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By Jack Hurbanis

Even having grown up at St. John’s Lutheran in south Minneapolis, if you would have asked me how many churches were in the Minneapolis Area Synod or who the bishop was, my response would have been, “I thought bishops had to be Catholic.” My church knowledge didn’t extend past the few in my neighborhood, the Episcopal church my maternal grandparents attended in Edina, and Saints Peter and Paul Lutheran in Riverside, Illinois, where I was baptized and my paternal grandparents worshiped. So when on January 20, 2022 (my eighth day as a synod staff member), Emilie Bouvier asked if I wanted to tag along to a Northern Conference meeting at Salem Evangelical in Dalbo, I had to open up Google Maps.

I had never been to Dalbo before and that trip began my introduction to the Minneapolis Area Synod. Even though I’d been a part of it for nearly my entire life, I had never known that I was part of a community that includes congregations in urban, suburban, ex-urban, rural, and places everywhere in between.

No better drive will show you just how many different life experiences are captured within our synod than the one I took two Sundays ago, driving from the synod office in the Stevens Square neighborhood of Minneapolis, one of the most densely populated places in the state of Minnesota, to Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer just outside of Henderson, a town of about 1,000 people at the southern border of our synod.

“Community gathering spaces are becoming harder and harder to find.”

I passed by 25-story office buildings, farms, rows of single-family homes, the Minnesota River, lakes, and Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store – a stop I’ll be returning to when they open in May. But once I arrived for worship, I found the same thing I have found each time I’ve gotten to visit a new congregation – folks chatting about their weeks, the new happenings in their lives, and exciting upcoming plans. As an organizer, I think a lot about how to create places where neighbors can connect and seeing those Sunday morning conversations never ceases to put a smile on my face.

UNSURPRISINGLY, my favorite part of attending church on Sunday was the coffee hour – that communal time to slow down, have a meaningful conversation, and build real relationships with a multigenerational group of people with all different lived experiences. Often called “third spaces” or community gathering spaces that aren’t workplace or home, these opportunities for conversation with those not in our immediate circle are becoming harder and harder to find, … and without them people grow more disconnected from their community.

“Even though I’d been a part of it for nearly my entire life, I had never known that I was part of a community that includes congregations in urban, suburban, ex-urban, rural, and places everywhere in between.”

I can now say that I know that the Minneapolis Area Synod has 136 congregations (and 4 synodically authorized worshiping communities) and that Bishop Ann doesn’t get calls from the Vatican (although she has visited there). I have had the chance to visit a number of those 136 but have many more to go – so thank you to those who have already welcomed me into your space and if you are interested in having a conversation about the synod’s environmental organizing efforts and how you could get involved, please connect with me!

And a special blessing to every coffee hour conversation this coming Sunday.

By Pastor Norma Malfatti

Pastor Norma painting an icon

Each Lent I spend time with a new icon. Growing up, icons weren’t things we talked about in my church. They were images that my Roman Catholic friends, not my Protestant ones, had in their homes. So I assumed that meant it wasn’t something “we” did.

Several years ago I went to Turkey and Greece to follow in the footsteps of Paul, learning more about his ministry and the people he shared the Gospel with. During my time in Greece, my curiosity and imagination for iconography was also piqued as I saw icons everywhere. It was easy to see that iconography plays a significant role in the life of people who are Greek Orthodox, from the ornate icons with gold plating in church buildings to simpler ones made with gold leaf or paint in people’s homes; icons are everywhere.

“Of all the varied faith practices I have tried to follow, painting icons and using them in my prayer life is the one I return to again and again.”

I asked our tour guide to tell me more because I wanted to understand her faith better. This is what I learned:

First and foremost, Greek Orthodox Christians who use iconography in their prayer life do not worship those icons or the people depicted in them; they worship God and God alone. However, they pay their respects to their forefathers and foremothers in faith through the icons.

Greek Orthodox spirituality has a very deep and intimate connection with the communion of saints and the ways the Holy Spirit connects us all across time and space, something we remind ourselves of on All Saints’ Day. So when they ask a saint to pray for them, it is like asking the person in the pew next to you to pray for you when you’re in need of prayer. Icons serve as a constant reminder of God’s presence in their lives and they draw strength from the saints depicted in the icons as they remember their witness to God’s love.

I PURCHASED MY first icon on that trip: Simeon and Anna with the infant Jesus. Simeon’s bold proclamation in Luke 2 that his own eyes had seen the salvation of God and he was prepared to die, as well as Anna’s prophetic words about Jesus’ life and Mary’s coming heartbreak, had been a favorite passage of my mother’s and I wanted us to have that icon in our home.

