Author: Gordon Govier

EL TRIANGULO, Honduras – From Mount Horeb to Honduras, volunteers from local churches made a 2,000 mile trip this June to do something good for people they’ve never met. “We know that when people see Americans coming, something great is going to happen,” said Nugget Cubas, head driller for Living Water International Honduras. In less than one week, the group from Immanuel Lutheran Church, together with Living Water International, built a well, the lifeline a community needs to live.

James Morgan was incarcerated when his mother died. An interfaith chapel was his refuge. On Sunday night, panelists came to New Life Church to argue for teh importance of having a designated “sacred space” in the Dane County jail renovation project.

MADISON, Wis. – Being in jail is temporary by definition, but what if inmates could have access to a spiritual space that would help in that transitional period from behind bars to back on the streets? Well, that could be a possibility with a new $76 million renovation project that’s working to consolidate the three Dane County Jail buildings to fit under one roof. Part of that consolidation is the consideration of adding a sacred space where inmates can fulfill their spiritual needs.

CHICAGO (RNS) — When six synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America elected female bishops in May, they set a record for the most women chosen in one year to lead the mainline Protestant denomination’s geographical subdivisions. Among the six were the denomination’s first African-American female bishops: the Rev. Patricia A. Davenport, elected May 5 to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod, and the Rev. Viviane Thomas-Breitfeld, elected the next day to the South-Central Synod of Wisconsin.

The Palestinian experience in the political state of Israel mirrors, in many ways, the African American experience in the United States — that’s the core message of a discussion tonight between Dr. Mitri Raheb, a Lutheran minister from Bethlehem, and Madison’s Dr. Everett Mitchell to be held at 7 pm tonight at Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Church, where Mitchell is senior pastor.

I barely knew him except for a chance encounter at the Alliant Energy Center earlier this year. But I am learning from Dominic and his family.  I am learning that each day is to be celebrated and consecrated as a blessing from God.  I am seeing how family and friends and complete strangers are capable of circling the wagons and loving the life that Dominic provided, which in turns inspires us all to try to love more.  I am seeing forgiveness and reconciliation and healing—all in the name of Dominic.

There’s no shortage of advice these days about aging—though in our culture, most of that advice seems to be about how to deny that it’s happening. Dye your hair, bleach your teeth, learn about Snapchat. Eat more antioxidants. Parker Palmer’s new book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity, and Getting Old, isn’t like that. The Quaker writer and activist focuses instead on the spiritual gifts of aging that our youth-obsessed culture has largely ignored.

Cincinnati Reds second baseman Scooter Gennett is fresh off making his first appearance in MLB’s Midsummer Classic, and he credits God for getting him to where he is right now. Gennett began his Major League career with the Milwaukee Brewers back in 2013. Gennett posted a batting line of .279/.318/.420 over the course of four seasons with the Brewers, per Baseball Reference. An article in Sports Spectrum on Tuesday details many of the times Gennett has spoken openly about his faith and devotion to God.

Their journeys from the trauma of youth, through criminal pasts and prison, to personal transformation make them uniquely positioned to help others returning to the community from incarceration. Madison-area Urban Ministry has offered an array of services to individuals and families affected by the criminal justice system, including prison re-entry programming, since 1999. At the time, the concept of peer support didn’t really exist, but the nonprofit has long tried to connect those returning from incarceration to others who have been on that journey.

La Salle, Minn. — For 100 years, Lutherans in this farming community on the Minnesota prairie have come to one church to share life’s milestones. They have been baptized, confirmed and married at La Salle Lutheran. Their grandparents, parents and siblings lie in the church cemetery next door. But the old friends who gathered here early one recent Sunday never imagined that they would one day be marking the death of their own church. When La Salle Lutheran locks its doors in August, it will become the latest casualty among fragile Minnesota churches either closing, merging or praying for a…