3E Lilly Grant is partnering with the Arizona State University Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation to offer Best Skills Best Churches  

Best Skills, Best Churches, offered online, is a graduate/executive level certificate program designed to advance rostered ministers' and lay leaders’ knowledge and skills for effective management of congregations and ministries.

Best Skills, Best Churches will cover:

• Volunteers in Service
• Legal Aspects of Governance
• Effective Communication and Handling Conflict
• Marketing and Community Presence
• Financial Management for Effective Service
• Fundraising Aspects of Stewardship.

Best Skills, Best Churches will meet from 6:30– 9:30 pm (except in December from 5:30–8:30 pm) on the following dates:

• July 11 & 13
• August 1 & 3
• September 5 & 7
• October 3 & 5
• October 31 & November 2
• December 5 & 7

Upon satisfactory course completion, participants will receive a certificate in Non-Profit Management.

The cost is only $150 per participant - a $775 value made possible by the 3E Lilly Grant!

Click the link below to enroll TODAY!

Questions? contact Deacon Sarah Bjornebo HERE

IN-PERSON and ZOOM WORKSHOP

BREADITATION: learn to make Gluten Free Communion Bread; it’s all about hospitality

Saturday, May 6

9:00am to 1:00pm

plus FRIDAY PREP for ZOOM participants: required the day before

IN PERSON is at Messiah Mountain Retreat Center: no prep needed the day before

COST: $20 for Zoom participant (providing your own ingredients); $40 in person (includes all ingredients and lunch)

Gluten free communion bread is easy, tasty, and all about hospitality for all. Join us in the in-person or online workshop to make gluten free communion bread, as well as fougasse, which is a light, open textured bread typically associated with the Provence region of France. Your workshop leaders are Pastor Ron Glusenkamp and Pastor Kent Mueller.

Monday, May 1 registration deadline. Limited to 12 participants in person. 

Zoom registrants will receive ingredient list, instructions, and Zoom link several weeks before the event.

Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains 75th Anniversary Gala!

The 75th Anniversary Gala celebration will be May 12, 2023 from 6:00-9:00pm at the Denver Art Museum. Save the date cards and invitations will be mailed shortly, but tickets are on sale now on the LFSRM website. Sponsorship opportunities are still available. Contact Margo Hatton at 719-250-7491 or margo.hatton@lfsrm.org for more information

The Annual Golf Tournament will be held on July 31, 2023 at the Red Rocks Golf Course. More details coming soon!

The 40th Inn Keeper Dinner in Colorado Springs will be held on September 21, 2023 at 6:00 PM at the Pinery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. More details for this wonderful Colorado Springs community event are coming soon!

For over a decade the Wolf Creek Foundation, a 501C3 nonprofit organization, has been supporting military families through the generosity of our community. Whether being deployed or returning from deployment, separation brings stress and anxiety to a military family which is often difficult to overcome.

We sponsor and facilitate weekend retreats twice a year where our military families relax, reconnect and develop much needed skills that help the entire family cope with deployments. Meals, lodging and entertainment along with dedicated programming for adults and children are offered at no cost to the family.

Military families sacrifice each day to allow us to have the freedoms we all enjoy. Become a part of something amazing. Join us today! wolfcreekfoundation.com.

ELCA Farm Bill Listening Sessions

Tuesday, April 25

ELCA farm bill listening sessions are virtual gatherings where ministry leaders, members of congregations, and those with valuable lived experiences gather our opinions and experiences informed by faith values on stewardship, justice and serving our neighbor. The farm bill connects food on our tables and cafeterias, the farmers and ranchers who produce it, and the natural resources that make growing food possible, and is in the process of being reauthorized. Please join the conversation shaping our faithful action!

Watch an invitation to participate here. Registration links and more information at blogs.elca.org/advocacy/elca-farm-bill-listening-sessions.

Reflection from Harper Bolz-Weber

Young Adult in Global Mission (YAGM) Serving in Jerusalem/West Bank (JWB)

I am incredibly grateful for the other members of my cohort, who have all been incredible sources of support over the course of the year. So I want to take a moment to acknowledge how much we have been through together this year and to thank my fellow JWB YAGMs for walking with me through all the challenges life has thrown at us. In mid-February, we had a big retreat in Jordan. We spent a few nights in Petra, a few nights in the desert in Wadi Rum, and a few nights in the capital city of Amman. It was a truly incredible experience; the desert in Jordan is unlike anything I have ever seen or experienced, and I will not soon forget it...

Click here to read more of Harper's reflections. To help support her year of service in the Holy Land, click here.

Volunteer to help with English in Hungary!

The first time I came to Budapest was in 2010 with members of Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Los Alamos, New Mexico. We visited a partner congregation in Monor, Hungary, a small town just outside Budapest. I have returned many times to study Hungarian, visit with friends, help with day camps, and learn about the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary (ELCH). When I retired in 2017 from my work as Lutheran Campus Pastor at the University of New Mexico, Bishop Tamas Fabiny of the ELCH, and former Vice President for the Central Eastern European Region of the Lutheran World Federation, invited me to serve in Hungary as a volunteer building up the English Lutheran Ministry and developing a Companion Synod program with the Northeast Iowa Synod. We now have a program called English Corner. Volunteers from the USA and Canada can come for 90 days without a visa to help Hungarian English teachers in the schools with the spoken parts of their lessons. You don’t have to have any teaching experience. A school or a local congregation in the countryside provides housing in exchange for 4 days of volunteer work at kk-12 schools. Volunteers have long weekends and school breaks to tour Hungary and the rest of Europe. If you would like more information about this program please contact Pastor Liz Bell, Assistant to the Bishop of the NE Iowa Synod, ELCA at albertsonl@neiasynod.org or write to one of our volunteers, Debbi Shoopman, at: shoopmand@yahoo.com. Find us on Facebook at English Corner Delights | Facebook.

