The Synod Assembly Upstate Update 
Wednesday, May 11, 2016


Synod Assembly Registration Closes this Sunday, May 15!!  After May 15 you will need to wait and register in person in Rochester at Assembly.  No meals can be ordered after May 15 as we have to submit our meal count to the Convention Center.  Register today!!
Reservations for accommodations at the Radisson Riverside, 120 East Main Street, Rochester must also be made by May 15 to guarantee the $109/night room rate.  Call now to reserve (800) 333-3333 or (585) 546-6400. Check-In time at the Radisson is 3:00pm.  The Check-out time is 11:00a.m.  Parking is at the Radisson Parking Garage and is free for hotel guests. Make sure to ask for a parking pass when you check in at the hotel.
Synod Assembly is open to all who want to attend, not just rostered leaders and congregational voting members.  Child care will be offered - note this need in the "Special Requests" box on the registration form.  To get the latest information about this year's synod Assembly, we encourage attendees to sign up for the Upstate Update and visit www.upstatenysynod.org/ to get all the advance information. 


Download the Guidebook App for easy access to all your assembly materials.  


The Pre-Assembly book (includes agenda, resolutions, memorials and all reports), workshop and Mission Expo information, and all other assembly related materials will be distributed prior to and during the Assembly on Guidebook. The app is a free download available for android, apple and viewing via computer. Help us care for all creation, and access your materials electronically. Materials will all soon be posted on the synod website in the "Resource" section under 'Assembly.'
 
The Guidebook app features:
  • Registration Information
  • Hotel Information and Map
  • Pre-assembly News
  • Assembly Agenda
  • Mission Expo and Vendor Information
  • Convention Center Information and Maps
  • Synod Position Descriptions (for use in elections)
 
To get the guide, choose one of the methods below: 
  • Scan the following image with your mobile phone (QR-Code reader required, e.g. 'Red Laser', 'Barcode Scanner')




JUSTICE REFLECTION # 4


This is the final installment of comments on justice, in preparation for the annual synod assembly, for which the theme this year, In Christ One New Humanity, focuses on racial justice.  The first explored the philosophical notion of "justice", the second its theological dimension, and the third, various types of injustice.  Here we address the notion of "race".


Over 40 years ago, a friend who had grown up in Jamaica, and whose skin was about the color of milk chocolate, told me that he identified  himself as "black" but knew many people back home with darker skin who chose to call themselves "white".  He explained that these choices had to do not with skin tone but with socio-economic and cultural divides in his country. After centuries of intermarriage among people of European and African ancestry, genealogy was jumbled, but people self-divided into classes by politics, education, economic standing, and preferences of art and music.


In our country there is a long and perfidious history of persons from Africa being subjected to slavery by persons from Europe.  But when St. Paul sent the slave Onesimus back to his master Philemon, from whom he had absconded, slavery was not typically associated with skin color."  Slaves in the Greco-Roman culture were usually reduced to that state by insurmountable debt, not ethnic origin.


For a geneticist, there is a fundamental problem about race: race is not a genetic notion at all, but a socio-cultural one!  The use of skin color to subdivide humans into groups is an artificial construct without biological underpinnings.  Consider the possibility that any discussion which takes the notion of "race" as meaningful might be intrinsically unjust before it even begins!


See you in Rochester.  Think, (and pray) justly.
Robert Roger Lebel, Synod Assembly Planning Team


Support the 17th annual Hunger Appeal, God's Peace Your Piece to raise $45,000 for world hunger!  Each congregation is challenged to bring at least $450 to assembly.  There is still time to access resource materials on the synod website.  Raise the dollars and bring them to Synod Assembly.  (Make checks payable to Upstate NY Synod.)
 
Materials to support your hunger fundraising efforts are available -
Knock the Socks off Hunger - our bishop is challenging everyone to wear  CRAZY SOCKS to the Tuesday morning Plenary session.  For every pair of socks, Bishop Macholz and his wife, Lin will make a donation to World Hunger.  He has also secured matching dollars for our sock challenge.  Join the fun - start looking now for your crazy socks and help us to 'knock the socks' off hunger!!   


