In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month which is celebrated in the United States September 15- October 15, we share this message from the Associate of Latino Ministries of the ELCA.

Credit: This image is from the October 10, 2024 Living Lutheran Magazine online post entitled “Thoughts for Thursday during National Hispanic Heritage Month” which can be found here.

For more information on the Association of Latino Ministries of the ELCA:  AML de la ELCA

For more on the Latino Community of the ELCA:  Latino

For more on Hispanic Heritage Month from Living Lutheran, check out these recent articles:  2025, 2024, 2023

The following post is a news release from Living Lutheran online. The original post can be found here. The photo was taken from this Living Lutheran post.

Photo of Presiding Bishop-elect Yehiel Curry from Churchwide Assembly 2025 in Phoenix, AR. Credit: Janine Truppay/ELCA

Yehiel Curry will be installed as presiding bishop of the ELCA on Saturday, Oct. 4, at 2 p.m. Central time at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis. Curry will be the first Black presiding bishop of the ELCA.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton will preside at the installation and present Curry with the pectoral cross, the common symbol of the office of bishop in the ELCA.

Kevin Vandiver, a pastor of Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C., will deliver the sermon. Members of the ELCA Conference of Bishops and other invited leaders will participate in the processional.

In celebration of the ELCA’s many partnerships, several ecumenical, interreligious and global partner representatives are invited, including Henrik Stubkjaer, president of the Lutheran World Federation; Sean Rowe, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church; Jihyun Oh, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); and Larry Kochendorfer, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.

Music leadership for the worship service includes the National Lutheran Choir and musicians from St. Olaf College and the ELCA Metropolitan Chicago Synod.

The installation is a public worship service, open to all who wish to attend. The service will also be available via livestream.

Curry was elected to serve a six-year term as presiding bishop on July 30, during the 2025 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Phoenix. He has served as bishop of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod since 2019 and previously served as mission developer (2009-2012) and pastor (2012-2019) of Shekinah Chapel in Riverdale, Ill. Curry’s first day in office will be Oct. 1.

Curry received a Bachelor of Arts from Lewis University in Romeoville, Ill., in 1995 and a Master of Divinity from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) in 2013. LSTC is one of seven ELCA seminaries.

More information about the installation service is available here.

In honor of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries will be elevating the voices of our Arab and Middle Eastern Descent peers and reposting their works from other sources around the ELCA. The following is cross-posted from Living Lutheran. You can find the original post here.

My take: We are not newcomers

Let us not just celebrate Arab American heritage—let us be changed by it

By Khader Khalilia | April 28, 2025

Marhaba (mar-huh-bah or mar-ha-bah). A simple word, ancient and powerful. Rooted in Aramaic and Syriac languages of early Middle Eastern Christians. It means more than just “hello.” It means God is love. It’s a greeting, a theology, a word grounded in relationship, faith and belonging.

April is known as Arab American Heritage Month, but the church is invited to not only observe one month out of the year but to reclaim marhaba as a spiritual practice of welcome, belonging, dignity and solidarity.

At the heart of our culture is hospitality. The moment a guest walks into our home or church, we no longer see them as a stranger—they are part of our family. We don’t just offer food, we offer belonging. You’re not just a visitor, you’re embraced with dignity and love. That spirit of open doors and open hearts mirrors the gospel: there are no outsiders in the body of Christ. The church is called to do likewise—not only to welcome the stranger but to receive them as part of the body of Christ.

But for too long, Arab Americans have been painted as the “other.” Our stories flattened and identities misrepresented. Whether Muslim, Christian, Druze or otherwise, in Hollywood and other places, including the church, we’re cast as villains, terrorists, foreigners or footnotes. These images have real consequences—from hate crimes and surveillance to erasure and isolation. Even indigenous Arab Christians who are descendants of the earliest followers of Christ are often invisible in American Christian spaces.

That’s why this month matters.

It’s why we give thanks to the ELCA, specifically the Ministries of Diverse Cultures and Communities (MDCC), for opening its doors to Arab American communities. For making space not only for our language, culture and style of worship but for our leadership, theology, story and witness. Through the MDCC’s support, Arab Lutheran congregations are taking root in places where the gospel is preached in Arabic, where Dabke is danced in celebration and where marhaba is lived out loud. These congregations aren’t side projects—they are essential to the church.

Arab Americans have helped build this country. We are doctors, engineers, teachers, artists, small-business owners, veterans and public servants. We’ve enriched American cuisine, contributed to scientific breakthroughs, helped shape national policy and led movements for justice. Arab Americans have woven their lives into every part of this nation’s fabric.

We are not newcomers—we are neighbors.

Let us remember: marhaba is not just about welcome. It’s about belonging.

Representation shapes how we see God and how we see each other. To support Arab American ministries is to proclaim that Christ speaks every language, eats every dish and walks with every people. It’s to remember that Christianity was never Western to begin with, and we did not convert from Judaism or Islam. Jesus was born in my hometown, Bethlehem; grew up in Nazareth; and was crucified in Jerusalem. And Christianity first spread across lands now called Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt.

Marhaba is more than a greeting. It’s an invitation to reimagine the church as a place where no one is foreign. It’s a call to resist tokenism and performative inclusion and instead build real relationships rooted in listening, trust and shared struggle.

So this month, let us not just celebrate Arab American heritage—let us be changed by it.

Let us teach and preach about the early church as a living legacy still carried in Arab American communities. Let us teach our congregations that when Jesus said to love your neighbor and the stranger, he was talking to a people who knew what it meant to flee, to be displaced, to be labeled othered. Let us break down the walls that separate us from our neighbor and dismantle racism, support Arab-led ministries and show up in solidarity when our siblings are targeted or dismissed.

