The ELCA has released a new video, Heart of the Community, featuring the ministry of Navajo Evangelical Lutheran Mission (NELM). The video highlights NELM’s deep relationships, community presence, and faithful witness on the Navajo Nation. 8:30 min.
The ELCA Region 2 40-40-40 Lenten Challenge for 2025 sought to raise funds for water projects at the Navajo Evangelical Lutheran Mission through Lutheran Disaster Response.
The ELCA Witness in Society Federal Policy team, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Lutheran Office for World Community are extending an open call for candidates. Expenses will be paid by ELCA.
An intergenerational Advocacy Immersion trip is planned for July 12-16, 2026, and we are looking for 10 participants: 5 young adults, and 5 not-so-young adults.
By intentionally focusing on an intergenerational experience, the aim is to use the differing capacities, experience, and energy of young adults and not-so-young adults to create a space for collaborative advocacy that strengthens our shared inheritance of climate advocacy.
The focus of this trip will be climate justice. We seek young adults and not-so-young adults to pair for this experiential learning. We are working to create mutual connection, learning, and capacity building to support all in their climate advocacy, so we seek participants who will be open to such partnerships and will find partnership helpful in their calling. All participants will have a life experience or feel a call to advocacy that relates to climate change and social justice. We have found that participants with strong faith and theological background and with a church or community in which to advocate are the ones served best by this opportunity.
Learn more about the schedule and the plans for this activity.
We need your help to form the group!
Do you know young adults or a not-so-young adults who would be a good partner in this? Respond with that name and contact info and a brief description of what makes them good participants, and we will be in contact.
Nomination period ends April 17.
If you have further questions, we would be happy to find a time to talk. We are grateful for your partnership.
Email Christine Moffatt with nominations or any questions.
Article by the Rev. Kristin Johnston Largen peprinted from Living Lutheran, September 23, 2025
Deeper understandings – September 2025
Series editor’s note: In 2025, “Deeper understandings” is focusing on the ELCA social statements. We hope to reintroduce them to readers as a means of provoking fruitful, enriching conversation between Christians with different understandings and convictions, and as a springboard for active discipleship in the world. Each article will introduce a particular statement and its Lutheran theological underpinnings, then suggest ways in which it can spark faithful conversation and action in the service of your baptismal vocation.
My hope is that you will find this series relevant to your current context and that it will help you express your Lutheran faith in your daily interaction with family, friends, neighbors and co-workers—for the sake of the flourishing of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world and the life abundant of the neighbor and stranger.
—Kristin Johnston Largen, president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa, on behalf of the ELCA’s seminaries
ELCA social statements have the highest teaching authority in our church: each statement is created through a comprehensive and inclusive study process, and then must be approved with a two-thirds vote at a churchwide assembly, the largest, most representative gathering of ELCA members. Not every person who calls themself an ELCA Lutheran agrees with every statement, but they represent the ethical and moral stance of the ELCA as a whole on specific social issues, based on Lutheran biblical and theological commitments.
Social statements are not responses to current sociological or political trends; instead they describe practical ramifications of the Lutheran faith in one’s daily life. They are often quite countercultural in that they resist prevailing secular norms and ways of thinking. In this way, they are a gift to the church.
Our life with Christ is manifested in our life in the world, in all aspects.
Have you ever wondered why the ELCA bothers to create these statements? Some may think of this work as an add-on, an indulgence or even a distraction from the main activities of our church. Nothing could be further from the truth. Social statements reflect a reality that stands at the heart of the Lutheran faith.
Lutherans teach and believe that faith isn’t just about us and Jesus. Instead our belief in Jesus Christ and the way we relate to him as our savior directly relates to how we view and treat our neighbor. Our life with Christ is manifested in our life in the world, in all aspects—a relationship with Christ cannot exist apart from the relationships we have with all those in God’s family, and all of God’s creation.
Lutherans don’t go to church to escape from the world. We go to be fed and formed for life in the world, to be the hands of Christ in the Spirit’s work of transforming the world, turning swords into plowshares and weeping into joy. The social statements reflect that work and inform how we engage in it.