Norma’s Holy Innocense icon in process

Not long after I returned from that trip, I was invited to participate in an iconography class with the opportunity to create my very own icon. At first I was resistant. I have very little artistic skill, but the friend who invited me knew of my interest in icons and promised that I didn’t need to be an artist to create one.

“What I discovered in the slow, methodical, patience-testing process of creating an icon is the very presence of God.”

I discovered in the slow, methodical, patience-testing process of creating an icon the very presence of God. Just as I used the icons in my home to rest in the presence of God and wonder about the life and witness of the saints depicted in them, as I paint each layer of color or highlighting, I wonder about the many layers of the people I paint. Whether the face of Jesus, Elijah receiving bread from a raven, or the complicated image of the Holy Trinity, I am drawn into the multi-faceted theological claims and spirituality in lives of the people I am creating and are being created in me.

An icon class showing of the products

Of all the varied faith practices I have tried to follow, painting icons and using them in my prayer life is the one I return to again and again. The Visio Divina (a visual version of Lectio Divina) practice of looking at the image and wondering, “what do I see and hear?,” has been profound even in its simplicity.

Perhaps this Lent, you might want to explore using an icon in your faith practice. If you’re curious, you can follow these steps that I use:

• Get ready: Sit comfortably and still the body. Focus on breathing.
• Look: Take time to look closely at the icon. What do you see? See ‘the more.” Take time.
• Look and reflect: What is the icon calling you to be? What is the message for you? What do you hear?
• Look and respond: Read the icon once more by gazing on it. Respond in prayer. Write/draw thoughts and prayers if you journal.
• Look and rest: Let the image of the icon rest in your heart.
• Be: Give time for this to happen!

By Pastor Craig Pederson

One of the gifts of Christian liturgies is that they incorporate words and phrases we are not likely to hear in everyday conversation. This week in the liturgical year, Ash Wednesday provides us one of those phrases that always sinks in deeply with me:

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In contemporary language, dust is not often assigned to the human condition (though, depending upon your lexicon of insults, maybe you’ve been on the giving or receiving end of a closely related ‘d’ word – “dirtball!”).

“We are reminded of this elemental life cycle at the graveside committal when we lay to rest our loved ones: ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’”

But the human relationship to dust and ashes is biblical. God created humans by breathing life into dust (Gen. 2:7), then sentenced us back to that same dust following the disobedience of Adam in the garden (Gen. 3:19). We are reminded of this elemental life cycle at the graveside committal when we lay to rest our loved ones: “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

Ash Wednesday is a vital, necessary reality check for me. Sometimes that is because I need a reset in remembering my existential relationship to God. Sometimes I need a reminder of the universal chemical, material, elemental relationship of all things. Sometimes I need a healthy serving of humble pie. And, sometimes I need encouragement that the division, and stratification, and marginalization we humans tend to create are not the original designs of God.

YET IF ALL LIFE ends in dust, this existence is a tough one to take. Ash Wednesday is an affirmation of the resurrection hope that the Lenten journey initiates. For me, I’m invited to think about encounters with ashes that have been formative in my life.

I think about the ashes from the oven fire in my family’s kitchen when I was in elementary school, one that I thought would render us homeless – but thank God for the volunteer small-town fire department who responded within minutes.

I think about the charred remains of a barn fire at my friend’s farm that left them asking, “What now?”

I think about arriving at the scene of the devasting fire of the original Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church building on 24^th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis while I was in seminary.

I think about visiting New York City just a few months after 9/11 and seeing, smelling, and feeling the ash-tinged effects of that terrorist act.

I think about a spring break family trip to southern California a few years ago where we observed ashen hillsides following a series of wildfires that dramatically altered the landscape and portended the effects of climate change.

And, more recently, I think about the images of bombed out structures where buildings once stood in Ukrainian cities where the Russian war is now one year old; I think about the ashes produced by the catastrophic earthquake in Turkey.

Ashes are often the residual effects of destruction and death. But as people of God in Christ, we look beyond the residual for what may come next, trusting that God is at work in the dusty and dry places.