Let us remember: marhaba is not just about welcome. It’s about belonging.

To my beloved ELCA, we thank you for making room at the table for us. For helping Arab American congregations not just survive but thrive. For reminding the whole church that inclusion reflects the kingdom of God.

Khader Khalilia
Khader Khalilia is program director for ELCA Arab and Middle Eastern Ministries.

In honor of Arab American Heritage Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries will be elevating the voices of our Arab and Middle Eastern Descent peers and reposting their works from others sources around the ELCA. The following article is cross-posted from Living Lutheran online. The original post can be found here.

Rodny Said, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), leads a children’s sermon at the Church of Hope in Ramallah. Photos: ELCJHL

Said leads a bible study with youth during a youth retreat in Jordan.

Sani Ibrahim Azar, bishop of the ELCJHL, delivers a sermon at the Church of Hope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two spouses living in two places—kept apart by two kinds of government ID.

It may sound like Romeo and Juliet, but that was life for Rodny Said, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL).

With a Jerusalem ID, Said could cross the checkpoints between his East Jerusalem home and his congregation, the Lutheran Church of Hope in Ramallah. His wife lived with her parents because she couldn’t enter East Jerusalem with her Palestinian ID.

“We started the process of reunification, as the Israeli government calls it,” he explained during an Advent Pilgrimage 2024 webinar, “but it can take years for a person from East Jerusalem and a person from the West Bank to live together.”

Fortunately, Said’s wife received her permit shortly after the webinar, and the couple can now live and travel together between the two communities.

The webinar series was a program of Sumud, the ELCA’s initiative for justice in Palestine and Israel. Previously the ministry was known as Peace Not Walls, named after the 440-mile barrier wall that the Israeli government was building to separate Palestine from Israel. The wall is complete today.

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“To us, sumud means to in our country and continue bearing witness.”

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Sumud, an Arabic word meaning “steadfast,” conveys the determination it takes to be a Palestinian Christian. “Palestinians struggle to get to work, to universities, to churches and schools,” Said noted in the webinar. Since the onset of the Gaza War in 2023, many lost their jobs because they are no longer allowed to work in Israel. Many families are separated even though they live just a few blocks apart.

Life has gotten so difficult that the number of Christian families—already only 1% of the West Bank population—who are leaving is increasing. “They don’t see a future,” he said.

Emigration “means more pressure on us as a Christian community,” Said noted—especially for the ELCJHL, whose six congregations and four schools are supported by only 2,000 members.

“I think the easiest way is to leave,” Said added, “and the hard and painful way is to stay.”

Staying put, enduring and never giving up hope—that’s sumud. Through the initiative, the ELCA seeks to accompany Palestinians in their daily lives and advocate for peace with justice in Palestine and Israel.

Creating possibilities

For Maddi Froiland, program director for Sumud, a prime goal is making ELCA members more aware of what life under occupation is like.

As someone who spent four years in East Jerusalem and the West Bank—one as a Young Adult in Global Mission (YAGM) volunteer and three years as communications officer for the ELCJHL—Froiland watched Christians live out Luke 6:31 (“Do to others as you would have them do to you”) even with soldiers who had arrested their sons. “The experience,” she said, “made me redefine what it means to be a Christian.”

Froiland said Sumud’s webinar series drew over 100 viewers who heard ELCJHL pastors and youth group members share stories of “resistance through existence” by living and worshiping together under occupation. Attendees heard their main message: Christians living in the Holy Land need to know someone is listening to and supporting them.

The Sumud initiative, Froiland said, “underscores that justice in Israel and Palestine means everyone has dignity and human rights. Right now the people who are lacking human rights are our Palestinian partners.”

Froiland is building synod-level networks of Palestinian Christians, YAGM alumni and others who can share their experiences in the region. “These networks will build communities that are both aware of the context of our siblings in the ELCJHL and are empowered through their faith to advocate for justice in Palestine and Israel,” she said.

A new ceasefire currently being negotiated between Israel and Hamas could open the door for healing and recovery from a war marked by violence and displacement. The ELCA supports that process through Sumud, Lutheran Disaster Response, the ELCA Middle East and North Africa desk, and deployed personnel in the region. Witness in Society, the ELCA’s public advocacy team, continues to advocate for a negotiated resolution to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and to ongoing acts of violence.

On the ground, the ELCJHL creates possibilities for Palestinian Christians. “We do this through offering quality education for our youth, diaconal ministry for the vulnerable, environmental ministry for God’s creation, gender justice ministry and supporting our youth,” said Sani Ibrahim Azar, bishop of the ELCJHL.

“To us, sumud means to stay in our country and continue bearing witness as the Indigenous Christians of this land. This important and meaningful Arabic word … gives us strength—that we are not alone, we have our partners, our brothers and sisters, who will be steadfast in accompanying us.”

Anne Basye
Basye, a freelance writer living in Mount Vernon, Wash., is the author of Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal (ELCA, 2007).

In case you missed it:  In honor of Black History Month, ELCA Racial Justice Ministries will be elevating the voices of our African Descent peers and reposting their works from others sources around the ELCA. The following article is cross-posted from Living Lutheran online. The original post can be found here.

To honor and celebrate the contributions of Black Lutherans, Nicolette Peñaranda, ELCA program director for African Descent Ministries, created a quiz that highlights key figures, congregations and milestones in ELCA history. This interactive challenge is an opportunity to test your knowledge and deepen your understanding of the rich legacy of Black Lutherans in the ELCA.