Lutheran Hymn Festival 2025
2025-10-19 16:30 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora St, Dallas, Texas, 75201
The Lutheran Hymn Festival Board is pleased to announce the date for their next Hymn Festival will be Sunday October 19th, 2025 at 4:30 in the evening at the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas.
Their guest organist will be David M. Cherwien. Mr. Cherwien was also the featured organist in 2016 and they are delighted to have him join again.
Find more information here

"Hold On, Let Go" Lenten Retreat
2025-02-21 18:00 - 2025-02-22 15:00 | Calvary Lutheran Church – Richland Hills, 7620 Baker Blvd, Richland Hills, TX, 76118, United States
Registration and more information can be found here. https://youthofcalvary.wufoo.com/forms/mjbie9710gprkk/

NT-NL WELCA Fall Retreat
2024-10-11 15:30 - 2024-10-12 15:30 | King of Glory Lutheran Church – Dallas, 6411 LBJ Freeway ·, Dallas, TX, 75240, United States
October 11-12
Hosted by King of Glory Lutheran Church in Dallas
Click Here to Register!
Early Bird Registration: $70 for both days
After Sept 15 Registration: $75 for both days; $60 for Saturday only
Scholarships Available! Click here to apply.

ELCA Young Adult Gathering
2024-07-16 - 2024-07-20
Due to the cancellation of the 2022 ELCA Youth Gathering, MYLE, and tAble, many young people were not able to participate in these life-changing faith formation events. In partnership with ELCA Young Adult Ministries, we are thrilled to open the first-ever ELCA Young Adult Gathering to individuals who will be 18 to 35 at the time of the Gathering. We recognize that 18-35 is a wide age range and anticipate that most of our programming will be geared toward those 18 to 25 years old.
The Young Adult Gathering will take place in New Orleans during the 2024 ELCA Youth Gathering (July 16-20, 2024). Programming and content are still being discerned.
For full details: https://elca.org/YouthGathering/Attend/Young-Adult-Gathering

Cultivating Compassion Session 12: Finite and Infinite Games
2024-01-04 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this January 4 session:
Across disciplines as diverse as marketing, education, health, and management, “gamification” draws on our capacity to play to help us move ourselves and others toward a goal. Books like Burlingham and Stack’s “The Great Game of Business” and Boller and Kapp’s “Play to Learn” provide examples of how to apply this concept. With computers or consoles, balls or marbles, cards or boards, humans love games. The subtitle of this month’s book is “a vision of life as play and possibility.” In it, Carse invites us to frame our lives, at work, at home, in society, as play and to choose what kind of game it will be. He says there are at least two kinds of games: “A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.” When we play a finite game with an opponent playing an infinite game, we’re destined to lose. The forces in our world that oppose peace and justice, as well as the empathy and compassion that leads to peace and justice, are playing an infinite game. We close this series with Carse’s work to inspire infinite strategies in which we might bring to life our role in bending “the arc of the moral universe … toward justice.”
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-12-finite-and-infinite-games-tickets-502953426237

Cultivating Compassion Session 11: Practice - Reparations
2023-11-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this November 30 session:
We’ve built skills for feeling and thinking and hearing. In this practice session, we apply those skills to discuss affirmative action and reparations. We reflect on our experiences with See No Stranger, Unsettling Truths, and A People’s History to ask, “What can we do to right the wrongs of the past? And whether we can right them, do we want to?” These are hard questions and the path to a world where everyone thrives lies in working on them.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-11-virtual-practice-reparations-tickets-502994007617

Cultivating Compassion Session 10: A People's History of the United States
2023-10-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this October 26 session:
We love a good story, with its protagonists and antagonists, plot twists and conflicts. As we read narratives of fact or fiction, it’s natural to identify with the hero and despise the villian. In his 1889 biography of Charles George Gordon, William Francis Butler observed, “…it is the victor who writes the history and counts the dead, and to the vanquished in such a struggle there only remains the dull memory of an unnumbered and unwritten sorrow.” We know that for every happening, there are at least as many stories as there are observers, often more. Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” attempts to give voice to those stories often unrepresented in our discussion of history. The result is devastating, but its goal is hope. Zinn says, “I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past’s fugitive moments compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.”
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-10-a-peoples-history-of-the-united-states-tickets-502917910007

NT-NL WELCA Conference
2023-10-13 - 2023-10-14 | Grace Lutheran Church – Carrollton, 1200 East Hebron Pkwy, Carrollton, TX, 75010, United States
The 2023 NT-NL Synodical Women’s Organization Convention well be held on October 13-14 at Grace, Carrolton. More information can be found here or on the NT-NL SWO webpage.