IN A RECENT article on the possibility of revival in the Christian church, pastor and theologian Tim Keller describes where he sees signs of hope. In 1989 he founded Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, a context where most residents are skeptical, hostile, or indifferent towards Christianity. Added to that challenging context is his personal story of being a remarkable survivor of a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

Keller names several pivots that would need to happen for Christianity to grow again in the United States:

• Developing new language to communicate with non-Christians;
• Uniting justice and righteousness;
• Embracing the multiethnic character of the faith;
• Striking a balance between innovation and conservation;
• Reclaiming the Christian virtues of grace and covenant.

These pivots are difficult when the church spends time and energy striving to be an equal cultural force in a competitive world, and when it struggles to differentiate its values and practices from other institutions.

“Ashes are often the residual effects of destruction and death. But as people of God in Christ, we look beyond the residual for what may come next, trusting that God is at work in the dusty and dry places.”

But then Keller said this: “Christianity, like its founder, does not go from strength to strength but from death to resurrection.”

This is the message I will carry into this Lenten season. The pursuit of perpetual growth and strength is admirable and impressive, but that is not always the way of a God who created us from dust and ensures our return there. Lent is a time to repent, to turn back toward the God who promises to bring new life out of dust and ashes – sometimes through devoted volunteer firefighters, sometimes through neighbors helping neighbors, sometimes through new flowers on ashen hillsides, and sometimes through peacemaking and mercy in the midst of catastrophe.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. But you are not alone, for God and neighbor are with you.

By Pastor John Hulden

Council members from Bread of Life Deaf Lutheran Church (BOLD) and Woodlake Lutheran Church discuss what good meetings look like during the synod’s Tool Kit event.

I was in the LA area* the weekend of the biggest musical award ceremony of the year (the one where super-fans rage on social media if their artist didn’t win a particular category). The next day, I was in the Phoenix area** the week leading up to the biggest and over-hyped sporting event of the year — the one where people plan parties to watch a football game and a half-time show, the one with the most bets riding on the game, the one where companies trip over each other to buy really expensive TV ad time.

I didn’t find my way to the red carpet for the Grammys (but as a Bonnie Raitt fan, I’m thrilled she won Song of the Year). Nor did I make it to any of the NFL Experience events leading up to the Super Bowl. Thankfully, I got out of Arizona before the big game so I could be in front of a TV back here in Minnesota to rank the ads and see if the game lived up to the many one-score games I watched the Vikings win this past season. The Super Bowl was a close game and ended as we might have expected: The winners celebrate, and the losers complain about that one bad holding penalty call.

“What if the Holy Spirit put your church building in your neighborhood/township/community for a reason?”

Council members from San Pablo/Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church and Siloa Lutheran Church share best practices during a workshop presentation.

I left behind the hoopla of the Grammys and Super Bowl week for something more amazing and fulfilling – the Minneapolis Area Synod Tool Kit!

I love, love, love the Tool Kit – subtitled “Workshops for Congregational Leaders.” As your friendly middle judicatory bureaucrat, I’m still a parish pastor at heart. So, to spend a precious Saturday morning with a bunch of dedicated church folk is so inspiring.

The people who show up at a Tool Kit are there to help their congregation be better —even though some of these very same church folks are in various stages of denial when we remind them that they are already truly gifted church leaders! This year, they came to learn about “Needs to Assets,” “Growing Young,” “Building Volunteerism,” “Connecting with the Deaf Community,” and more.

IN MY FIRST workshop, folks were eager to hear about Faith Practices and Neighboring Practices. There was a lament that many neighbors don’t even notice our churches anymore. There was the blessing and opportunity for our church folks to connect with neighbors, … as in be a neighbor rather than only serve our neighbor.

What if the Holy Spirit put your church building in your neighborhood/township/community for a reason? How might our connecting with God – through worship, prayer, a devotional life – send us out to listen and see God in our neighbors?

Discussions were highly engaged.

“The people who show up at a Tool Kit are there to help their congregation be better.”

My second workshop attendees were all church council members. Everyone there took very seriously their (for some, new) role. They must have loved connecting with each other because I had to use my confirmation teacher voice to get their attention!

They raised great questions. What makes for a good meeting? Is tension in a meeting a good thing? What are council members really overseeing? Is the constitution our friend? What is the best way for our council to listen to God, the worshippers, and the community?

Looking ahead to next year …

John’s preferred red carpet is in a congregation’s sanctuary.

Grammys? I’d rather take the red carpet walk down the center aisle of one of our churches.

John’s preferred bowl is one that includes the waters of baptism.

Super Bowl? Let’s turn to the baptismal bowl, where the water and the Word “brings about forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe it, as the words and promises of God declare” (M. Luther, Small Catechism, ELW p. 1165).

