By Saturday, May 1, all assembly registrants should receive an email from michael.gold@spas-elca.org with instructions for joining the Zoom sessions for:

The email will also include personalized voter credentials and contact information for the Tech Help Desk. If you don't receive the email by May 1 or have any questions about registration or credentials, please contact Registrar Michael Gold at michael.gold@spas-elca.org. The only registrants for Synod Assembly are Voting Members and Advisors. All other interested parties may view the proceedings on Facebook or the synod website. Learn more at https://spas-elca.org/events/synod-assembly/.

Voting members have an opportunity to attend a pre-assembly discussion on the proposed budget, proposed resolution and synod ministries. Two times will be available: Tuesday, May 4 and Thursday, May 6, both at 7-8 p.m. Content will be the same for both sessions. More information and Zoom links to these sessions will be emailed to assembly registrants by May 1.

To help voting members prepare for Synod Assembly, we are encouraging attendance at one of two digital orientation sessions, which will be held Tuesday, May 11, 6-7 p.m. and Wednesday, May 12, 4-5 p.m. The content is the same; attend just one. The first half of each session will be focused on the basics of using the Zoom conferencing platform; experienced "Zoomers" are encouraged to join at the 30- minute mark for assembly specific skills such as voting with the Election Runner platform.

Join the Guatemala Committee online this Sunday for its 2021 Guatemala Gala, supporting the education ministries of the Iglesia Luterana Agustina de Guatemala (ILAG). You can watch the gala on Facebook or the synod website with pre-gala music and photos starting at 6:50 p.m. Highlights include:

The Rev. Mark Aune (Augustana, West St. Paul) and the Rev. Ali Ferin (St. Michael's, Roseville) will serve as emcees. If you really want to get in the Latin mood, make your own authentic Guatemala meal by following recipes from Chef Amalia Moreno-Damgaard — a cooking demonstration video and recipes can be found on the event page, www.spas-elca.org/2021-guatemala-gala. Thank you in advance for your financial and/or prayer support for our Guatemalan sisters and brothers in the ILAG!

There is no cost for this event, but we do ask that you register so that we have your up-to-date information including the Zoom link. Please also feel free to bring your own happy hour beverage (or toast!) of any kind! Register here.

 “Kill the Indian, and save the man.” (Capt. Richard H. Pratt, 1892) Operating under this chilling motto, Indian Boarding Schools were the federal government’s chosen method of forced assimilation. Most of these schools were run by the Church. 

In 2016 the ELCA repudiated the doctrine of discovery, calling for the worshiping communities, synods and the denomination as a whole “…to acknowledge and repent from this church’s complicity in the evils of colonialism in the Americas…”(CA16.02.04). As part of this work, the Saint Paul Area Synod's Advocates for Racial Equity work group, in partnership with the Minneapolis Area Synod and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, is offering a two-part event. In part two, we will hear stories from individuals who spent time in Indian Boarding Schools.

The Rev. Joan A. Conroy is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in SD. She serves as a chaplain at the Good Samaritan Society in Maplewood and is a founding member of our synod’s Advocates for Racial Equity. Rev. Conroy is also president of the American Indian Alaska Native Lutheran Association, Inc. Bonnie Jean Steele is the daughter of a genocide and Indian boarding school survivor. Her father was a survivor of racial terror and fled the South as a teenager. Anishinaabe values informed Bonnie’s upbringing and fueled her passion for justice. Bonnie worked as the Director of Pastoral Ministry in a large, suburban Catholic parish then transferred to a large, urban parish where she directed pastoral care and social justice. You are welcome to attend, even if you didn't participate in Part 1. Register here.

The ELCA Youth Gathering will be held in the Twin Cities July 24-28, 2022 and things are starting to gear up! The Gathering leadership will be holding monthly webinars beginning in May to help youth leaders prepare for the 2022 Gathering, the Multicultural Youth Leadership Event (MYLE) and the tAble. The first webinar will be June 20 with the topic, "Volunteering at the Gathering." Click here for the list of upcoming webinar dates, topics and registration links. The webinars will be recorded for later viewing.

With 30,000 young people expected to converge on Minneapolis and the surrounding area, volunteers will be play a key role in the gathering's success. Applications for the Gathering Volunteer Corps (GVC) and Local Volunteers will open on May 22. Learn more about volunteering.

Last week we welcomed Allen Bredeson from Brandography to our church communicators' gathering to provide an overview of Google Analytics. This free tool offers a detailed picture of who's coming to your congregation's website and what they're looking at. Allen also provides suggestions for other resources for optimizing images and assessing site load times. If you'd like to watch the recording, just click the link below:

Open doors invite us in to gather, and open doors send us out to meet our neighbors. The ELCA is offering a new grant opportunity for congregations that are seeking support for ministries as they look at resuming in-person worships and gatherings. Applications are being accepted around these questions:

Successful applications from an ELCA congregation will contain a specific and actionable idea for how its ministry might enable members to meet new people while regathering in community as COVID-19 considerations allow. Learn more and apply.

Lutheran World Relief invites your congregation to go on a world tour with a virtual adult forum. Through videos and stories, the team at Lutheran World Relief is ready to take your congregation around the world and show you how your love is at work through rooftop farming in India, quilt and kit distributions in Lebanon, keeping our neighbors safe from COVID-19 in Africa, and much more. Staff are available to visit via live Zoom or prerecorded video. Click here to let LWR know your congregation is interested.

