SYNOD NEWS AND EVENTS - JULY 6, 2016
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Our mission as a synod calls us to empower and equip leaders. Through this Funding Initiative we will gather resources to empower leaders in three main areas identified as priorities, which will be highlighted each week in your enews. Enhance Local and Global Mission is one of our priorities.

New financial resources will create opportunities for youth and young adults. We will be able to start new churches and better serve our congregations and parishes as they begin redevelopment work. We will deepen our capacity to engage our neighbors new and old who are not connected to communities of faith. We will identify and carry out new ways to love our neighbors in SW MN and in South Africa. 

The SW MN Synod Funding Initiative was introduced at this year's synod assembly. Each congregation was given the opportunity to enter their congregation's name for a chance to receive a prize valued at $1,000 or more in one of the funding's mission emphasis areas. Danebod Lutheran in Tyler was awarded $1,000 for Global and Local Mission. The following article tells the story of why Danebod leaders picked Global and Local Mission and how they will use the money they received.

Where there is a will, the Holy Spirit finds a way!
By Pastor Jennie Thul
Two years ago for God's Work, Our Hands Sunday, Danebod Lutheran Church was looking for new projects. During the workshops at synod assembly that year, we had learned about filling backpacks for non-school days - especially weekends. Such a program had existed previously in the local school district, but it wasn't happening anymore. So, information was shared and here's what followed:

The Backpack Food Program was reinvigorated for RTR Schools' Grades K-12 for the 2014-15 school year.

The program was named We Care 4 Kids so people did not confuse it with donating school supplies and a backpack at the beginning of the school year.

Each bag carried food for breakfast, lunch, and two snacks and was provided to the participating student for each day of the weekend or school break, confidentially given to them by school staff.

The invitation went out expressing the hope that this would become a community-wide program and not just the work of a couple of congregations.

A list of most needed items was shared: individual serving sizes of canned fruit/fruit cups in light syrup; meals such as spaghetti and meatballs, ravioli, macaroni and cheese; 100% juice bags or boxes; pudding cups; granola bars, cereal bars, single-serving cereal boxes or oatmeal packets.

Within two months, the women at First English Lutheran Church in Tyler were also filling bags. Soon St. Dionysius Catholic Church had joined the program. The generosity of local businesses and organizations added to the efforts through grants and donations.

Summer came and went and with the arrival of the 2015-16 school year came the start of year 2 for We Care 4 Kids. Three local congregations continued to take turns filling and delivering bags to the elementary school. We have tried numerous times to provide food to the RTR Middle and High Schools, but to date have been unsuccessful.

In December 2015, the local Miller Legal Firm held a food drive. The response was overwhelming because the food collected lasted the remaining five months of the school year!

At this year's synod assembly, our Danebod voting members heard Bishop Jon talk about milk fairies from Trinity, Sleepy Eye. We were intrigued and wondered about the need to provide snacks and milk to students in the elementary school in Ruthton. I contacted Principal Patricia Lindeman and was told that there definitely is a need, especially for almond milk and fruit snacks. We knew we would take on this project, but began wondering how to fund it.

Karlee Wyttenback, one of our voting members, went to work the Monday after synod assembly and talked to her co-workers at Pluto Legal about what she named "Dairy Fairies"!  People at Pluto Legal can pay $1 to wear jeans on Fridays and...they want to donate the money to the school to buy milk and snacks for those children who come to school without. Blow, Holy Spirit, blow!

The grant money from two years ago is gone, but the Community Service Projects fund at Danebod Lutheran Church isn't empty. We continue to receive money from Bethany Lutheran Church in Arco from their noisy offerings. Lakestay Community Chest, also from Arco, sends money each year. And just last week we received a call from Woodstock Communications in Ruthton. They are hosting a food drive from now until August 19.

We gave up wondering how we will pay for food for the We Care 4 Kids program because, where there is a will, the Holy Spirit finds a way.

At the end of this year's synod assembly it was announced that Danebod Lutheran Church had won a prize valued at $1,000 for local/global mission. If you have read this far, then you know exactly how we will be spending the prize money. 
Local and Global Mission Opportunities
  • South Africa Day
    Saturday, July 9, 10am-2pm at Shores of St. Andrew Bible Camp, New London
    All are welcome! Cultural music and a noon meal featuring South African cuisine. Meet our camp counselors from South Africa! Free will donation
    Please RSVP to (320) 796-2181 or camp@gllm.org.
     