Pastor Anne Morawski is a retired ELCA pastor and volunteer with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hungary (ELCH) and the English Lutheran Ministry in Budapest (ELMB). Both churches are members of the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches.

AUGUSTANA ARTS PRESENTS

Emerging: New Musical Voices

Stratus Chamber Orchestra

Adam Torres, Music Director

Be sure to make your plans now to attend our final Stratus Concert of the 2022-23 Season!

Saturday, April 29 at 7:00pm at Augustana Lutheran Church, 5000 E. Alameda Ave.

Sunday matinee, April 30 at 3:00pm at First Universalist Church of Denver, 4101 E. Hampden Ave.

SEICENTO PRESENTS

J.S. Bach’s monumental St. John’s Passion

May 6 at 7:00pm

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Denver

Seicento’s performance of this monumental work will focus on historically informed musical forces and techniques, beginning with the use of period instruments such as theorbo, portative organ, traverso (wooden flute), baroque oboes, viola da gamba, and baroque strings. Seicento’s singers and instrumentalists perform at baroque pitch with the signature Seicento flair, all contributing to the realization of the work as—in the words of American choral director and conductor Hugh Ross— “transcendent in its divine benignity.’

Tickets are $15 - 50. For concert locations, directions, times and tickets, visit

seicentobaroque.org/current-season/.

A DEVOTIONAL REFLECTION

Composting and carbon farming turn a major problem into a major climate solution

Landfilling organic matter like food and yard waste is heating the planet. When

buried in a landfill, organics decompose anaerobically (without oxygen) and in the

process become the number one source of human-caused methane—a greenhouse

gas that traps 84 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in the short term.

That is a major problem . . . but we can transform it into a major climate solution. If

we turn these organic discards into compost instead of landfilling them, we can

prevent methane emissions at landfills. If we then apply compost to landscapes, we can

build healthy soils. Healthier soils grow healthier plants which absorb more carbon

dioxide from the atmosphere and store it safely in the soil where it belongs.

Applied broadly and across the globe, carbon farming creates four global

SOLUTIONS:

• Restoring lost topsoil,
• Increasing soil resilience to drought,
• Restoring food nutrition, and
• Reversing climate change.

Learn more at ecocycle.org/learn-about-zero-waste.

Questions- rmscreationcareteam@gmail.com.

ONLINE LEARNING

5 Simple Steps to Stop Working on Your Day Off

April 25 at 10:00am MST

You're a woman in ministry writing your sermon and catching up on administrative work on your Sabbath days.

I'm going to show you exactly how to rest instead of work.

Learn these 5 steps to stop working on your day off.

You'll create the rest that supports a life-giving ministry.

Join Dr. Crystal Hall on Tuesday, April 25 at 10:00am MT/12:00pm ET.

Learn more at crystalhallphd.com.

The Summit at Rainbow Trail

- A Faith Formation Retreat for Leaders

April 24-26

You're invited to come spend time at Rainbow Trail Lutheran Camp for personal reflection, renewal, and professional development with other youth, family, children, young adult, and faith formation leaders!

This is a FREE retreat for folks in the Rocky Mountain Synod! Folks outside of the synod are welcome to join. The 2023 theme is LGBTQIA+ Inclusive Faith Formation. Deacon Ross Murray, Pastor Kelsey Fauser, and Daniel Kirschbaum will be our content speakers and conversation facilitators.

Contact Bryan at Bryan@bethany-denver.org or Alec Celecki at 303-912-0283 with questions. Use QR code to register or click button below.

ZOOM LEARNING

2ND ANNUAL VALBORG TOLLEFSRUD EDUCATIONAL EVENT

What Every Nurse Needs to Know About Spiritual Care

Presented by Sondra Weinzierl, MA, BAN, PHN, Faith Community Nurse

Thursday, May 11, 5:00-7:00pm

The intentional care of the spirit is foundational to faith community nursing. Yet, many FCNs feel unprepared to identify spiritual needs and provide care in complex situations with diverse clients in a rapidly changing world. This workshop provides information on assessing spiritual needs, spiritual care barriers and interventions.

Download flyer with more details here!

TO REGISTER FOR THIS EVENT GO TO lutheranfcna.org/event-5243488.

We are a people passionately committed to rolling up our sleeves and engaging with the vast needs of our times, as well as the complex questions that surround us. Lutherans are people of grace, God's grace. When we are at our best, we embody it in our words and our actions. At the same time, we make no pretense of being a perfect people. Instead we consider ourselves, "sinners anonymous", people who are deeply hungry for God in Christ in our lives and our world."

The Rev. James E. Hazelwood, was re-elected June 8, 2018 to serve a second six-year term as bishop of the New England Synod. To read the Bishop's latest thoughts and messages, click to go to his blog.

Visit nelutherans.org/ and on Facebook.

Click here to view a Bishops and Synods map of our 65 ELCA synods and 9 regions.