In This Issue
Congregational Remittance Reminder
NT-NL Coaches Now Available
Ullrich Congratulations
“Undoing Racism” Training
The Bolder Board Training
Panhandle Fall Conference
Youth Leadership Summit
Young Adult Engagement Position
LDA Name Change
Upcoming Events
Congregational Remittance Reminder
The Synod Financial Services (SFS) pilot ended on January 31, 2018. Their website is no longer available, as of June 30. The post office box for any physical mail sent to Chicago has been closed; any mail received going forward will be returned, per USPS regulations. Please use the Congregational Remittance Form on our website and submit all past and current remittances directly to the Synod office. You may also access a printable form here.
NT-NL Coaches Now Available
We have a group of coaches now, trained by ELCA Coaching, available to you and anyone you might refer. We recently posted a video of Bishop Erik Gronberg sharing his experience with coaching. Watch that video or learn more here: https://www.ntnl.org/coaching/, or you can even Request a Coach now.
Ullrich Congratulations
The Revs. Amanda and Jeremy Ullrich recently welcomed Lydia Marie to their family!
“Undoing Racism” Training
August 28-30, 2018
The two and one-half day “Undoing Racism” workshop presented by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond will be offered Tuesday, August 28, through Thursday, August 30. Sessions for the first two days begin at 9:00 a.m. and end late afternoon. The Wednesday session begins at 9:00 a.m. and ends at noon. The workshop is worth approximately 16 hours of continuing education units.
The Public Witness team is making this opportunity available FREE of charge to those in our churches who would like to attend but find the $350.00 tuition prohibitive. The team asks those who have adequate resources to make a contribution with the possibility of not only paying for oneself but also helping to defray the costs for someone else.
REGISTER HERE. (Limited to the first 20 registrants.)
The Bolder Board Training
This training is being hosted by our partners at United Way of Tarrant County.
This is not your average board training.
The Bolder Board Training helps nonprofit boards awaken, articulate, and pursue their most magnificent dreams. It teaches boards how to work with their leaders to create audacious possibilities for impact. It is the first board training designed specifically to offer boards a pragmatic and conscientious alternative to the culture of financial deprivation and constriction that they often find themselves upholding. It is not a traditional training on governance and finance. It is an immersion in possibility and aspiration that positively and radically disrupts traditional ways of thinking. The Training takes place over the course of approximately seven hours. It is part lecture, part workshop. It is designed specifically for boards. Organizations are encouraged to bring as many of their board members as possible. The Training can also serve as a powerful first day to a board retreat.
I’mpossible.
The training liberates natural leadership instincts from the constraints of our cultural mindset about charity. It helps boards become conscious of persistent, limiting assumptions. It is based on the idea that we are at our best, most fully alive, and most impactful when we are challenging assumptions of impossibility – often that we didn’t even know we had.
Register your interest in this North Texas training on Friday, September 7.
The training is led by Dan Pallotta.
Dan invented the multi-day charitable event industry with the AIDSRides, Breast Cancer 3-Days, and Out of the Darkness suicide prevention events, which raised over half a billion dollars in nine years and were the subject of one of the first Harvard Business School case studies on social enterprise. His 2013 TED talk on philanthropy has been viewed more than 4.3 million times and is one of the 100 most-viewed TED talks of all time. His book, “Uncharitable,” is the best-selling title in the history of Tufts University Press. The Stanford Social Innovation Review said that it “deserves to become the nonprofit sector’s new manifesto.” He is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review online. He is widely credited with changing the national conversation about impact and overhead in charity in America.
Panhandle Fall Conference
An introduction to The Generosity Project
The Generosity Project is a lively, interactive, intergenerational workshop, modeling a congregation’s potential to connect and equip all ages and generations as steward leaders in the congregation and in the home.
Equipping households to daily respond to God’s extravagant generosity is a year round opportunity. Equipping individuals of each generation, age and stage to live as grateful stewards offers endless, creative possibilities.
Led by Linda Staats, the ELCA Generosity Project Coordinator
St. John Lutheran Church, Wilson, TX
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Congregations from across the NT-NL are invited to participate for FREE. Click here for full details and to register.
Youth Leadership Summit
The ELCA Youth Leadership Summit is an annual gathering for high school youth identified as leaders and adult representatives from each synod from across the ELCA. This summit focuses on leadership development through engaging speakers and thought leaders in key areas at the intersection of leadership and faith in daily life and faith formation and building connections for high school youth in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Youth will be challenged to take home what they have learned to inspire action in their own synods and youth groups.
