Dear Rostered Leaders of the Sierra Pacific Synod,
I pray this letter finds you well as we celebrate moving into a new year of life and ministry. If not, I'd like to know. If so, I'd like to know. That is the point of this letter. As we begin this new year;
- I am very grateful for your ministry, service and leadership
- I am also wondering, how is it with your soul? How is it in your life and ministry?
You are serving in the most likely places where people will encounter the depth and breadth of the ministry of the ELCA - the congregations and ministries who are doing "God's work with our hands." I'd like to know how that is going.
Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, who will be with us at our Synod Assembly in June, has offered a helpful way of visualizing how we are called to serve and reveal Christ through our many ministries. She calls the congregations and ministries across the ELCA the "pixels" of a much larger picture. This is the time of year when rostered and non-rostered leaders are asked to take stock of how our many ministries are faring:
- take a step back and see what has been happening over the past year that may be significant
- have that story become one of the "pixels" of the whole picture of our shared ministry as the Sierra Pacific Synod
My hope is that this information is and will be helpful to you in your continuing discernment around your call to ministry. Your congregation's Parochial Report is also the means by which we determine the number of voting members your congregations will need to send to Synod Assembly, so please:
- make sure the information about the membership of your congregation is accurate and up to date
- know that your congregation will be assessed for the number of members you have reported on the last Congregational (Parochial) Report we received from you. All the more reason to attend to this if you haven't lately
Collectively, this information also helps our shared ministry as synod and churchwide expressions of the church in discerning how and where to offer support for local ministries. I wonder:
- what conversations might happen if you were to share some of this information with your colleagues in the conference or cluster with which you most often affiliate
- how you might re-imagine these year-end reports being utilized in new ways for Spirit-led conversations about new visions for ministry in your contexts
In order to assist you in gathering and sending this information, you will find information posted in our weekly synod e-newsletter and on the synod website home page at
www.spselca.org
about submitting both your Rostered leader and Congregational reports. You can visit our synod website or click on the links listed below. Thank you for taking the time to share reports of your ministry and, for those called to congregational ministry, that of the parish you serve.
- Parochial Reports Forms A & C for congregations are also due. Please make every effort to work with your leadership to complete the report and submit it by the date requested. You should have received information, including your congregation's ID number and password, from the Churchwide Offices of the ELCA. If you have not, please contact the Sacramento Office of the Bishop at info@spselca.org for assistance. You and your leadership can complete this report at: https://webapps.elca.org/FormAAndC/Login.aspx
- Plan for Mission Support. Online, fillable reports for your congregation's plans for proportionate share giving to the ELCA and the Sierra Pacific Synod in 2016 are now available (click here). It is very important that you and your council leadership provide this information so that our synod council leadership can plan for our shared mission and ministry.
Thank you for your partnership in the ministry we share. If not before, I look forward to seeing you at one of the Chrism Mass celebrations which will be held during the week before Holy Week;
- Thursday, March 17th at Bethlehem Lutheran in Auburn; or
- Friday, March 18th at Holy Trinity Lutheran in Fremont.
- Both services begin at 10:30 a.m. with lunch following the service.
I am also very thankful that Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton will serve as our keynote speaker at our Synod Assembly in Reno - June 3rd - 5th and look forward to seeing you there.
Blessings in your life and ministry.
Peace,
The Rev. Mark W. Holmerud, bishop
Sierra Pacific Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
