Three church building projects in Nicaragua, a garden tractor to be used in South Sudan, and ICYA building renovations in Winnipeg—these are the projects benefiting from fundraising by EMC Project Builders at its 24th anniversary golf tournament on June 24, 2018.

In the old city of Aleppo, Syria, Pastor Ibrahim Nseir stands on the pile of rubble that used to be his church. What was once a building where his congregation worshiped is now a pile of broken stones and dust. It’s a sunny February day, the bright sky a stark contrast to the destruction on the ground.

Conference council delegates on July 7, 2018, heard updates, a desire for stable funding, and a possible change in missionary funding—and received Gospel Light Fellowship into membership.

How do you update the holy grail of thrifty and thoughtful cooking?

After working with youth for 15 years in ministry and then in social services, you get used to hearing a lot of the same questions. The first questions I hear usually go like this. From parents: “Why won’t my child listen to me?” From youth: “Why won’t my parents listen to me?” Even from other youth workers: “How do I get parents and kids to listen to each other?”

In the culture in which we find ourselves it is popular to be critical, cynical, and to complain about the deficiencies we see in the world around us. All too often we as the church simply follow suit.

Why do we have a Conference of churches? Some say it’s because of missions; we work together to make disciples and plant churches. Some pastors, missionaries, and evangelists emphasize this. Yet, at best, it’s only partly right. We are a conference because of Jesus—a person, not a task.

Psalm 13 begins with these words, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” We do not know exactly what the Psalmist’s circumstances were when he penned these words, but we do hear the agony, the feelings of God having forgotten him, of God hiding His face from the writer.

An index of all Messenger content from 2017

In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. Would Martin Luther have signed the statement?

A Poem

A look at the ministry of Judy and Dave Schmidt