Last night Vicki Hanrahan, Brian Loken, and I traveled out to West Middleton Lutheran Church for a synod stewardship conference. Bishop Carlson, Vice President Connie Kilmark, and several others reminded us of all the work that is accomplished through the synod and around the world. It’s amazing.

The down side, as you might guess, is that we are doing more and more mission with less and less money. While congregation income has generally kept pace with inflation and even moved ahead of it, the giving to the work of the church beyond the walls of the congregation has been shrinking. We have been supporting the mission beyond our walls with $50,000 each year. But we have not increased that for several years.

In our small group break out session, several of the lay people conveyed that they really didn’t know very much about the synod or the churchwide expression of the ELCA. A couple of them expressed that they didn’t want to know, and that’s not what I hope to here from folks who are serious about their faith. We need to know that we are a people with a wider expression the Body of Christ than the local church. We belong to a much bigger expression.

I urge you to learn more about the ELCA and the synod. There are links on out homepage.

And if you have any ideas for how we might do a better job of lifting up these other expression, e-mail me at pastorb@oslc-elca.org.

Today is my mother’s birthday. It’s also my parents’ wedding anniversary. I think my dad was hoping to only need to buy one gift for two events. Not really. I can remember that he used to buy her red roses for their anniversary - one for every year they were married. I think that stopped after their 25^th anniversary simply because of the expense. After that, it was two dozen roses every year.

My dad died in 1999 and my mom in 2001. The tradition in the Christian church is to celebrate they day of death, for that is when we who live by faith move on to the place where we live in certainty. In our baptism we have "the assurance of things hoped for" (Heb 11:1). In death, we have the gate to life.

We are soon to All Saints’ Sunday (Nov. 5). That is the common day for all of us to remember those who have entered the Church Triumphant. Their perseverence in the face of all that would seek to snatch them from the sheepfold of God has paid off with a reward of a seat at the eternal banquet feast.

Happy birthday, mom. Leave some of the daily crossword puzzle for me.