economies and force people to return to countries where they may face severe humanitarian crises, violence and threats to their very lives.

Click here to keep reading.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Ministry Partners