3 Opportunities: Strategic Planning, Big Game Challenge, Re•Formation

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A new year is well underway, and with it are some wonderful opportunities for our life together as the ELCA Rocky Mountain Synod. As we continue to explore the theme Many Voices – One Song on our way to this year’s Synod Assembly (April 28-30), here are just a few ways you can participate in what God is doing in and through us!

Strategic Planning Process – In January the Synod Council took steps forward with our strategic planning process. We will be partnering with GSB (Gronlund – Sayther – Brunkow) to clarify our mission and purpose as the Rocky Mountain Synod and to identify key goals for the next several years. This will be a highly participatory process, and I encourage you to let your voice be heard.  There will be opportunities to share your perspectives through surveys, Synod Assembly, and invitations to connect with your Synod Council representative and Conference leadership. I am excited by this intentional opportunity to discover how the Spirit is calling us to build connectivity, collaboration, and support for our shared witness to the gospel. I believe GSB is well placed to accompany us on this journey; they have a wealth of experience and are currently working with six synods. Our consultants bring not only professional expertise but also hands-on engagement in our life together as the ELCA; Mike Ward is a member of the ELCA Church Council and Evan Moilan is Vice President of the Gulf Coast Synod. Stay tuned for more details about how you can participate in this important process.

World Hunger Super Bowl Challenge – In collaboration with our Churchwide colleagues and members of the North Carolina and Sound Carolina Synods, we are leveraging the energy and passion created by the Super Bowl to raise more than $50,000 for our highly effective and well-respected ELCA World Hunger program. Team Denver and Team Carolina are each seeking to raise the most funds by the day’s end on February 7, Super Bowl Sunday. Join the fun and spread the word! Give an online gift for TEAM DENVER now!

Re•Formation – The year 2017 represents the 500th anniversary of the start of the Lutheran Reformation. At this year’s Assembly we will begin an 18-month journey to explore what it means to be a church of the Reformation in 21st century North America.  Using the theme Re•Formation we will ask how we are being renewed and recreated for the unique ELCA witness that is our gift to the Body of Christ and shapes our ministry in the world. Rather than holding Missional Gatherings next fall, congregations and Conferences will collaborate in creating local events that will help engage our story as a church of the Reformation, as the ELCA, and as our particular congregations. Resources for these Fall 2016 events and being developed and will be available by Synod Assembly. View the full vision of our Re•Formation plans.

As I continue to travel around our synod to visit with congregations and leaders, I am incredibly grateful both for the wide variety of ways in which ministry is carried out and for the growing collaboration in bearing witness to God’s lavish grace in Jesus.  We could all try to sing a solo, but the Spirit calls our many voices to join together in God’s One Song of love for the world.  Truly, We are Church – Better Together!

Yours in Faith,

Bp Jim

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