Chrismon ministry at Macedonia
Eleven years of fellowship around a table filled with beads, threads, and patterns is a Saturday morning tradition at Macedonia Lutheran Church in Burlington, North Carolina. The Chrismon tree is a highly anticipated and traditional Advent and Christmas event at our church. The ministry itself is as glorious as the tree. Chrismon is a shortened form of the two words, “Christ Monograms.” They are created from patterns, each with a biblical explanation and description. Each has a unique name based on scripture from the Old or New Testaments. (more…)
So now what?
Last year it was all Reformation all the time. On this 501st anniversary of the Reformation, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton uses her October Living Lutheran column to call on us to “refocus our attention on the gospel of our freedom, forgiveness and reconciliation given to us through God’s indescribable act of love in Christ’s death and resurrection.”
Some of you are quite aware of our four new vision priorities for the NC Synod—Vital Congregations, Healthy Leaders, Collaboration, and Prophetic Voice. Visions can be exciting and inspiring. Structure, not so much, but structure is really important. It’s been quite a number of years since we had a major constitutional overhaul in the NC Synod other than the required changes every three years after a churchwide assembly. Structures should serve the vision—not vice-versa. Accordingly, our staff and our Synod Council have been working for a full year on making some proposed changes to our NC Synod constitution that we believe will help us to operate more clearly and efficiently. Most of the current constitution was written with realities and assumptions of a very different church and culture 30 years ago. (more…)