Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton Recently I discovered Google Earth. I know, I’m a little late to the dance. But this is fascinating. You type in an address and up pops a photo. You can zoom in on places all over the world. And you can zoom out for, literally, a 35,000-foot view. I invite you to give it a try. In fact, this will be a great group activity for all of us in the ELCA. First, find your congregation. Now expand the field and find other ELCA congregations near you. In some places...

We forget that we are one people. I think we fail to recognize Christ in others, whether the other is across the pew or across the world. We forget that we all—whatever our politics—stand under the judgment of God and that only God’s promise of reconciling love in Jesus can save us. Set free by that promise we can find a way to serve the neighbor.

Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton Ah, a new year! It opens up before us with infinite possibilities like brand new notebooks at the beginning of the school year or the beginning of football season in Cleveland—everyone has a 4.0, everyone is undefeated! At the turn of the new year it seems possible to slough off the failures and disappointments of the past, leave one’s old self behind and start a new life. In this glow we begin to make all kinds of resolutions, not just for the amendment of...

Así que, donde quiera que se encuentren este año, querida iglesia, recuerden que Jesús está con ustedes y que están en casa esta Navidad.

Presiding Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one...

We don’t have a continuing home on earth. We are all migrants. Let us welcome the stranger, seeing him or her as a fellow traveler, a companion on the way. -Bishop Eaton

Voting members of the 2016 ELCA Churchwide Assembly received the document “Declaration on the Way.” More than 99 percent of us affirmed this significant ecumenical statement in which Lutherans and Roman Catholics have achieved agreement.

The proclivity for paradox, or at least the recognition that this is part of the Lutheran tradition, was often cited as a strength during the churchwide conversation phase of Called Forward Together in Christ. -Bishop Eaton

We are Easter people. We have been redeemed by the indescribably beautiful act of love on the cross.