Tool Kit 2024? What could be a better way to spend a Saturday in February? See you there.

*I attended the ELCA Youth Ministry Network’s Extravaganza in Anaheim CA. This event always delivers. Check out https://www.elcaymnet.org/

**I was on Fourth Commandment duty to spend time with my amazing 95-year-old Mom in Mesa, Arizona, for a few days.

Look at all the people in John’s workshop on successful council meetings.

By Nicholas Tangen

Two Sundays ago, I preached at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in East Bethel, one of the congregations participating in the Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices learning community. I’ve really enjoyed visiting the congregations in our Synod, and I’m always honored when I am invited to preach. This time, I was doubly honored, because I was also invited to do a children’s sermon.

I don’t know about you, but I always find children’s sermons to be a little risky. There just seems to be so many more variables at play. And, you’re never only preaching to the kiddos; those adults are always listening in.

But this past Sunday I took the opportunity to have the kids of the congregation model a practice and posture for community building that, in my most humble opinion, is accessible and meaningful for all ages: Discovering the gifts and strengths of our neighbors.

FOR CHURCHES FEELING a call to connect with the neighborhood and community where they gather for worship, there can be a tendency to begin that connection through a lens of need. When we talk about our neighbors and our neighborhoods, we often focus on what’s wrong and where people are hurting. But this creates a story that our neighborhoods are fundamentally deficient, which disregards the amazing gifts, strengths, and assets present in our community.

In his book Having Nothing, Possessing Everything: Finding Abundant Communities in Unexpected Places, Pastor Michael Mather says: “What makes communities healthier, stronger, and better? Growing the gifts of people who care about their neighbors, who visit each other when they’re sick and offer healing, who throw good parties to celebrate life and joy, who are talented carpenters, cooks, gardeners, administrators, organizers, and artists.”

Imagine if instead of seeing our churches as providers of services in our communities, we saw ourselves as conveners and animators of community gifts and strengths. If instead of problem solving, we focused our attention on building and supporting the capacities of our neighbors to do what they love to do and what contributes to the common good?

This imagination can begin with some very simple questions:

• “What is something you know how to do well enough that you could teach someone else?”
• “What is something you’ve always wanted to learn more about?”

From these two simple questions we can begin to discover what makes our neighbors come alive, and where we can connect them with other neighbors who have gifts to share.

So, these were the two questions I asked the kids at Our Saviour’s during the children’s sermon. And these kids named some incredible gifts!

• “I can teach someone how to do origami.”
• “I could teach someone how to draw.”
• “I could show someone how to do self-defense.”
• “I know how to paint!”

Then I sent a couple of them out into the congregation, armed with this question about gifts, and asked them to see what they could find among the adults. And, not surprisingly, we learned that were several incredible gifts present in the pews. All it took was someone to ask.

THIS CHILDREN’S SERMON reminded me that all the fear and anxiety we have about connecting with our neighbors is significantly overblown. It takes a little curiosity, an eye for seeing gifts more than needs, and the courage to talk to someone you don’t know. And these are qualities I think our kids have more experience with and less anxiety about than adults. Maybe this is part of what Jesus meant when he called on each of us to “become like children” (Matthew 18:3).

In a community, when we know and are always on the look out for our neighbors’ gifts and strengths, we will be endlessly surprised at our capacity for creativity and the common good. When we bring those people and those gifts together and ask ourselves, “what do we want to create together?,” we may discover that the stories about our deficiency and our neighborhoods as networks of needs have been greatly exaggerated. Instead, we may see that God has been up to something in our community all along, and is inviting us to take part.

So, my friends, what is something you know how to do well enough that you could teach someone else? What is something you’ve always wanted to learn? What do you think we can create together with God’s help? Let’s see what God is up to.

By Maya Bryant

This past Saturday, I sat down in the lounge of Salem Evangelical’s basement at 9:30 a.m. for a monthly Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices cohort meeting. During said meeting, we had the opportunity to take time for contemplation on our faith journeys and how they have shaped us and how we see our faith. (Shout out to Kathie Nycklemoe, one our spiritual directors, for leading this exercise splendidly.)  

There were several probing questions that we were asked to answer, including:  

1. What was an early experience of God or something “other” or “bigger”?
2. Where have you experienced the sense of the holy? What was it about this place that felt like a “thin place”? 
3. If you were to use words to describe God, what words would you use?