Cultivating Compassion Session 9: Unsettling Truths
2023-09-28 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this September 28 session:
“Columbus sailed the ocean blue; in fourteen hundredy ninety-two,” so says the song from 4th grade. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that in 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a document titled “Inter Caetera” in which he grants possession of everything west of the 39°W meridian to whichever European Christians get there first, ignoring the reality that these lands were already possessed by the people who lived there. This writing, along with Pope Nicholas V’s 1455 “Romanus Pontifex,” laid the foundation for what we now call the “Doctrine of Discovery.” In the process, these men invoke God’s name to encourage dehumanizing, enslaving, and dispossessing humans, behavior diametrically opposed to the way of Christ. It’s also true that Pope Paul III declared in 1537 that “Indians [sic] and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians …should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved.” That didn’t keep US chief justice John Marshall from referencing “Inter Caetera” as part of the court’s 1823 decision in Johnson v. McIntosh, enshrining the Doctrine of Discovery in US law. In this month’s reading, we follow Christian pastors Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah through this complex maze to face “the ongoing, dehumanizing legacy of the doctrine of discovery.”
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-9-unsettling-truths-tickets-502916606107

Cultivating Compassion Session 8: See No Stranger
2023-08-24 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this August 24 session:
“We can look upon the face of anyone or anything around us and say – as a moral declaration and a spiritual, cosmological, and biological fact: you are part of me I do not yet know.” (p. 11) These words encapsulate what Valarie Kaur means by “see no stranger.” Through personal stories, she shares her journey toward revolutionary love, a love that embraces self, others, and even those we oppose. This kind of love invites us to experience the depth of being human, embracing joy, grief, anger, and wonder as we learn to love each other.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-8-see-no-stranger-tickets-502901430717

Cultivating Compassion Session 7: The Wild Edge of Sorrow
2023-07-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this July 27 session:
One of the great paradoxes of life in the United States is that while we all experience loss, we’re largely left on our own to process and integrate it. As we begin moving our attention from the interior world where we’ve spent the first half of this series, we look to Francis Weller for what he calls “an apprenticeship with sorrow.” This opportunity to face our own losses, whatever they may be, is a crucial step toward facing others’ loss. Even more importantly, it equips us to be present to the loss and suffering in the world without being overcome by it.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-7-the-wild-edge-of-sorrow-tickets-502847770217

Rostered Ministers Gathering
2023-07-17 - 2023-07-20
Rostered Ministers Gathering
July 17-20, 2023
Phoenix, AZ
All Rostered Ministers in the ELCA are invited to join colleagues under the theme of “Rekindle the gift within you” (2 Timothy 1:6).
Let this gathering be an opportunity for you to remember, reclaim, rekindle, and revive yourself. Gathering with colleagues from across the church for fellowship, renewal, continuing education, worship, bible study, and refreshment for your spirit.
Each day will begin in worship as we center ourselves around our theme. Each morning, we will offer bible studies and keynote speakers. The afternoon hours will offer a variety of individual options from activity in the Interaction Center to workshops and caucus times.
Full details and updates can be found here: https://www.elca.org/rmg
Registration is now open: https://www.elca.org/Rostered-Ministers-Gathering/Registration (reduced rate through March 31)

