Last Sunday, Bishop Eaton served as the guest preacher for the digital worship service for congregations around the Virginia Synod. Bishop Eaton’s sermon is one example of the wonderful collaborations and partnerships happening during this time of digital worship.

In the Highlands Conference, for example, the congregations and leaders have joined together to create a weekly worship service combining their gifts. Each week, leaders record a different part of the service from home or their home congregation and those recorded elements are then combined into one service. The conference now has a YouTube Channel, Highlands Conference- Virginia Synod ELCA, that features the worship service, plus daily devotions and evening prayer services. The channel currently has over 100 subscribers and 100 videos posted.

Collaboration is also taking place in Blacksburg where the Blacksburg ELCA Fellowship is uniting Luther Memorial, New Mt. Zion, Shiloh, and St. Michael to respond to the challenges of COVID-19. The congregations now produce a weekly worship service for all four congregations and worked together to offer a joint parking lot service for Easter and Pentecost.

While physical distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been a challenging and isolating experience for many people, it is exciting to see how congregations combining their gifts to build up the community and be the church together online.

The Virginia Synod is excited to partner with the following congregations to help alleviate hunger through the Virginia Synod Daily Bread Matching Grants:

Thank you for your partnership as we seek to be the church together for the sake of the world. For more information on the Daily Bread Grants, or more resources on how to create a community project in your own congregation, visit vasynod.org/ministries/church-together.

Attention Virginia Synod Youth who have just finished 7th-12th Grade, it's time to register for the Virtual Youth Assembly 2020!

Graduating High School Seniors and Parents can join in to the 3 PM Virtual Baccalaureate without registering for the Youth Assembly - please contact Dave Delaney at delaney@vasynod.org no later than Wednesday, June 10th to get the Zoom link!

REGISTRATION DEADLINE (it really is a deadline this time!) is 10:00 PM, Wednesday, June 10th.

For more information and to register, visit vasynod.org/event/youth-assembly

On June 17th, 2015, Dylann Roof, a member on the rolls of St. Paul Lutheran Church – ELCA, entered Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, SC for a prayer meeting. He proceeded to shoot and kill nine of the people in attendance in an act born of white supremacy and racial hatred.

Last summer, at our Churchwide assembly, the ELCA voted and approved a resolution to set aside June 17th as a Day of Remembrance and Repentance for the Emanuel 9. Acting on this resolution, the Virginia Synod’s Tapestry team is hosting a Zoom meeting on  Wednesday, June 17th, 2020 at 7:00 PM  for a time of remembering the Emanuel 9, an action step to take, and a prayer. To join the meeting:

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is hosting a virtual march taking place on June 20th. The Poor People’s Campaign is a revival of the historic Martin Luther King Jr.- led movement of the same name organized 52 years ago. It is a non-partisan fusion coalition movement rising up; a new and unsettling force challenging our nation’s distorted moral narrative. It seeks to unite tens of thousands of people across the country in 40 states including Virginia and is led by Rev. Dr. William Barber, a North Carolina civil rights activist, and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-director of Union Theological Seminary’s Kairos Center. Instead of hosting a live march on June 20th in Washington D.C., the march will be hosted on line. For more information you can visit: www.poorpeoplescampaign.org

The Tapestry team hopes that congregations will join in the Poor People’s Campaign virtual march on Monday June 20th, 2020, and from there commit to engaging the issues of racism at least once a quarter. This can be done in many ways including book studies, viewing a movie and discussing it, or in in-depth anti-racism studies.

The  Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy  is looking for volunteers to work with us on our "Civic Engagement Summer" - we have 3 different opportunities: student interns, volunteers, and team captains. With this effort, we're hoping to increase voter turnout among congregations and activate folks in our network this year. This will be mostly virtual and we're looking for a geographically diverse set of folks.

Please share this with people in your congregation!  

www.virginiainterfaithcenter.org/about/open-positions

When Lutheran World Relief launched the 75,000 Face Mask Challenge less than a month ago, they knew the compassionate response would be overwhelming – and that good people like you would meet the challenge. They just had no idea you’d pull it off so quickly. Thank you!

As COVID-19 continues to make its way around the world, the poorest communities stand to bear the heaviest burdens. Cloth masks are a first barrier of defense, and the need is only increasing. To reach even more people in dire need, Lutheran World Relief is collecting 75,000 more masks! How many will you make to help stop the spread? Sign up for more info. www.lwr.org/masks