NOW, I FOUND THIS daunting. As someone who doesn’t identify with Christianity or the Christian ideal of God, I was taken out of my comfort zone in answering these questions.

As a spiritualist, my ideas of God and Creator are a bit different than most people I’ve encountered in my time working for the Lutheran church. But I thought myself brave enough to answer honestly and was met with kindness and grace from my Lutheran groupmates. And so, I thought I might share my contemplation exercise here answering the same questions: 

1. The earliest experience of something larger than me was when I was only three years old. It was on my first plane ride to visit family in New Jersey: being able to see the curvature of Earth; watching the cars move “like ants” across the roads; sitting so close to the clouds you could touch them if you reach through the glass. My face was glued to window for practically the whole trip.

“During last weekend’s Faith Practices and Neighboring Practices cohort meeting, we had the opportunity to take time for contemplation on our faith journeys and how they have shaped us and how we see our faith.”

2. Where have I sensed the holy? (This question was a bit more difficult for me) I will say the time I felt most equally disturbed and at peace was in high school. The summer leading into my senior year, I took a trip to Europe through a school program. One of our day stops was in Normandy, France, particularly in Caen and Lion-sur-Mer. We visited the Memorial de Caen, and then made our way to Sword Beach. I sprinted up the hill toward the waves and looked out on the ocean. I don’t remember if it was said out loud, or if it was the voice in my head, but I heard, “What a place to die. What a thing to live through.” It was breathtaking and sad. My heart ached and leapt simultaneously: walking on unlucky ground – once covered in dirt, bodies, and blood, now empty and The ocean once again was blue-green and flowing softly against the sand. The utter silence after a moment of intense chaos and violence; I will never forget it. 

3. I don’t believe God looks like a person. I don’t believe that it is within our depth as humans to understand what something that created the universe is supposed to look like. But I do know that my vision of God is like a giant embrace, … a keeper of Earth and Space, Sky and Water. I sometimes even prefer to call God, “Gaia.” Yes, it comes from the Greek goddess, but Gaia is the mother of all things, the personification of the Earth’s spirit. 

These questions are meant to draw out our understanding of our faith and what it means to us to be faithful. Do these questions draw out anything in you? Are there memories you may have forgotten? Are there people who may have faded with time?

What does your faith mean to you, and how can you share that authentically with others?  

By Emilie Bouvier

“But even more, all types of conniving methods are still being used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters. The denial of this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mandates of our democratic tradition. And so our most urgent request to the president of the United States and every member of Congress is to give us the right to vote.” 

–Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, “Give Us the Ballot,” address delivered at the
Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, May 17, 1957 

I spent some time on MLK Day yesterday reading this speech by the Rev. Dr. King, seeking to learn more about his words on voting rights in particular. Nine years after he shared these insights, the Voting Rights Act was passed as a landmark legislative victory of the Civil Rights movement. The day it was passed, the Rev. Dr. King remarked that “voting is the foundation stone of political action.” 

Fast forward 55 years to the following lines from a 2020 article about voting in Minnesota (and the most significant way in which that right is stripped away):

Minnesota passed disenfranchisement of felons with statehood in 1858, but the practice didn’t become commonplace nationally until after the Civil War — when newly emancipated African Americans gained the right to vote. … Chris Uggen, a criminologist at the University of Minnesota who studies felon voting bans, said it’s difficult to untangle race from a punishment that continues to disproportionately impact black and Indigenous people. 

ABOUT TWO YEARS AGO, the synod’s Strategic Organizing Against Racism (SOAR) team discerned that criminal justice reform was a key thread to pull in in the holy work of untangling the bonds of injustice. Our current system is set up to be one of punishment, rather than one of restorative justice, and focusing our efforts on “collateral sanctions” is to identify those punitive measures that add up, burden upon burden, falling disproportionately on black on brown communities.  

The statistics are staggering. In Minnesota African Americans make up 5% of the total population in the state but make up 31% of the population in Minnesota prisons and jails. American Indians and Alaska Natives are 1% of the total population in Minnesota, yet 8% of the incarcerated population in the state.

Take a minute to realize what that means: The 101,800 people in Minnesota who have been released from prison but are still “on paper” – that is, on probation or parole – are highly disproportionately people of color who thus are banned from voting. It comes into focus quickly that this is an issue of racial justice. In fact, this is an issue of civil rights, and an issue of democracy and justice to which we bring a unique voice as people of faith.  

“The SOAR Team discerned that criminal justice reform was a key thread to pull in in the holy work of untangling the bonds of injustice.”