Western States Youth Gathering 2023
2023-07-04 - 2023-07-09
The Western States Youth Gathering (WSYG) and Western States Multicultural Youth Leadership Event (WYLE) is back! Coming to California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, CA, July 4-9, 2023, the Western States Youth Gathering is open to high school aged youth in Regions 1-4 of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
WSYG and WYLE will gather around the theme, “Revive, Reunite, Rejoice”, grounded in Acts 2:1 “When the day [of WSYG] came, they were all together in one place.”
With nearly 35 years of history, WSYG is a multi-day youth gathering that gives high schoolers the opportunity to explore their faith, gather as a community through creative team-building activities and workshops, and enjoy endless summer fun all under the Southern California sunshine. In 2017, the WSYG planning team hosted the first ever Western States Multicultural Youth Leadership Event (WYLE). WYLE is a pre-gathering intended for students of color and/or youth groups that makes up at least 20% persons of color, taking place the few days leading up to WSYG.
This year’s event will feature an outdoor festival-style main stage, interactive and service learning opportunities, team-building activities with our lutheran outdoor ministries, creative worship elements, and exciting nightlife events.
After a cancelled 2020 event due to the COVID-19 pandemic and with a new core leadership team, this year’s WSYG and WYLE may look a bit different, but will still center the good news that Christ dwells among us and through us. With synodical sponsorship from the Southwest California Synod and Pacifica Synod, WSYG and WYLE hopes to bring together over 500 participants from as far east as Minnesota, down south to the Gulf-Coast, up north to Alaska, and out west to the islands of Hawai’i.
Registration for WSYG and WYLE opens Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, at $385 per person, with prices increasing Jan. 4, 2023. Registration spots can be reserved with an early bird registration deposit of $115 per person. https://www.wsyg.com/

Cultivating Compassion Session 6: Practice - Critical Race Theory
2023-06-22 19:00 - 21:00 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this June 22 session:
We’ve added an examination of our thinking to the exploration of how we experience, process, and express our emotion. We’ve learned about tools for how to practice empathy by connecting with emotions, as well as how to open our minds to new ideas and perspectives. Now we’ll practice combining those skills in this month’s practice session with Critical Race Theory as the topic.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-3-virtual-practice-disproportionality-tickets-502967528417

Cultivating Compassion Session 5: The Righteous Mind
2023-05-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this May 25 session:
Even when we work to separate our observations from judgements we make about them, the judgements remain. We still apply a moral framework, some way of prioritizing what’s important to us. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt invites us to examine the moral frameworks we use to tell right from wrong. As we explore these frameworks, we’ll be applying what we’ve learned about thinking, empathizing, and feeling to regard one another in a new way, opening ourselves to the humanity of the people we “other.”
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-5-the-righteous-mind-tickets-502828542707

Cultivating Compassion Session 4: Think Again
2023-04-27 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this April 27 session:
“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.” That observation is often attributed to Mark Twain but, ironically, one thing we don’t actually know is who first said it. Adam Grant invites us to explore ways in which “knowing” and “certainty” keep us from learning and growing. As we work to cultivate compassion, approaching ourselves and others with curiosity primes us to learn. Even more importantly, this intellectual humility positions us to to connect with others more effectively.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-4-think-again-tickets-502785032567

Women's Retreat
2023-04-22 08:30 - 15:00 | St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 1210 W. Belt Line Rd, Richardson, TX, 75080, United States
The Dallas Area Metroplex North Conference of the NT-NL Synodical Women’s Organization (part of Women of the ELCA) is holding their annual Women’s Retreat on April 22, 2023, with guest speaker Rev Erin Swenson-Reinhold.
Full details can be found here on the registration form.

Cultivating Compassion Session 3: In Person Practice - Disproportionality
2023-03-25 09:00 - 12:00 | Shepherd of Life Lutheran Church, 715 E. Lamar Blvd., Arlington, TX, 76011, United States
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this March 25 IN PERSON session:
Having spent time learning how to experience, acknowledge, and express our own emotion, this session will create opportunities to do that. We’ll look at various ways that disproportionality occurs and explore how we can be present to the reality that not all people are represented in proportionally in health outcomes, education, prison populations, executive and board roles, and government leadership.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-3-in-person-practice-disproportionality-tickets-502979524297

Cultivating Compassion Session 3: Online Practice - Disproportionality
2023-03-23 19:00 - 21:00 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this March 23 online session:
Having spent time learning how to experience, acknowledge, and express our own emotion, this session will create opportunities to do that. We’ll look at various ways that disproportionality occurs and explore how we can be present to the reality that not all people are represented in proportionally in health outcomes, education, prison populations, executive and board roles, and government leadership.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-3-virtual-practice-disproportionality-tickets-502967528417

Cultivating Compassion Session 2: Nonviolent Communication
2023-02-23 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this February 23 session:
How is it that we wind up alienated from one another? Following his curiosity about this very question led Marshall Rosenberg to identify four things: moralistic judgments,refusing to take responsibility for ourselves, making demands, and thinking “who deserves what.” We do these things to ourselves and to the people around us. Nonviolent Communication points the way toward more connection with ourselves and others with a language of life.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-2-nonviolent-communication-tickets-502116252227

