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…

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…

By Kim Plummer Krull When the International Lutheran Laymen’s League’s (Int’l LLL) outgoing President Mick Onnen passed the gavel to incoming Chairman Kurt Buchholz at the Int’l LLL’s 94th convention, the action represented one of several historic firsts for the…

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (RNS) — The Rev. Henry Clarke has always enjoyed solving puzzles. But until he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the age of 45, much of his life was a puzzle he just couldn’t work out. Things like math,…

By Sarah Schafer At least three LCMS families in Montana and Colorado are known to have lost their homes to wildfires and others are facing that possibility. On Montana’s Northern Cheyenne Reservation, two families at Circle of Life Lutheran Church in Lame Deer are among…

The Rev. Keith Kohlmeier was re-elected to his fourth term as president during the 71st regular convention of the LCMS Kansas District, held June 7-9 in Topeka. Kohlmeier, 59, a resident of Topeka, Kan., was elected on the first ballot of…

By James Heine ST. LOUIS — At its meeting April 28-May 3, the LCMS Council of Presidents (COP), acting as the Synod’s Board of Assignments, assigned first calls to 139 candidates certified for the pastoral ministry. Also, the COP approved…

By Joe Isenhower Jr. ST. LOUIS — The Synod Board of Directors, at its May 17-18 meeting in St. Louis, adopted a national-Synod operating budget of $64,626,022 for the 2012-13 fiscal year that starts July 1. Also approved by the…

By Paula Schlueter Ross It’s never been done on such a large scale in The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done: a thriving Lutheran university offering a helping hand to a struggling sister school in another…

By Kim Plummer Krull It was around 1997 when yet another family told the Rev. John Schmidtke that the lack of decent, affordable housing was forcing them to leave their crumbling inner-city North St. Louis, Mo., neighborhood.  “Where was this family…

By Adriane Dorr LCMS President Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison declared fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Liberia (ELCL) May 10. This declaration followed the Commission on Theology and Church Relations’ (CTCR) action on April 26 in which recognition…

By Kim Plummer Krull A tsunami wave triggered by a powerful earthquake hit Constitucion, Chile, especially hard in 2010, killing some 350 people in the coastal community alone and causing so much damage that survivors feared their town was all…