The church and criminal justice
With this in mind, let’s turn to a specific social statement: “The Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries,” which was adopted in 2013. (A summary of key points begins on page 3 of the statement, and the document closes with 11 implementing resolutions that offer practical ways of living into its commitments.)
Thoroughly grounded in Scripture and the Christian tradition, this statement offers multiple concrete suggestions, which include recognizing how institutional racism has led to the disproportionate incarceration of African-descent men, and advocating for more just and equitable laws and policies. However, I believe that the statement’s most important point—and the one that best represents the Lutheran convictions undergirding it—is its call for a change in mindset.
The social statement describes this change as “a transformed mindset, one that counteracts the logic equating more punitive measures with more just ones.” This mindset “challenges current undertones of vengeance, violence and racism and permits everyone in the criminal justice system to be seen as members of human communities, created in the image of God and worthy of appropriate and compassionate response.”
As faithful Christians, we want to create systems that treat people with human dignity even while holding them accountable for their crimes.
As Lutherans, we know that all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God: all of us are sinners and unworthy on our own of God’s grace and mercy. At the same time, all of us are created good by God—beloved children of God who have infinite worth in God’s sight. This means that, as faithful Christians, we want to create systems that treat people with human dignity even while holding them accountable for their crimes. As faithful Christians, we want the families of those who are incarcerated to be cared for and supported. As faithful Christians, we want those responsible for enforcing the law to be safe and respected.
The more we move away from systems steeped in violence, vengeance and vitriol, the more we can live into the kind of community God is calling us to embody, that the Spirit is creating among us even now.
ELCA members have varied experiences with the criminal justice system. You may be the victim of a crime or the perpetrator; you may be a lawyer or a prison guard; you may be a victims’ advocate or a law enforcement officer; or you may have someone in your family or congregation who fits one of those categories.
Regardless, “The Church and Criminal Justice” calls upon all members of this church, “through steadfast prayer, discernment, Christian education, ministry efforts and public action to share the gospel of God’s love in Jesus Christ as they hear the cries, offer hospitality, accompany and advocate on behalf of those whose lives are caught up in or committed in service to the criminal justice system.” We do this not because we support one political party or another, or because this or that pundit tells us to, but because we believe in Jesus Christ and our faith in him calls us to witness to God’s grace, love and mercy for all, no exceptions.
Kristin Johnston Largen. Kristin Johnston Largen is the president of Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa. She is an ordained pastor in the ELCA, and received her Ph.D. in Comparative Theology from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif.
During Nevada’s recent legislative session, efforts were made to strengthen tenant rights. Yet, many residents in the hospitality and leisure sectors continue to struggle to make ends meet. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a worker in these industries would need to hold 2.7 jobs just to afford a standard two-bedroom rental.
While eviction diversion programs, tenant protections, and affordable housing initiatives have made some progress, renters consistently point to wage stagnation as the main driver of the state’s housing crisis. These challenges are further compounded by Nevada’s severe shortage of low-income housing options.
MARCH 31, 2026
“For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well” (Psalm 139:13-14).
Today is International Transgender Day of Visibility — a time dedicated to celebrating the lives, gifts and contributions of transgender people, while also recognizing their ongoing struggle for safety, dignity and justice.
In the ELCA social statement Faith, Sexism and Justice: A Call to Action, we affirm our belief that “God’s intention revealed through the Scriptures is that all people have life abundantly and flourish” (page 2). Today reminds us of our call to love, affirm and support one another — not just today, but every day as an expression of our faith.
In 2026, more than 700 anti-trans bills have been introduced across the country. The proposed legislation attempts to block transgender people from receiving basic rights such as health care, education, legal recognition and even the simple right to exist openly. Such laws cause harm to our transgender siblings.
In our congregational life, harm can take shape through patterns of teaching, language and policy, as well as through silences that quietly communicate rejection — even when no harm is intended.
At times like these, we are reminded that we are one body in Christ — if one part suffers, we all suffer.
As people of faith, we are called to:
I invite you to engage ELCA resources such as:
May we continue to live out our faith through love, justice and accompaniment.
In Christ,
The Rev. Yehiel Curry
Presiding Bishop
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Lutheran Engagement and Advocacy in Nevada 