Workshops at Assembly - We have lots of great workshops at assembly this year.  Be sure to participate in one on Monday afternoon beginning at 1:15pm.  Topics include:


The New Jim Crow - Where do we go from here?
Money Beliefs not Budgets
Hunger, Faith and Justice
All Things Legal for Congregations
Racism:  Better, Worse, the Same?
Out of Poverty:  What Works for Children?
A Reformation Celebration for the 21st Century - 500 Years and Beyond
Racism and Youth
Eating (Jim) Crow: Divisions Created by Race: Divisions Created by Poverty
Resurrection in the Inner City
One Body, Many Members
What's Going On at LTSP and LTSG
Called Forward Together in Christ


 
Tidbits
The 2016 Synod Assembly Agenda is now available - download here.  


SAVE YOUR CAN TABS!  Bring can tabs to Synod Assembly and add them to the collection located in Empire North (Plenary Hall) along the south wall. (NEW LOCATION)


Calling All Musicians - Synod Assembly Music Director, Thatcher Lyman, invites vocalists and instrumentalists to be in touch with him to participate in music for this year's assembly.  In addition to Monday evening's Eucharist worship at 7:00pm there will be opportunities throughout assembly for music to enrich our time together.  Please email Thatcher at [email protected] with your interest, instrument of choice and/or your interest in joining the choir.  Assembly rehearsal times will be Sunday, 6:00 - 6:45pm and Monday, 3:00 - 3:45pm.
Child Care Available at Assembly - be sure to note on your Synod Assembly Registration form under the 'Special Requests' section if you will need child care at assembly.  Child care will be provided on Sunday evening, June 5 from 6:30 - 9:30pm, Monday, June 6 from 8am - 9:30pm and on Tuesday, June 7 from 8am - 1pm.  Child care services will be closed during the meal hours to allow our child care providers to also enjoy their meal time.  


Pre-Assembly Opportunities??  Join us for one of two opportunities beginning at 4:00pm.
  • Global Mission Clean and Not-so-clean water, Riverside Court
  • The New Jim Crow book discussion, Highland C 
Early Morning Prayer - Begin your day with one of our chaplains on Monday and Tuesday morning at 7:15am in the Lilac Room at the Radisson (at the top of the escalators on the 2nd floor) for Morning Prayer.  
 
Fellowship opportunities - two fellowship opportunities are available at synod assembly.  
  • Sunday evening, 6/5, we will gather in the Genesee Suite on the 2nd floor at the Radisson beginning at 9:15. 
  • Monday evening, 6/6 in the Galleria beginning at 9:30pm hosted by the Women of the ELCA.
Take note - you could be in pictures!  We will be web-casting synod assembly sessions this year.  It is possible that you could appear on camera.  


VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: Our Hospitality Committee is still in need of a few volunteers to help us at the Radisson with welcoming on Sunday afternoon (2:30 - 7:00 p.m.) and Monday afternoon (1:00 - 5:00 p.m.). Local area folks, even if not attending assembly, are welcome.  
Contact Patsy Glista, [email protected]
Don't miss out on any important 2016 Synod Assembly Information - sign up today for the Upstate Update.



Please visit our website upstatenysynod.org
 
Thank you for spending some time reading this edition of the Upstate Update. We hope, and pray, that you found it useful. If you know someone who could benefit from the Upstate Update, please forward it to them and ask them to sign up directly.
 
Kathy Neugent
Executive Assistant to the Bishop
Upstate New York Synod of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 
Phone: 315-299-4955 Fax: 315-299-4981 
 
 Resurrection people who pray first, walk together and change lives.   


Upstate New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | 5811 Heritage Landing Drive | First Floor | E. Syracuse | NY | 13057