AMMAN, Jordan (ELCA) -- Despite the continued conflict in Gaza, bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) are proceeding with plans to travel Jan. 6 to the Middle East. A smaller group of seven ELCA bishops, including the ELCA presiding bishop and the national bishop of the ELCIC, spouses and staff arrived here for a series of meetings Jan. 3-5 with religious, community and political leaders. The Luthera...

CHICAGO (ELCA) - Many Iowa families are beginning 2009 still trying to recover from devastating tornadoes and floods of 2008. They're crediting Lutheran Services in Iowa (LSI) for making their hardships bearable. LSI is affiliated with Lutheran Disaster Response, a collaborative ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod. "I was ready to give up," said Joe Fodor of Washburn, a town of 1,400 residents in eastern Io...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), said the ELCA joins with all people calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and southern Israel. Hanson also asked ELCA members to join Middle East religious leaders who requested that Sunday, Jan. 4, be "a day for justice and peace in the land of peace," he wrote in a Dec. 31 pastoral letter. Hanson issued the letter as the ELCA Conference of Bishops and bisho...

CHICAGO (ELCA) - Prominent Christian leaders around the world are calling for an end to the violence that erupted in Gaza during the Christmas season. Patriarchs, bishops and the heads of Christian church bodies in Jerusalem issued a statement Dec. 30 urging an end to the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in hundreds of deaths. "We call upon all officials of both parties to return to their senses and refrain from all violent acts ... and urge them instead wor...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Amanda Kurtz is a ninth grader who loves math, dreams of being an architect and participates on tennis and dance teams at her high school in Aitkin, Minn., a one-stoplight town of 2,000 best known for its annual parade of decorated ice fishing houses. She also volunteers at a soup kitchen 30 miles away and at a weekly community meal served by her Aitkin congregation, First Lutheran Church. Her plans for 2009 include several days of volunteer work in Illinois,...