2018 ELCA Youth Leadership Summit
November 1-4
Camp Carol Joy Holling, Ashland, Nebraska
The theme for the 2018 Summit is “Through Christ We Can” and will use Philippians 2:1-5 as it’s scriptural base. The event will focus on young people’s call to ministry for the sake of others and advocacy because of their faith. For our learning and networking times we will be joined by various ELCA ministries and staff including Advocacy, Young Adult Ministries, Justice for Women and Global Mission.
Program, food, lodging, and local transportation costs are covered thanks to a grant the ELCA Youth Ministry received. NT-NL will cover travel to and from Nebraska for up to 4 (four) youth.
Registration will remain open until September 30. Contact molly.beckdean@elca.org with any questions.
Young Adult Engagement Position
Request from St. Matthew, Waco:
The congregation of St. Matthew Lutheran Church (ELCA) is looking to partner with someone living in the Waco area who is interested in providing Bible study and planning fellowship opportunities for college-aged members and young adults. We are a small congregation (worshipping about 130 a week) with a large percentage of aging members. We find that our younger adult members have fewer opportunities geared toward their age and interests. We would like to invite a Christian with ministry gifts to offer Bible study regularly (maybe 2x a month) and a planned fellowship activity (1 or 2X a month). We would expect about 10 months of activity (going quiet in June and July). There is a modest stipend of $1500 (total) associated and distributed in 10 monthly installments; we anticipate that the work load would a cumulative 10-12 hours a month total including planning time, outreach, and implementation. We hope for a partner who is good at building relationships and who can be flexible as they learn the needs of young adults in our community. The person who partners with us would need to be in harmony with the theology of the ELCA though does not need to be a member of a Lutheran congregation. Questions and expressions of interest can be directed to Sharon_K_Johnson@baylor.edu.
LDA Name Change
Starting June 29, 2018, the Lutheran Deaconess Association will be known as the Lutheran Diaconal Association. The change more accurately reflects the organization serving both deacons and deaconesses in education and formation in recent years.
The Lutheran Deaconess Association (LDA) was formed in 1919 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, beginning with its first deaconess students studying nursing and theology. In 1943 the LDA moved to Valparaiso, Indiana. Over the course of almost 100 years, more than 790 deaconesses have completed the education and formation process, serving in locations across the country and around the world in a variety of ways. In 2012, the LDA began accepting men into the education and formation program and in 2014, consecrated the first deacon, Ben Ema.
“As an organization, we have been forming and educating men to become deacons for six years. Our new name better reflects the LDA’s mission to form women and men called to this ministry,” said Lisa Polito, Executive Director of the LDA. “I am thrilled for … all the deaconesses and deacons in our diaconate. The process behind this name change was extensive and we are eager to see where God leads.”
For questions or for more information, please contact Deaconess Lisa Polito, Executive Director of the Lutheran Diaconal Association, at deacserv@valpo.edu, or visit theLDA.org.
Upcoming Events
Here are leadership highlights:
Jul. 19-20: Association of Lutheran Church Musicians (ALCM) Regional Conference, Richland Hills, TX
Jul. 19-20: Join the ALCM for Worship, Richland Hills, TX
Aug. 11: WELCA Annual Women’s & Girl’s Retreat, Location TBA
Aug. 28-30: “Undoing Racism” Training, Arlington, TX
Sep. 1: Bishop Installation for the Southwestern Texas Synod, San Antonio, TX
Sep. 7: The Bolder Board Training, North Texas
Sep. 9: “God’s work. Our hands.” Sunday
Sep. 15: PLMA Fall 2018, Course 1, Briarwood
Sep. 20-22: Synod Council meetings, Briarwood
Sep. 22: MEF Board meeting, Briarwood
Sep. 28-30: Addiction & Faith Conference, Bloomington, MN
Sep. 29: Panhandle Fall Conference: An introduction to The Generosity Project, Wilson, TX
Oct. 14: The Eighth Annual Herbener Lecture: “A Latino Immigrant Reads Luther”, Dallas, TX
Oct. 14-16: NT-NL Leadership Convocation, Briarwood
For a complete list of upcoming events in, and important to, our Synod, you can access our Calendar of Events online.