This weekend is Synod Assembly.  It is the annual meeting where pastors and delegates from all of the Lutheran churches in our denomination in the 5 county Philly-area (Southeastern PA Synod) get together.  We worship together, hear from the Bishop and other speakers, go to workshops, hear reports about the “wider church,” and vote on business and various resolutions.  This year’s will have some drama—we’re electing a new Bishop!  Bishop elections only happen every six years, and Bishop Patricia Davenport will not be running for re-election.  (She did my installation at St. Matthew’s a year and a half ago).  The Bishop lives in the world of the “big picture” church; who will lead us?....

    Synod Assembly can be “long” but it does give a “big picture” view of the church we don’t often see.  It is where you hear of trends within the church and reflect on the impact of trends in the culture that impact the church.  For the last several years, the trend story has been one of decline and shortages—particularly declines in “numbers,” money, and a shortage of clergy.  I’m most interested in how outside trends affect individual parishes.  We live a lot of our lives focused on the immediate, “small,” local picture—what’s for dinner, kids’ sports, homework, job deadlines, and the news in Chester county.  And that’s true on a parish level as well.  What’s going on at a church in NE Philly doesn’t really impact us.  However, the bigger picture that impacts them… impacts us.  Our faith doesn’t just exist on an individual, private level, but is interconnected with many other people and things.  Synod Assembly is a good reminder of that. 

    Our faith grows in the local ecosystem of the St. Matthew’s community, but God the Spirit moves outside of that as well—challenging us, comforting us, giving us different views of what it means to be a Lutheran Christian in 2024.  We’re not alone, we’re part of something bigger, that we can learn from and participate with in God’s Kingdom.  The Assembly is a powerful reminder of that, a reminder to look up and see a world bigger than ourselves.    Peace,  Pr. Christian