Cultivating Compassion Session 1: Permission to Feel
2023-01-26 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
The NT-NL Public Witness Team for Peace & Justice are partnering with the United States Christian Leadership Organization (USCLO), Charter for Compassion Social Justice Sector, and Kairos + Collaborative to offer this set of FREE online episodes and practice sessions to help Make This Your Year to Cultivate Compassion!
“You’re invited to spend 2023 growing compassion for yourself, your friends, and even those who today you might describe as enemies. We’ll interrogate our emotions, reasoning, decision-making, and more as we work to join the infinite game of building peace.”
Access the full list of episodes and sessions here.

Specifically about this January 26 session:
Maybe you’ve heard people say, “facts don’t care about your feelings.” Maybe you’ve even told yourself that. It’s true in that facts don’t care about anything: they simply are. The same is true of humans: we simply are. Part of our simply being a human, however, is having emotions. And one of the choices we make in each moment is whether or not to care about our own emotions or those of the people around us. This month and next, we’ll explore the emotional dimension of our humanity, especially the way we can find meaningful insights about facts and our relationship to them by attending to our feelings about them. We begin our adventure together with Marc Brackett’s book, Permission to Feel.
Full details about this session (including registration) can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cultivating-compassion-session-1-permission-to-feel-tickets-490320601117

Christian Unity Ecumenical Worship Service
2023-01-19
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is January 18-25 with the theme “Do good; seek justice” from Isaiah 1:17

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18-25) has been observed for more than 100 years, during which Christians around the world have prayed for visible Christian unity, striving to move toward the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper “that they all may be one” (John 17:21).
The theme for 2023 comes from Isaiah 1:17 – “Do good; seek justice.” The entire scriptural passage for the theme is Isaiah 1:12-18, which laments a lack of justice among the people of God and calls for God’s people to “learn to do good.”
The 2023 theme was developed with the assistance of a group of Christians in Minnesota, convened by the Minnesota Council of Churches. Minneapolis became a flashpoint for calls for racial justice and equity following the murder of George Floyd.
Like the religious people so fiercely denounced by the biblical prophets, some Christian believers have been or continue to be complicit in supporting or perpetuating prejudice and oppression and fostering division. History shows that, rather than recognizing the dignity of every human being made in the image of God, Christians have too often involved themselves in structures of sin such as slavery, colonization, segregation and apartheid, which have stripped others of their dignity. Even within our churches, Christians have failed to recognize the dignity of all the baptized and have belittled the dignity of their siblings in Christ.
Isaiah challenged God’s people in his day to learn to do good together, to seek justice together, to rescue the oppressed together, to defend the orphan and plead for the widow together. The prophet’s challenge applies equally to us today.
The North Texas Conference of the UMC will host an Ecumenical Worship Service at 7 p.m. on Jan. 19 at Custer Road UMC, 6601 Custer Road, Plano, TX 75023. The NTC will gather with its Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Catholic siblings to worship God together. Please RSVP to Rev. Jessica Wright: WRIGHT@NTCUMC.ORG
(shared from our partners at the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church)

Click here for a PDF invitation to the Ecumenical Worship Service on January 19.

2023 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
2023-01-18 - 2023-01-25
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is January 18-25 with the theme “Do good; seek justice” from Isaiah 1:17

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18-25) has been observed for more than 100 years, during which Christians around the world have prayed for visible Christian unity, striving to move toward the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper “that they all may be one” (John 17:21).
The theme for 2023 comes from Isaiah 1:17 – “Do good; seek justice.” The entire scriptural passage for the theme is Isaiah 1:12-18, which laments a lack of justice among the people of God and calls for God’s people to “learn to do good.”
The 2023 theme was developed with the assistance of a group of Christians in Minnesota, convened by the Minnesota Council of Churches. Minneapolis became a flashpoint for calls for racial justice and equity following the murder of George Floyd.
Like the religious people so fiercely denounced by the biblical prophets, some Christian believers have been or continue to be complicit in supporting or perpetuating prejudice and oppression and fostering division. History shows that, rather than recognizing the dignity of every human being made in the image of God, Christians have too often involved themselves in structures of sin such as slavery, colonization, segregation and apartheid, which have stripped others of their dignity. Even within our churches, Christians have failed to recognize the dignity of all the baptized and have belittled the dignity of their siblings in Christ.
Isaiah challenged God’s people in his day to learn to do good together, to seek justice together, to rescue the oppressed together, to defend the orphan and plead for the widow together. The prophet’s challenge applies equally to us today.
The North Texas Conference of the UMC will host an Ecumenical Worship Service at 7 p.m. on Jan. 19 at Custer Road UMC, 6601 Custer Road, Plano, TX 75023. The NTC will gather with its Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Catholic siblings to worship God together.
(shared from our partners at the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church)

