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Spiritual Conversations in the Digital Age

Spiritual Conversations in the Digital Age is the subject of a three-session webinar that Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM) putting on this Thursday, September 13 at 7 p.m. Central time. In this webinar, Rev. Dr. Tony Cook, will discuss LHM’s 2018 research with the Barna Group. Here is LHM’s description of the course. I encourage you to sign up for lhmlearn and take advantage of this learning experience.

LIVE Webinar on Spiritual Conversations in the Digital Age

While technology and rapid cultural shifts have altered the face of evangelism, the Great Commission remains. This FREE three-session webinar presents findings from joint research done by Lutheran Hour Ministries and Barna about the state of spiritual conversations today. It explores changes in how and why people share the unchanging Good News in the digital age. This webinar digs deeper into our findings about the changes to faith sharing over the past 25 years, how people are sharing their faith today, the profile of those who are eager to share their faith, and how you can apply those insights to spiritual conversations in your everyday life.

Join Rev. Dr. Tony Cook, LHM’s Executive Director of United States Ministries, beginning September 13th at 7 p.m. CST for Session One, Sharing Faith Then and Now. During the presentation LHM staff will be answering questions followed by a LIVE Q&A with Dr. Cook after the presentation.

We look forward to sharing the research findings with you!

Go to  https://www.lhm.org/conversations/webinar.asp to sign up. All of us in LWML need to stay updated on current trends in communication because we have such a wonderful message to share! The message of the Gospel and God’s Grace!

Please keep the LWML Carolinas District in your prayers this week as the stormy weather approaches the location of their district convention scheduled for this week.

Patti

bloghome, Lutheran Reflection, Lutheran Women in Mission, Missions for God

August travels

Oh boy, did this summer go fast! Our Oklahoma schools open again in a week! It’s been a summer of traveling!  

Traveling last weekend took us to the Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM) SENT event in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Members of the Lutheran Layman’s League, LHM staff, donors, and guests kicked off a five year special program to spread the Gospel. They have taken the scripture from John 20:21 to heart and made it their theme verse, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you”, spoken by Jesus to His disciples.

President and CEO of Lutheran Hour Ministries, Kurt Buchholz, led a gathering that interacted with LHM Ministry leaders who traveled from Liberia, Jamaica, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, and Paraguay. LHM staff presented information about media offerings that sound really exciting. For instance, go to www.lhm.org and check out THRED, LHM Learn, Sentido Latino, Digging Deeper, Action in Ministry, and of course, The Lutheran Hour. And before you ask, no, they did not announce the new Lutheran Hour Speaker yet.

LWML Presidents

Ran into fellow LWML travelers there. LWML Presidents #14, 15, 16, and 18 were there. Also Karen Soeken, past LWML Planner, Past Convention Manager and Chesapeake DP, Jan Reuter, Past LWML Texas President, Dorothy Hunger and current LWML Oregon DP, Carmen Nagel were enjoying the event. If you have worked on the LHM Rose Parade float, you will recognize the names Dick and Lynn Gast and Lou Marting who were there. Rev. Ingo Dutzmann and Rev. John Nunes led us in devotions and worship. It was an inspiring, uplifting and educational event.

The two mission grants that you have funded from the last two conventions for LHM are pretty amazing outreach efforts in the Middle East. Reporting on the outreach to Syrian refugees in Lebanon –four women shared what it meant to them to now be Christians. Common denominator? A God who loves and forgives them. Really, really beautiful! They and many others will be reached by the broadcasts from the Christian TV station in Cairo that our second grant supports! You are helping make the Word of God travel through the Middle East!

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” Mark 16:15.

Our travels are not over!

Patti

Dick Gast, Bill, Patti
Lutheran Reflection, Missions for God

Spreading the Good News — Then and Now

I’m writing this on Epiphany Sunday evening here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At home we have added the Wise Men to our manger scene. In church our Gospel message was the account of the visit of the wise men from the Gospel of Matthew.

The Lutheran Study Bible has some wonderful notes on this passage so I would refer you to them rather than do my own comments. However, I got to thinking of their return to the East where they came from after experiencing and seeing what they saw. What did they tell people?

My husband and I, my son, John, and my cousin and his wife went back to Pasadena after Christmas to work on the Lutheran Layman’s League (LLL), Lutheran Hour Ministries (LHM) Rose Parade float. It was so fun and I hope you saw it on TV if not in person. I met quite a few LWML women working as Petal Pushers on various floats for the parade from all over the U.S. Way to go LWML!! But I digress.

While there, I had a chance to visit with Eric Gates, LHM’s regional director for Africa and the Middle East, about the work that our grant #7, Christian Hope through Mass Media in Egypt, is funding. He was recently returned from Cairo where a November 6th taping involved more than 40 people including cameramen, actors, writers, and back-stage production crew. This is being done through a partnership with LHM and SAT-7, the first and largest Middle East and North African Christian satellite network, co-producing a television series from the SAT-7 studio in Cairo, Egypt, that will begin airing in January 2018. This broadcast will potentially reach tens of millions of viewers in more than 20 countries spanning from as far west as Morocco to as far east as Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

I often wonder what the wise men told people as they journeyed back east to their home countries. It’s so exciting to see that the Word about our Savior continues to travel back to the East. As we fund this mission grant we pray that the Holy Spirit will open hearts along the way.

Learn more about this TV programming in the January-February 2018 issue of The Lutheran Layman or at lhm.org/MENA or lwml.org/mission-grants.

Happy New Year!

Patti

 

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3:6).

 

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