By Kim Plummer Krull In the early 1980s, a member of St. Peter Lutheran Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., was bound, gagged, raped, doused in gasoline and left for dead as her house burned in an area infamous for crime and…

To foster LCMS members in their love of faithful hymnody and in an effort to cultivate and develop aspiring writers, the LCMS Worship Department, under the auspices of the Office of National Mission, will host a Hymnwriters Conference Jan. 27-29…

Registration is set to open Sept. 15 and run through Nov. 15 for “UNWRAPPED” — the first Synod-sponsored national campus-ministry conference in 10-plus years. To register for the conference and for more information about it, go to the Synod’s campus-ministry…

Roberta “Bobbie” Lautenschlager, executive director of Lutherans in Medical Missions (LIMM), died Aug. 18, surrounded by loved ones at her home in St. Louis. Lautenschlager, 68, died of non-smoker’s small-cell lung cancer, which was diagnosed in March. A memorial service is…

San Antonio challenges its visitors to “Remember the Alamo” as they take in the legendary battle site there. But when 237 participants gathered in San Antonio July 12-15 for the Synod’s 2013 NATIONAL youth workers leadership-training conference, they heard the challenge…

Synod President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison expresses concern to drought-affected rural and small-town Synod congregations and their families and thanks them for their support for the church in a video message made available Aug. 15.   At four minutes, 19…

(RNS) — Meet the social media “nones.” A new survey finds that Americans, while mostly religious, generally do not use social media to supplement worship and mostly keep their faith private online. The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) survey found about…

By Linda C. Hoops More than 200 Lutherans from across the country gathered Aug. 3-4 in Itasca, Ill., for the 2012 Lutherans For Life (LFL) national conference — under the theme “Equipping the Saints For Life” (based on Eph. 4:11-12).  In…

The Synod’s Office of National Mission welcomed four new staff members in August. The Rev. Steven T. Cholak of The Woodlands, Texas, began serving full time Aug. 1 as project coordinator for Special Ministries. Cholak, former pastoral assistant and administrator for…

More than 1,900 youth, chaperones and pastors gathered at four college campuses in North America for this summer’s four Higher Things Lutheran youth conferences that had the theme of “Twelve.” Participants’ comments indicate that the conferences were well received.    They…

An op-ed article titled “HHS mandate: An attack on all people of faith” — co-written by LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference — appears in the…

By Kim Plummer Krull While members of Celebration Lutheran Church in St. Johns, Fla., might assume that the scholarly papers presented at the 12th International Congress for Luther Research in Helsinki, Finland, would have no impact on them, their pastor suggests…

By Melanie Ave The Rev. Kent Pierce spent much of his summer on a bicycle, pedaling for a higher purpose. Pierce, campus pastor at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and chairman of the Lutheran Campus Mission Association (LCMA), rode 3,671 miles across…

By Sarah Schafer  LCMS-congregation members are safe after three dozen wildfires across Oklahoma torched more than 93,400 acres since they started Aug. 3. The LCMS Oklahoma District reported Aug. 7 that the only known loss among members is a barn…

The 2012-13 edition of Chapel Talks for Lutheran Schools is now available in a downloadable PDF format. Its focus for the year is “Live Love[d],” based on I John 4:9. That also is the theme for the 2013 LCMS National…