World Council of Churches Resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2023

Blue Christmas Online Service | Servicio en línea de Navidad azul
2022-12-21
Women of the ELCA (WELCA) will be hosting a Blue Christmas online service on Wednesday, December 21, starting at 7pm Central:
“Our Blue Christmas Service offers a safe place to bring your grief, fear, and loss. Brief readings. Quiet and reflective music. Prayers. All are welcome. Spanish translation provided.”
Únase a nosotros para el tercer servicio anual de Navidad Azul
Advance registration required.
If you’re not familiar with a Blue Christmas service, here is some context adapted from a 2020 WELCA blog post:
We’re often taught that Christmas should be a happy season. But it’s hard to sing “Joy to the World” when sadness engulfs your heart. The reality of life—memories of the past and the pain of the present—can leave many people feeling less than merry in December. It might be the death of a loved one, a discouraging diagnosis, a job loss, or some other family crisis. Add to it the SARS-CoV-2 (often referred to as COVID-19) pandemic and all that it has wrought and continues to wreak.
We have committed ourselves to promote healing and wholeness in the church, the society, and the world. How can we do that for those who are sad or suffering this season? We will gather on the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere—the Winter Solstice—December 21. Into God’s presence, we will bring whatever weighs us down: the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the brokenness of a relationship, loneliness, isolation, and worries for the state of our world, just to name a few. And we will be fed by words, music, and prayers.
Death and disappointment are very much a part of life. However, when we experience death or disappointment while the rest of the world seems focused on ho-ho-ho happiness, realities and expectations collide. Healing rituals like the Blue Christmas Service acknowledge painful realities and re-connect those of us who mourn with the redeeming and reconciling love of God in Jesus Christ.

Celebration of Life: Bishop Philip L. Wahlberg
2022-11-05
A CELEBRATION OF LIFE
is scheduled for
Reverend Philip L. Wahlberg
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2022
2:00 p.m.
Gethsemane Lutheran Church
200 W. Anderson Lane
Austin, Texas 78752
A reception with light snacks will be provided following the Celebration event.
Those unable to attend or who are unavailable are encouraged to live-stream the service.
Live-streaming information will be on the Gethsemane website the day of the service: http://gethsemaneaustin.org
The following email address is provided for two purposes:
1. To notify the family and Gethsemane Lutheran that you are planning to attend and how many will be with you.
(If your plans change, it would be appreciated if you would use the email address to notify the family and congregation.)
2. To share a special memory of Pastor/Bishop Wahlberg for the family’s understanding of your connection with him.
Email: PLWAHL2022@gmail.com

The Tenth Annual Herbener Lecture: Becoming More Human Through Worship
2022-10-30 | Wilshire Baptist Church, 4316 Abrams Rd, Dallas, TX, 75214, United States
Guest Lecturer: Rev. Peter W. Marty
Those who make a practice of committing their lives to worship discover, over time, something interesting. When they leave worship they see an “outside world” that is smaller and more paltry than they had thought. Its politics are puny, its consumerism is hollow, its care for the weak is peripheral. The very assumptions of what constitutes the “Real World,” assumptions that typically guide our lives as shoppers, scientists, social workers, and sales associates suddenly become undone once we realize how the grandeur and mystery of God make us more whole than the more cramped outside world. We can do all kinds of things on our own, quite independently and self-sufficiently, thank you very much. But what we can never become without worship is fully human. Worship is where we figure out who we get to be in the presence of a God who gives and gives, and always out of love.
Begins at 4pm
Dinner by reservation begins at 5:30pm
Sung Evening Prayer begins at 6:30pm
FREE ADMISSION: Free-will donation will cover dinner
For full details and to register: http://www.luthercenter-northtexas.org/