Applications open today, April 19, for 2022 ELCA World Hunger Domestic Hunger Grants! Visit www.elca.org/domestichungergrants to learn more and how to apply. Organizations applying for a grant for the first time must register by setting up an account in ELCA GrantMaker in order to access the grant application. If your organization is already registered in ELCA GrantMaker, now its a great time to log back in and confirm that the contact information in your account is up to date.

NOTE: Congregations with feeding ministries should stay tuned for the next round of Daily Bread Matching Grants in the coming months. Visit www.elca.org/dailybread to learn more.

The synod office is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. A limited number of staff are on-site each day. You may continue to reach all staff members by phone (651-224-4313) or by email.

For more than a year, rostered and lay leaders have enjoyed weekly online gatherings of encouragement and support. More than 5,300 leaders have attended 60 gatherings. In hopes of ending well and dreaming about what might be next, the final "Being Church" gathering will take place on Wednesday, April 28. Participants are asked to ponder these questions prior to the meeting:

Recordings of past sessions are available at www.elcacoaching.org/podcasts/media.

or by phone: +1 312 626 6799

Members of faith communities are invited to gather on Zoom to voice and process the feelings they have from all that's taken place over the past year in relation to the murder of George Floyd. Participants will gather in Zoom breakout rooms for Respectful Conversation Training, small group talking circles and healing space. Participating congregations are invited to contribute $50-$75 for the presenters, who include the Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs, Kelly Sherman-Conroy and Shari Seifert. To attend, visit www.zoom.com, click on "Join a Meeting" and follow the prompts to enter these credentials:

St. Andrew's in Mahtomedi is offering a “Celebration of Life Conversation” to help attendees learn more about how to make end-of-life decisions that work best for them and their families. The session is free and open to the public. St. Andrew’s staff and expert community partners will provide information on planning health care directives, estate planning and memorial options. The event, hosted by St. Andrew’s Congregational Care Ministry and The Foundation of St. Andrew’s, is also ideal for those helping parents navigate end-of-life plans. To register and for more information, call Christa Getchell, Executive Director of the Foundation of St. Andrew’s, at 651-762-9102, or visit www.saintandrews.org/foundation.

Narratives of addiction & recovery have become their own genre, with familiar shapes and forms that reflect deep cultural ideas about morality, free will, and social responsibility. Dr. Kate Gaudet will explore some of the most common stories about addiction, providing tools for understanding on a narrative and structural level. From this foundation, we will explore whether the familiarity of some stories might create barriers to recognizing different experiences of addiction or approaches to recovery, and think about where we might find more diverse accounts to inform our understanding of and response to addiction. Dr. Gaudet is on the faculty in Humanities at the U of New Hampshire. The webinar is hosted by the Center of Addiction & Faith, Tim McMahan King and Pastor Ed Treat. Register here.

World class communicator Rob Bell has been profiled in The New Yorker, toured with Oprah, and was one named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine in 2011. He is also the author of 10 books including What We Talk About When We Talk About God, Love Wins and What is the Bible?. Church Anew is offering a two-part event with Rob:

The cost is $30 for Monday only and $69 for both days. Learn more and register.

Grab a friend and get outside together to walk, run, ride or however you like to move...for Shobi's Table, the food truck ministry supported by our synod! We’re all about coming together around one table to eat delicious, nutritious food that feeds the body as well as the soul. Once you’ve all been fed, what better thing to do than to get those bodies outside to revel in God’s good creation and get to know one another even better.

The week of May 16-22, you are invited to do a 5K at your own pace, however you love to move best, wherever you are. You can walk, run, ride your bike, do cartwheels, skip, push someone in a wheelchair or a stroller. You could do 1K a day for 5 days! You can go fast or slow. If a 5K is too much for your body, consider driving to a place you can see a vista that goes out for at least 5K. This 5K-As-You-Can is accessible to everyone! Wherever you do your 5K, take a picture and post it using the hashtags #5KAsYouCan and #ShobisTable.

On Saturday, May 22nd, those who are local to the St. Paul area can gather (location TBD) for a pay-as-you-can lunch at the Shobi’s Table food truck, 5K routes available nearby. The truck will be there from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., so you can eat lunch before or after! There will be plenty of space to spread out.

Register here. Whether you walk by yourself, with a friend or a team, each participant must fill out a registration form. (Parents and guardians, you can fill one out for your kids.) Registration fee is pay-as-you-can (so you decide how much you want to give!). Registration fees of $25/person and up come with a Shobi's Table t-shirt.

Mt. Olivet Conference & Retreat Center concludes its Living Well, Leading Well virtual workshop series with a conversation about trauma. As we cope with the mounting losses, anxieties and uncertainties of our current pandemic, many of us feel like we are losing our footing. Having some awareness of trauma and its impact on our personal, intergenerational, and collective lives can increase our self-understanding and compassion. Join us in exploring concrete psychological and spiritual tools for increasing resilience and finding hope and joy in the midst of pain.

The session will be led by the Rev. Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger, Ph.D., the Charlotte W. Newcombe Professor of Pastoral Theology Emerita at Princeton Theological Seminary. Deborah was originally trained as a pastoral counselor, taught at Princeton Seminary for 25 years, and now offers spiritual direction for individuals and small groups. She will share psychological and spiritual tools for increasing resilience and finding hope and joy in our life together. Learn more and register.

www.spas-elca.org | 651.224.4313