As Lutherans, we believe deeply in a God of restoration, reconciliation, and redemption. We are steeped in a language, hope, grace, stories, and promises of God’s redeeming force. Our ELCA Social Statement titled “The Church and Criminal Justice: Hearing the Cries” outlines the brokenness of our criminal justice system, specifically lifting up the way the dominant narrative around crime and punishment is antithetical to our theological commitments. It states:

Prevalent views such as ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric and policies make it more difficult to see each person involved in the criminal justice system as a human being. These views effectively override the conviction that all people are created in the image of God and worthy of appropriate and compassionate responses. 

Yet these words from our social statement are not the end of our involvement in this issue; they’re just the beginning. Leaders from across our synod have been coming together to raise awareness and seek action opportunities to create change.

I’M INSPIRED BY THIS faithful work to build a future of racial equity in democratic participation. Grounded in our identity as people of restoration and reconciliation, we have an opportunity to practice love in action by raising our voices on this issue.

See, there’s a reason I was reading this particular speech from MLK yesterday. Last week Restore the Vote legislation was introduced in the Minnesota House and Senate that will seek to restore voting rights to formerly incarcerated people in our state. Hearings will continue this week and we have the opportunity as people of faith to show up and to witness to our vision of redemption. 

Here are some ways to learn more about this issue and how to get involved: 

• Watch this synod-produced video that gives background and highlights the voices of synod leaders
• Check out the various resources on the racial justice organizing page on the synod website
• Sign up for updates and action opportunities for Lutherans for Restore the Vote  

By Bob Hulteen

I wasn’t watching the Monday Night Football game last night, … because I had already lost this season’s office Fantasy Football championship a day earlier. But, while finishing up a late supper, my social media feeds exploded with people calling for prayer for a player I had never heard of before: Damar Hamlin. And, soon thereafter, posts that chastised the NFL for even considering going on with the game started appearing. So, I googled to see what had happened.

Tragically, a 24-year-old safety had collapsed after the tackling of another young man in a game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals. After about ten minutes of CPR, an ambulance rushed the young man to the hospital. Fears arose about whether he had even survived the hit. We later found out that he had experienced cardiac arrest.

“It appeared that the NFL Commissioner’s Office was trying to coerce the two teams into continuing the game.”

Before joining the synod staff (and its Fantasy Football League), I hadn’t watched a football game for five or six years. The incredible violence on and off the field had turned me off to a sport that I otherwise enjoyed. The NFL seemed uninterested in addressing the crisis facing retired players with brain injuries. The concussion protocols were not in place or followed. The misogyny of players who took out their frustration and anger on their partners was unacknowledged and unaddressed. I decided I couldn’t support the NFL with my time or money.

But, the synod’s Fantasy Football league was a fun new experience. Although I barely knew the names of players at the start, I quickly became immersed in the rules of the game and spent many an hour following the stats and adjusting my lineup. (More on that later.)

BY LATE LAST night, I was really captivated by the fact that the NFL seemed to balk on discussion of postponing or cancelling the game. It appeared that the NFL Commissioner’s Office was trying to coerce the two teams into continuing the game. Sportswriter Mike Silver reports that he talked with people who had knowledge of the incident, and they said that the NFL’s first impulse was to keep playing. He also heard that Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow was told to warm up, but he refused and walked off the field.

Could the NFL officials force teammates who had just experienced the trauma of a fallen comrade to continue? Did the decision makers truly not see the distress of the players on the field, gathered in prayer?

“Tragically, a 24-year-old safety had collapsed after the tackling of another young man in a game between the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals.”

I have increasingly become aware, partly through the Fantasy Football experience, of the fact that football (and maybe now most sports) are driven by sports betting. The advertisements are all over the Fantasy leagues, but they overwhelm television commercials during games as well. FanDuel, DraftKings, Lucra, Prize Picks – clearly there is a market for gambling in this country.

And, as someone who listens regularly to KFAN, a local sports radio station, I can say that there is a push to make such sites more easily accessible, as well as to legalize gambling in Minnesota. The jocks also talk incessantly about making a quick trip down to the casino in Iowa to bet, longing for the day when they don’t have to travel to do so.

So, when we wring our hands at the fact that the Commissioner’s Office can’t make a call on the game, let’s be wise enough to admit that sports betting on this game – the over-under, the individual play of quarterbacks and receivers, the record of any specific team – influence just how decisions are made.

