Do you remember the first time your church responded to COVID? For most of us, it was early in 2020. Hundreds of thousands of churches closed their doors and stopped having in-person worship services. Many of us thought it was a short-term problem, that in three or four months, we
Photo Courtesy of Shutterstock. By Thomas Lambrecht – As might be expected, the proposed adoption of the Protocol for Reconciliation and Grace through Separation by the 2022 General Conference has provoked anxiety among clergy wanting to understand its implications for their future service in the church. This article aims to bring
Elizabeth A. Eaton, presiding bishop of the ELCA, has issued a pastoral letter on National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. “Eighty years ago, on a beautiful Sunday morning, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was tragically transformed from an island paradise into a bloody battlefield,” the letter read, in part. “After the Japanese bombed
Today’s daf continues to present incredible stories about times that people prayed to God to intercede and prevent a disaster — and what happened. Why does God choose to avert some tragedies and not others? Why does God seem more willing to answer some people and not others? The rabbis
Giovanni Testori: The truth is that man today does not say it—maybe he is afraid to say it—but he feels a terrible nostalgia to return home to the house of the Father. And then the Mother is there, with Christ, to form the shelter, the home, the Church. From there,
All Hallows Evening Prayer is a service of worship in the evening for all pilgrims on the journey to the heavenly city. Jesus will return someday. He did not command us to spend our time trying to figure when that would be. Nor did he command to try to
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. By Thomas Lambrecht – In the church calendar, the Advent season – the four weeks leading up to Christmas – are set aside as a time of preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth. The idea is taken from Isaiah 40:3, “A voice of one
The premise of this tractate is that by instituting public fasts in a time of drought, the people can change God’s mind about withholding the rains. It’s a bold move to think that by denying ourselves food and calling out to the heavens we can compel God to act, yet