  • BETTER TOGETHER: Packaging food and building community
    On July 28th, at Apollo High School, St Cloud, a coalition of local faith-based and community organizations plans to package over 200,000 meals for local charities, food shelves and disabled veterans' support organizations. Sign up is available through the United Way of Central Minnesota website - unitedwayhelps.org. Sign up to serve two hour shifts from 12-8 p.m.
    Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help purchase food packaging supplies. Financial contributions can be sent directly to United Way of Central Minnesota at 3001 Clearwater Road, Suite 201, St. Cloud, MN 56301. Please denote the gift is for the BETTER TOGETHER event! Congregations and individuals may also give online by clicking here. We will also accept gifts on the day of the event. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Global Companions
+Bishop Jon V. Anderson
I will be attending a consultation this week of all the ELCA Synods who relate to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Southern Africa. We will be meeting with our global mission team. In particular I will have a chance to check in with Pr. Phil Knutson. We will learn from each other, talk about the life of our companion synods in Southern Africa and our life together in Christ. I always look for opportunities to deepen our local and global mission at these meetings. We believe it is important to practice accompaniment for example.
Walking and working together, we seek to accompany our companions. Accompaniment is defined as walking together in a solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality. The ELCA lives out accompaniment in relationships with global companions, striving to share God's love and participate in God's mission together:
Mutually: All of us have gifts to support God's mission. There is no mission to, only mission with and among.
Inclusively: We seek to build relationships across boundaries that exclude and divide.
Vulnerably: Just as Jesus became vulnerable to us, we open ourselves to others.
Empowering: We seek to identify and correct imbalances of power, which may mean recognizing and letting go of our own.
Sustainably: To ensure local ministries last for a long time, we seek to embed mission in ongoing relationships and communities.
In Prayer
Join us in prayer... please feel free to reuse this prayer written by Bishop Jon Anderson about terrorist attacks around the world. 
photo by John MacDougall
We pray to you living and loving God in this time of terrorist attacks around the world. We especially lift up people in Baghdad, Iraq; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Istanbul, Turkey; Medina, Saudi Arabia and in our own country particularly in Orlando, Florida.

Open our ears to the crying of families and friends who have lost loved ones to the violence of terrorists in the past week so that our compassion for all people deepens in a time when anger and hatred surge inside us. Surround and strengthen the medical emergency workers, law enforcement and other first responders who live with memories after these events. Guide us as we seek to work to create a better world by how we parent, serve in our workplaces, love our neighbors and care for people in their best and worst moments. Bless the diplomats and other peace makers who seek to guide us internationally to a better future. In our time of many fears, call forth our best personal and communal response. 

"You are our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble. Do not let us fail in the face of these events. Uphold us with your love, and give us the strength we need. Help us in our confusion and guide our actions. Heal the hurt, console the bereaved and afflicted, protect the innocent and help and deliver any who are still in peril; for the sake of your great mercy in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
(ELW Pastoral Care - p. 386-7)

Click here for a list of terrorist incidents in 2016. 
Rethinking Sunday Morning - Two Scholarships per Conference
+Luther Seminary & Bishop Jon V. Anderson   
We are offering two scholarships per conference ($100 each to be a part of our synod group).
This is for pastors, worship leaders, youth directors, AiM, Christian Education Directors or Committee member.  It will be first come, first served process.  Email Carla Klawitter at carla.klawitter@swmnelca.org to let us know you are requesting a scholarship - please also name your conference or your congregation and home town so we know where you are coming from.  Scholarships will be reimbursed upon receipt.
If you receive a scholarship, we would ask you to make a time to present to the conference meeting to your rostered leaders sometime in the coming year and to use this workshop to move forward your ministry and mission. 

Rethinking Sunday Morning:  Better Questions, Bolder Experiments
July 27-29, 2016, Luther Seminary, Olson Campus Center
For many, it's already happening. Whether Sunday morning finds them seated at work or at a coffee shop, in the bleachers or on a pew, they're already rethinking churchgoing. And perhaps you are, too.
But what is God up to in all of this? And to what more faithful future are Christian communities now being called? What are the practices of discipleship for a post-churchgoing world?
Join the conversation and discover the courage to ask some fresh questions and engage them more boldly.
Click here for event schedule.
Click here for event speakers.
"It was helpful to see that our church is not struggling in the process alone. I felt it gave me license to think outside of the programming box towards the larger, most basic, central goal of any church work-to create missionaries for the world in a quickly changing cultural climate." -Past Rethinking participant
 
To register
Please register online by clicking here or download a printable registration form by clicking here. To get the discounted group rate you must register two or more at the same time.
- $225 for single registration
- $175 per person when two or more people from the same congregation register at the same time.
Renewing 501(c)(3) Status for Your Congregation
+Carla Klawitter
We have received several calls lately from congregations that need to renew their 501(c)(3) status. Apparently the State of Minnesota is catching up on some overdue work. It's important to know that we (synod and congregations) have a group exemption.
If you receive such notice, please contact me at carla.klawitter@swmnelca.org or 507-627-9044. I'll send you the group exemption number, 501(c)(3) certification letter, and copies of two official IRS letters needed to complete your paperwork.
Synod Events
Below is a list of all the upcoming synod events. Visit the synod events webpage for more information.
JULY
July 22, 2016
Redwood Falls Golf Club, Redwood Falls

Better Together Hunger Event
July 28, 2016
Apollo High School, St Cloud

AUGUST
August 10-13, 216
New Orleans
 
ELCA Churchwide Assembly
August 8-13, 2016
New Orleans  
SEPTEMBER
Ministry and Money
September 10, 2016
Calvary Lutheran Church, Willmar 
LMM Fall Retreat
September 24, 2016
Shetek Lutheran Ministries

Fall Theological Conference
September 25-27, 2016
Mount Carmel Ministries & Luther Bible Camp, Alexandria, MN
Other great resources and events! 
  • PLAN-IT Workshop, August 13
    Hosting: Prairie & Shetek Conferences at Shetek Lutheran Ministries.
    This is a guided day of planning resulting in a one year outline for your youth ministry. Click here for more information. 

Southwestern Minnesota Synod, ELCA 
PO Box 499, Redwood Falls, MN 56283
Phone: 507-637-3904