RE:formation - Reimagining New Ministries
2022-10-20 19:00 - 20:00
Isaiah 43:18-19 “Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
October 20 at 7:00 p.m. Central via Zoom
A virtual evening of inspiration for congregational leaders in the NT-NL Synod
How do you know if God is calling you to do something new? Who do you talk to when the Holy Spirit nudges at your heart? Do you have a passion to see new ministries emerge but aren’t sure what the next steps are to live into it?
You are invited to experience an evening of inspiring voices to help you envision what God is calling you to FORM. Bishop Erik Gronberg and DEM Irma Bañales, along with the Revs Sandy Chrostowski & Ruben Duran from the churchwide office, will host a one-hour web event to help you transform your ideas into action. Hear from fellow leaders who share a heart for the gospel and love for the people of God. Plan on walking away equipped to serve.
Goals:
· Hear stories from leaders who are forming new ministries
· Teach practical steps to start something new (ministry, event, worshiping community)
· Share specific leadership examples and traits that are helpful to get new things going
· Begin fostering a culture of planting new ministries
Please RSVP to irma@ntnl.org by Thursday, October 13. The Zoom link will be sent once we receive your confirmation.

Implicit Bias Training
2022-10-17
For people who strive to see others as God sees them.
“We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of identity. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Research on “implicit bias” suggests that people can act on the basis of prejudice and stereotypes without intending to do so. While psychologists in the field of “implicit social cognition” study consumer products, self-esteem, food, alcohol, political values, and more, the most striking and well-known research has focused on implicit biases toward members of socially stigmatized groups, such as African-Americans, women, and the LGBTQIA2S+ community. For example, imagine Frank, who explicitly believes that women and men are equally suited for careers outside the home. Despite his explicitly egalitarian belief, Frank might nevertheless behave in any number of biased ways, from distrusting feedback from female co-workers to hiring equally qualified men over women. Part of the reason for Frank’s discriminatory behavior might be an implicit gender bias. Psychological research on implicit bias has grown steadily, raising metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical questions. – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Training is FREE and open to the public.
Available online two dates and times: Monday, October 17, 2pm Eastern, OR Tuesday, October 18, 7pm Eastern

Stacey Waters began her career with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) investigating unlawful discrimination in 2008. She attended The Lincoln University and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English/Liberal Arts. She attended Shippensburg University and earned her Master of Science in Counseling/College Student Personnel. In 2014, she left the Commission to work as an Equal Opportunity Specialist at the PA Department of Labor and Industry. In 2018, she joined the PA Department of Corrections as Chief of Investigations and Training where she continued to investigate unlawful discrimination and provide a variety of trainings including, but not limited to, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Training and Unconscious Bias Training. In September of 2021, she returned to PHRC as an Education and Outreach Coordinator educating the community about unlawful discrimination and other relevant topics.
Offered by Kindling Faith: Center for Sabbath Rest and Formation (United Lutheran Seminary) and Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission
Register here.
Click here for a flyer with full details.

Intercultural Competence Training
2022-10-12 - 2022-10-15
Offered by Wartburg Theological Seminary‘s Centro Teológico Luterano Multicultural (CTLM)
Vital Congregations – Vital Communities
This Intensive course is designed to enhance leadership competence in the development and support of Latinx ministries in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and among ecumenical partners. Those encouraged to attend are current practitioners, judicatory leaders, seminarians, church leaders planning to start new Latinx ministries, and those with coaching and/or supervisory roles among Latinx ministry leaders. Participants will explore foundational insights from socio-cultural, ecclesiastical, and historical Latinx experience, contextual theological tools, research results, diverse ministry models, and practical resources for new and existing congregations.
Presenter: Reverend Rubén Durán

Wednesday October 12 – 5pm-8pm
Thursday October 13 – 5pm-8pm
Saturday October 15 –9am-12pm

This class will be delivered entirely as an online course.
Congregational fee: $600.00 | Individual fee: $250.00
RSVP here.

2022 NTNL-SWO Fall Retreat
2022-10-07 - 2022-10-08 | St. Matthew – Waco, 800 N New Road, Waco, TX, 76710, United States
The NT-NL Synodical Women’s Organization (Women of the ELCA) 2022 Fall Retreat will take place on Friday and Saturday, October 7-8, at St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Waco, TX.
For full details and to register: https://ntnllutheranwomen.com/
