Blessings to you! I pray these summer months are providing you an opportunity to find time for family and friends and rest and re-creation. It's important for us, as rostered leaders, to take time away, to find rest for our souls and encouragement for the challenging call to ministry we have chosen to answer.  Debbi and I will be doing so in the coming weeks and I pray you will also have similar opportunities to be away from e-mail, text messages, phone calls and (most) social media.  

I am inviting you to make some additional time to be away this fall for our annual Professional Leaders Conference --  October 16-18th in Olympic Valley, CA. I pray this year's gathering to help us continue to build a community of Lutheran Leaders and will be a special blessing as we gather to learn more about the Indigenous Peoples who lived in the territory of our Sierra Pacific Synod and across the United States long before colonization by Spanish, Mexican, Russian and European settlers. This will also be an important time for us to live into the hope of a resolution that was passed when we gathered in Reno for our 2016 Assembly, Resolution 2016-6: "Regarding the Racial Ethnic Ministries Discipling Team." A portion of that resolution reads as follows:

RESOLVED: that the aforementioned strategy will include (but not be limited to) the development and implementation of an anti-racist curriculum, which will become a continuing education requirement for all rostered leaders under call in the Sierra Pacific Synod.

The "aforementioned strategy" that is referenced is for our synod's ministry to better reflect racial justice, anti-racism, and cultural competence at every level of our work and witness together. A significant part of our being "committed to being reformed" is to wonder where God is calling us next to allow the work of the Holy Spirit to be made known through our lives and ministries. I believe the Spirit is leading us into much needed and deeper conversations about racial justice, cultural competence and white privilege, and how our congregations, synods and the churchwide expressions might be a leading voice in this conversation in the communities we serve.  As bishop, I am asking our rostered leaders to join in this challenging and hopeful conversation as we learn more about the history, culture and spirituality of those who inhabited this land long before we showed up.

 Prairie Rose Seminole will be our guest speaker/leader for this     gathering.  Growing up in Fargo, ND, Prairie Rose Seminole   served on the Fargo Human Relations Commission in Fargo from   2001 to 2010, serving as Chairperson from 2007-2010. She has   held faculty appointments with the Tri-College NEW Leadership Institute since 2005 and is a trainer with Wellstone Action and VoteRunLead, national organizations that train candidates, campaign workers and activists to engage their communities for change.

Prairie Rose has been involved with North Dakota state-wide politics since 2006 and leading the North Dakota Native Vote since 2012.She serves as the Program Director for American Indian and Alaska Native Ministries of the ELCA.  She is an enrolled tribal member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of ND; a descendent of the Sahnish/Arikara, Northern Cheyenne and Lakota Nations and of German Russian heritage.   

Prairie Rose serves on the Midwest advisory council to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, advising on labor, nonprofits and tribal government. She has been recognized as a Native Nations Rebuilder, a program that recognizes individuals who have a passion for learning about innovative tribal governance practices, and how they can take these ideas and approaches to their own Native nations to make a positive difference. She writes for the MHA Times and hosts a radio show on KMHA called the Voice that emphasizes community building and reconciliation efforts.  She was formerly the Cultural Advisor to the Sanford Health Systems One Care initiative.

Currently, Praire Rose Seminole serves as the American Indian Alaska Native  Program Director for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, serving American Indian, Alaska Native communities around the United States as an educator, and advocate, deconstructing colonial systems of oppression. 

Our Sierra Pacific Synod Professional Leadership Conferences are an opportunity for us to gather and experience the rich and fruitful time of being with colleagues.  And while it is not in my capacity as bishop to compel anyone to attend, I am strongly encouraging you to register, attend and participate in this event.  It will be one of many ongoing conversations about how our ministries and congregations can become better reflections of the diversity of the communities we have been called to serve in northern California and northern Nevada.

As always, I am available for conversation about this if you would like to know more about my hopes that every rostered leader in our synod will attend this event.  Thank you for your consideration of this invitation, and blessings in your life and ministry.

Peace,

Bp. Mark