As I write this blog, Yahoo Sports released this explanation of where it is with the Fantasy Football feature it offers:

Yahoo Fantasy is waiting for the NFL’s decision on the resolution of the Bills-Bengals game, which was suspended when S Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest. Once the NFL shares their (sic) plans for the game, we will make a determination on how to proceed with Week 17 scoring. While we understand this game impacts fantasy league championships, our main concern is Damar’s health at this time. We ask for your patience as we await updates. Our thoughts are with Damar, his family, and the Buffalo Bills.

Yahoo Fantasy, it is increasingly evident to me, offers an “entry-level drug” into sports betting. Can you imagine what bookies and their more institutionalized counterparts are thinking and doing right now?

SO, WHY DO I care whether gambling drives decisions about players’ health and their well-being? Well, first and foremost, I hope because that is the human response.

But, I also have to admit that I personally have a problem with gambling. In my late teens, I discovered that I had a real proficiency with card games; I won a decent amount of money at legal gaming establishments. At 19 I realized that if I didn’t quit cold turkey, right then and there, I would probably never be able to. So, I haven’t gone back.

But, to this day I struggle. I have had occasions through my profession to simply need to walk through a casino to get to a meeting room. The lights and sounds immediately activate the dopamine; I jones for a card game.

“I hope that our legislators take into consideration the effects of gambling on individuals and communities.”

The State of Minnesota will consider expansion of gambling in the next legislative session. I hope that our legislators take into consideration its effect on individuals and communities. As we all raise our voices in anguish about the initial insensitivity of the NFL, I want us to remember what drives that compulsion to “finish the game,” no matter what.

And, I hope we follow in the footsteps of the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals players, and pray for Damar Hamlin’s health and future. May we all be committed to the safety of athletes at every level (and all workers in all vocations), especially by thoughtful reflection on changes to procedures and policies that can impact people’s lives.

By Pastor Norma Malfatti

The Christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza

These infamous words from A Muppet Christmas Carol have been part of my Christmas morning since not long after the movie came out. Before that it was Scrooged with Bill Murray. Watching modern versions of “A Christmas Carol” is a tradition that has grounded me and connected me to family across time and distance.

While the movie is on, someone (generally not me) is usually making Christmas brunch. I was talking to a fellow pastor recently and Christmas meals came up. It turns out we have a similar tradition of crepes and jam for Christmas Day brunch; their family’s is a newer, COVID tradition and mine is a product of my French heritage, a piece of my immigrant grandfather’s culture that he passed on to my father who in turn passed it on to me and my siblings.

“We all have Christmas traditions, some that are part of our cultural heritage, some that were passed onto us from our elders, and others that we have made for ourselves.”

I write this as I prepare for my annual December pilgrimage to New York City, a tradition passed on from my mother. She grew up on the Upper West Side (think The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, though my grandparents rented a much smaller two-bedroom apartment than the Maisels) and the tree in Rockefeller Plaza was her community’s tree. Her favorite view of the tree was through Valerie Clarebout’s trumpeting angels along the Channel Gardens, which were installed for the first time in 1955.  My mom’s 12-year-old self was enamored, and she required a picture every year once she was no longer able to travel to see them for herself, savoring the memories of Christmases past.

We all have Christmas traditions, some that are part of our cultural heritage, some that were passed onto us from our elders, and others that we have made for ourselves.  The same goes for our congregations. At the church I belong to, I learned that the 4th Sunday in Advent is “Christmas Cookie Sunday” and most everyone brings a cookie to share. After worship we feast on the confectionary delights.

THIS YEAR I HAD a great honor and privilege to participate in Las Posadas with St. Paul/San Pablo in the Phillips neighborhood. Las Posadas, which means inns, is a prayerful and playful experience of the gathered community remembering Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay once they arrived in Bethlehem. Traditionally observed for each of the nine nights before Christmas, the gathered community reads Scripture, sings, and prays before heading out on their journey through the neighborhood knocking on (pre-planned) doors looking for a place for Mary and Joseph to stay.

It was quite the parade through St. Paul’s homes when I attended on December 14. More than 50 people (that I could see) stuffed into the hallway singing and carrying stars and “torches” to light the way, and residents at St. Paul’s who wanted to see what was going on.

“Las Posadas, which means inns, is a prayerful and playful experience of the gathered community remembering Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay once they arrived in Bethlehem.”

