Congregational Life Committee

“Woven Together by Grace” is the theme we used for our 2006 Congregational Resourcing Event. We were so pleased to have Pastor Peter Marty speak to the need to develop a unique community within the church. A community where diversity of gifts is seen as a blessing and unity is focused around Christ’s mission.

Woven together by grace is a theme that we live out all year round. Twelve people from congregations of our synod gather four times a year to coordinate and assist efforts in education, leadership, stewardship, youth and worship. We are so pleased that nearly 500 members of our congregations came to the CRE. Once there they were able to choose from over 40 workshops from evangelism to global mission to web page design. We feel that this wonderful menu of learning opportunities is truly woven together by grace. We were so pleased to have ten of our workshops led by church wide or synod staff. Set aside Saturday March 10, 2007 of the next CRE. We will focus on setting a new direction for your congregational and feature Ms. Beth Lewis CEO of Augsburg/Fortress publishing house.

The rest of year we seek to weave the resources we know are available with the members of our congregations and their needs. We are pleased to underwrite the internet resource “walking together”. We rejoice that our stewardship team has developed a strategy to help congregations with year round stewardship. We are thankful for the ongoing work of Ms. Jonette Knock and the LYO for their creative work with youth. We are excited at the addition of two people from our synod who have been trained as resources for the ELCA’s Christian educator’s network. We sing with joy at the work of the worship task team. We are proud to work with the synod staff in meeting the needs of our congregations and particularly thank Ms. Sandra Musch for all her efforts.

We are truly woven together by grace. So come and chat with us at our display in the college center. We may appear as clowns but have a great story to tell. Or come to our forums, you will leave smiling.

Pastor Karl Otto, Chair