Tag: Blog

This blog post “Communicating Shared Values” is part two of a series designed to spark conversation! To read the previous posts in the series, you can view all ELCA Innovation Blog posts here. Research Insight: Young adult parents don’t consider religious faith or spiritual development important for their children.    This chart from the study shows how respondents view what is most important to teach children. Last week’s blog post shared a call to action from the U.S. Surgeon General for faith communities and religious leaders to play a part in responding to issues around parents’ mental health and well-being…

This blog post is part of a series designed to spark conversation! To read future posts in the series, you can view all ELCA Innovation Blog posts here. Parents under pressure This past summer, the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released an advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents. A Surgeon General’s Advisory is “a public statement that calls the American people’s attention to an urgent public health issue and provides recommendations for how it should be addressed. Advisories are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.” In short, an…

In honor of International Day for People of African Descent, which is observed internationally on August 31 each year, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries invited ELCA Director for Innovation and Ideas to share some thoughts about being a person of African descent. For more information on International Day for People of African Descent, visit International Day for People of African Descent – EN | United Nations. Names carry immense significance. They are a marker of identity, heritage and personal history. Because I am of African descent, my name is a reflection of and connection to my ancestral roots and cultural identity….

To commemorate the 9th anniversary of the martyrdom of the Emanuel 9 – Clementa C. Pinckney, Cynthia Marie Graham Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lee Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Lee Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson, our beloved siblings in Christ who were murdered by a self-professed white supremacist and ELCA parishioner while they were gathered for Bible study and prayer at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (often referred to as Mother Emanuel) in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015 – Desta Goehner, Board President of the ELCA Association of White Lutherans for Racial Justice to share…

In honor of Juneteenth, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries invited Dr. Dianne R. Browne, Ph.D., CFLE, CSE, Chair of the ELCA New Jersey Synod’s Anti-Racism Team to share some thoughts about this federal holiday that many mark as the official end of legalized human enslavement in the United States. For more information on Juneteenth, visit What Is Juneteenth? | HISTORY.   I am from the Northeast, so I never celebrated Juneteenth as a young person. I knew about it because my maternal grandmother was from the South. My grandmother and mother shared stories about our history and their lived experiences. At…

In observance of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries invited Rev. Dr. Niveen Ibrahim Sarras to share her thoughts on this topic with our readers.   People in the West often assume that Arab Christians were converted from Islam to Christianity by Western missionaries. However, Arab Christians have always existed in the Middle East and have enjoyed significant influence in the Arabian Peninsula. To understand Arab Christians, it helps to know the geography of the peninsula. Arabia, known as Jazīrat Al-ʿArab (“Island of the Arabs”) in Arabic, extends beyond present-day Saudi Arabia, encompassing the Arabian Peninsula (bordered by…

This is a re-post of a piece from the St. Paul Area Synod blog, by Vernita Kennen of Incarnation Lutheran Church in Shoreview, MN. The original blog post can be found here.   People who care about hunger issues from the Saint Paul and Minneapolis Area Synods gathered in March to talk about how we might work together. We acknowledged needing renewed efforts within our congregations, communities and our synods. Some of us came from congregations, some from specific hunger ministries, some from synod and churchwide staffs but all came with a heart for those who live with hunger. Some…

In honor of International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries invited the Rev. Aimée Appell, MDiv DMin to share some thoughts about the Triennial Assembly of the European Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice and their work to end racism and dismantle white supremacy. The Triennial Assembly of EDLARJ (the European Descent Lutheran Association for Racial Justice, newly changed to White Lutherans for Racial Justice) was held in Minneapolis, Minn., March 1-3. A large part of our time together was spent in a pilgrimage to George Floyd Square. What I saw and experienced there changed…

I am contemplating making the jump to a different host for my online writing. WordPress, my current host, has become more focused on commercial websites than on blogging these days. My concern is that WordPress may discontinue support for blogging all together someday, and I’ll be out to lunch. Substack seems to offer the best alternative. It’s services are free (here I pay a minimal amount for ad free posting), and it offers a built in network and community. It also operates off of a newsletter premise, so when you subscribe you receive my post directly as newsletter recipients (I…

I have decided to migrate over to Substack, as I was contemplating in my last post. I will leave this blog up, of course!, with all of its archives intact. I have exported all of my posts, and I believe comments, over to my Substack (I think it is still in the process of processing all of that). I hope all of my readers and subscribers will follow me over to my new online writing home. It will still be the same type of material as I’ve engaged with here over the years, just on a different platform (with I…