At each stop we sang imagined exchanges between Joseph and an innkeeper, as Joseph tried and tried to find a place for Mary to rest. The journeying finally ended when Mary and Joseph were granted lodging and the celebratory feast could begin. On this night we had chicken pozole with krumkaka and lefse for dessert. It was a delicious blend of the cultural heritage of San Pablo and Calvary, Minneapolis. (Calvary’s community is currently sharing space with St. Paul/San Pablo while its building is renovated.)

The night ended with a piñata, shaped sort of like a star. The points of the star represented sin and the stick we hit it with exemplified faith, which helps us overcome the power of sin in our lives.

The traditions we mark each Advent and Christmas season connect us to larger stories about God and our communities. I think my mother’s fascination with Clarebout’s angels was grounded in the heavenly host, singing “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace to whom God’s favor rests” (Luke 2:14 NIV), a visible remembrance of God’s presence and God’s abundant love in and for the world. That even includes those oft-forgotten shepherds out in the fields.

My experience of Las Posadas connected me to the perseverance and courage of Joseph and Mary and their calling to care for Jesus, our Immanuel. While I left that night full of joy and really good food, I also wondered, where am I being called to persist in faithfulness? Could I keep knocking on doors like Joseph? Am I being called to persist in new ways?

By Eric Howard

What life experiences have defined your leadership? For me, it has been my work at the synod.

Monday, August 6, 2018, was my first day as executive assistant to the bishop. At the time, it was opaque how administrative work could become a call to leadership. Navigating office challenges during the pandemic showed me that organizational leadership is about providing stability, listening, and making people feel heard in decision-making. Navigating an internal call for racial reckoning as a synod staff in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder required a different kind of leadership.

Those who know me know I’m a transracial, international adoptee from Mexico. When I came to the U.S. at age four, I became the son of a single-parent mother and the oldest of three siblings. Because of my experience growing up in a white, middle-class family with American traditions, I thought I was well equipped to navigate cultural change with brown skin in a predominately White institution. The truth is: I faced many of the same challenges my siblings of color face in our 97% white ELCA.

“Culture change for inclusion can’t be an intellectual exercise; it’s about survival.”

For example, I learned just how uniquely exhausting culture change is as a person of color. Why is that? For me, culture change for inclusion can’t be an intellectual exercise; it’s about survival. I learned – and continue to learn – the art of pacing myself, balancing the urgency of change with the patience to meet people where they are. I’ve also learned the value of “giving back the work,” a leadership technique of getting training and tools to help others connect abstract commitments for inclusion to concrete strategies (like SMARTIE, the IDI, and REIT).

Focus is also challenging. As the “staff lead” on our Intercultural Equity Lens work, I constantly asked myself: “What 10 percent of the pie (the pie that represents the whole work of equity) am I most uniquely positioned to have an impact on?” This question helped me stay focused on my goal, clear on what I could say “yes” and “no” to, and what my work was vs. other people’s work. In a staff IDI session, our facilitator, Dr. Okokon Udo, asked us: “Who are you when you give yourself full permission?” Reflecting on that question has helped me be more honest as a leader, screening the difference between who I am and what I think other people want me to be.

MY POSITIONALITY HAS ALSO allowed me to see a paradox: Well-meaning intentions to build cultures of inclusion met with confusion and, at times, distaste. Take the fine line between inclusion and tokenism, for example. Perhaps a person of color is asked to join a predominantly White church committee or represent the church at a public event. Do they feel safe and welcome to influence what they’re being invited to? In spaces where White culture is strongest and power is most concentrated (e.g., governing councils, finance committees, etc.), psychological safety to speak against the norm may be absent. Some research shows the threshold for change happens when at least 25% of a minority group is represented.

One way of looking at it is: It’s tokenism if that threshold isn’t met. Given these realities, I find that inclusion is both about being clear on what you’re inviting people into and proactively designing spaces where people feel enough psychological safety for new voices and leadership to blossom.

“I learned just how uniquely exhausting culture change is as a person of color.”

I see this kind of inclusion work as necessary and complementary to “White allyship.” To me, being a White ally is about sharing the burden of racism. Some questions and challenging viewpoints about tokenism, biases, and white fragility are most effective when addressed between White colleagues. I’ll gently suggest that if you’re not uncomfortable in that conversation, you may need to dig deeper.

Once again, the Lutheran church has shaped and defined my leadership capacity in ways I will forever be grateful. As I say goodbye to this work, I thank you all for a new gift and sense of leadership. Thank you for this moment of service and for allowing me to lead in a compassionate place.