LAMA Kick Off: Peace Lutheran Church
Autumn and Solveig with LAMA Liaison Debby Bare
LAMA Kickoff recap by Autumn Byars.
On Sunday, November 5th, LAMA Director Solveig Muus and I, your GCS Hunger Advocacy Fellow, visited Peace Lutheran Church for a LAMA Kick-Off Event!
Solveig and I were both excited to introduce the congregation to our work; Peace is the long-term ministry partner of Solveig’s home church, Grace Lutheran, and a long-time supporter of Lutheran Campus Ministry at ASU.
We attended Peace’s 9:30 am service, which featured a sermon on the Beatitudes — a wonderful message, perfectly geared towards our calling as advocates. After communion and the closing hymn, we gave a presentation on LAMA and our work during the forum hour in the fellowship hall. While we set up, we got the wonderful chance to meet some of LAMA community members — some for the first time! — and to make new friends. Peace really pulled out all the stops for our visit, even providing a continental breakfast during the forum!
Solveig and I briefly introduced ourselves, sharing greetings passed along from our home churches. Then, we introduced our audience to Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of Arizona. We shared our mission and talked about how advocacy is another way in which to love our neighbors. I spoke about the Lutheran legacy of advocacy, and Solveig detailed some of our previous work, our goals, policy priorities, and our intro video! LAMA friend Wendy Schultz gave a stunning endorsement of and invitation to Lutheran Day at the Legislature, and Solveig encouraged attendees to register for the Request To Speak system. All in all, our forum focused around what is quickly becoming one of our favorite ways to think about the intersection of faith and advocacy: How churches can take our focus from charity to justice. After our presentation we helped folks sign up for our newsletter, Request to Speak, and Lutheran Day. We also distributed a cheat sheet on some easy “next steps” to get involved in advocacy.
Worship at Peace Lutheran
As it turns out, our forum audience at Peace is the biggest group we have ever had! Thank you so much for your curiosity and enthusiasm in learning with us. Our work in this office is all about how Lutherans can exercise their faith through advocacy, to help build a world where fewer of our neighbors are at risk of going hungry in the first place, and it was amazing to see how many people were interested in this type of service.
It was such a joy to be with Peace this Sunday! Their energy and passion for service was wonderful to encounter. To all of our new friends and readers: welcome! Thank you for hosting us, and for joining us :)
