MISSION SUPPORT
God bless you as you love, heal, and engage like Jesus!
Thank you for the faithful and intentional Mission Support, your benevolence giving to this synod, that you entrust to us for God’s mission in the world. We also distribute a portion of your gifts to the ELCA— to share the Good News of grace through Jesus Christ across the country and around the globe.
Thank you for continuing such steady and strong mission support, especially in a time when there are so many needs and opportunities.
What are we doing together, right here in the NEPA Synod with your gifts?
- We support new pastors and deacons. Join us in thanking God for the 14 candidates discerning calls to public ministry and the 10 rostered ministers welcomed into our synod to serve ministry sites in 2024-2025.
- Together, we work on Growing Young. Check out the link to find out about the 6 Core Commitments for living as a Jesus-centered community!
- Our newly launched Licensed Lay Ministry formation process seeks to support the mission happening in local congregations. Congregations in the NEPA Synod brought forward 34 LLM entrants. Discover more here: LLM.
- Because of your mission support, we get to try bold experiments like 6261.
- Gaining Strength cohorts give deacons and pastors training in fostering collaboration and practice in innovative ministry skills.
Do you have questions about mission support? Contact Debbie Skinner by email or call 610-266-5101 ext. 117
Synod Direction and Values
In Christ we are Growing Young, Gaining Strength and Going Beyond Death to Life so we can Love, Heal and Engage like Jesus. To explore the NEPA Synod's 3 Lanes and discover more about our values of Love, Heal, and Engage, click the button below.
2025 Synod Newsletters
Each month, the synod publishes a newsletter featuring a story about how Mission Support is making an impact. Click below to read the latest issue and see how your contributions are making a difference.
Stories of LOVE • HEAL • ENGAGE through Mission Support
Fired up about mission support ministries?
The 5G Team (Growing Grateful Generous Givers Group) needs your voice! Contact Pastor Michael Ware
Want to hear stories of mission support impact?
Consider inviting “God’s Work Our Hands Storyteller” to a Council meeting, faith formation, Sunday morning, or coffee break! Contact Georgia Suranofsky
RESOURCE CENTER
The NEPA Synod Resource Center
2354 Grove Road
Allentown, PA
610-266-5101
NEW ITEMS ARE JUST IN at the Resource Center
Thanks to a grant, new resources have been purchased for the Synod Resource Center and are NOW available for people to borrow! They cover a variety of topics. The new items include:
- Grieving a Suicide
- Overcoming the Loss of a Spouse: Getting to the Other Side
- "Across That Bridge" by former Congressman John Lewis
- "The Sum of Us" by Heather Mcghee
- "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
- "My Grandmother’s Hands" by Resmaa Menakem
- "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coming Soon – all 6 volumes of “The Annotated Lutheran”
- Vol. 1 – The Roots of Reform
- Vol. 2 – Word and Faith
- Vol. 3 – Church and Sacraments
- Vol. 4 – Pastoral Writings
- Vol. 5 – Christian Life in the World
- Vol. 6 – The Interpretation of Scripture
These and many more items are available for your use at the Resource Center. Check out the online catalog below!
HOW TO BORROW RESOURCES
There are 3 ways you can borrow resources from the Resource Center:
- Visit the Resource Center at the NEPA Synod Office. Resources can be checked out with Laurie.
- Use our online resource catalog (see button above). Follow the directions on the search page. It is not necessary to complete every box. Sometimes a key word is all that you’ll need. When your search items pop up on a new page, you can click on the resource code number (ResCode) in the left hand column to get a description of the item and add it to your cart.
- If you would like to have the printed materials mailed to you, you will be charged only for the postage. If you choose to borrow rented materials, you will be charged $3.00 for digital materials (CDs, Videos, DVDs) to cover the cost of processing.
Please keep in mind that most of the resources are copyrighted. Permissions need to be sought in order to use them for groups (Videos, Curricula, etc).
USE THE RESOURCE CENTER SPACE
Host your committee or group meeting in the Resource Center!
Whether it is your congregation’s stewardship, faith formation, world hunger, worship, personnel, property, outreach, Bible study, or youth ministry committee - there are resources available for nearly every congregational ministry. Having a meeting at the Resource Center allows you quick access to whatever resources you may need!
BACKGROUND CHECKS
BACKGROUND CHECKS
PA CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES LAW
MANDATED REPORTING
SOCIAL STATEMENTS
ELCA social statements are teachings and policy documents that provide broad frameworks to assist us in thinking about and discussing social issues in the context of faith and life. They are meant to help communities and individuals with moral formation, discernment and thoughtful engagement with current social issues as we participate in God’s work in the world. Social statements also set policy for the ELCA and guide its advocacy and work as a publicly engaged church. They result from an extensive process of participation and deliberation and are adopted by a two-thirds vote at an ELCA church-wide assembly.
STEWARDSHIP
BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING
“I will bless you—so that you will be a blessing.”
The Synod Assembly of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Synod adopted Blessed to be a Blessing as our stewardship approach for the coming years.
Sharing our blessings with others reflects our understanding that all that we are and that all that we have belong to God. We hear this in God's call to Abraham as God promises Abraham "I will bless you - so that you will be a blessing." This does not mean that God favors us or that we should expect to be blessed more than others. But it does change our focus when we recognize the blessings in our lives - as the gifts from God they are. In this light, we can see how God's blessings to us can be used and shared in ways so that we might be a blessing to others.
Blessed to be a Blessing is designed to open our eyes to our blessings and to help us grow in our grateful response to God’s abundant love. The goal of Blessed to be a Blessing is to ground us in a biblical understanding of stewardship.
BLESSED BY GOD - STEWARDS OF GOD
Blessed to be a Blessing is a faith-based stewardship emphasis that recognizes our call to share our God-given blessings of time, relationships, abilities, and passions, as well as our gifts of money.
We recognize that as stewards - or caretakers - we are blessed in this role we share with others and in our relationship with God. When we remember that nothing is truly ours and that we are but temporary caretakers for God, we are freed to live generously.
Stewardship is the grateful offering of all that we have and all that we are to God’s service. We trust that everything is the gift of a loving and generous God. Thus, the gifts we return to the church can be a sign of both God’s grateful offering to us and our trust in God.
While the world around us teaches us to fear scarcity, God calls us to trust in God¹s abundance.
God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. (2 Cor. 9:8)
BIBLICAL STEWARDSHIP
Biblical Stewardship is not about raising money to pay the church’s bills. It is about offering some portion of the material resources God has given us to others as a way of thanking God for these resources and living out God's call to love and serve our neighbors.
Nor is Biblical Stewardship about convincing people to volunteer to do jobs for the church. It is about helping disciples discover the talents and abilities God has given them and then figuring out how God is calling them to use those gifts in the church and in the world.
NEPA PRINCIPLES OF STEWARDSHIP
Heeding the call to trust in God’s abundance, our Synod will be guided by the following principles as we invite congregations and individuals to support the mission of the church:
- We will recognize how God has blessed us abundantly.
- We will acknowledge that we need to give back what we have received as a way to grow in faith.
- We will recognize that we are the stewards and not the owners of everything that God has entrusted to us.
- We will give proportionately, calculating what an appropriate tithe is for our situation.
- Our giving will be significant and of our first fruits, so we experience that God provides all we truly need.
- We will give joyfully, in grateful response to our generous God.
DOCUMENTS / FORMS / POLICIES
CONSTITUTIONS
AUDITS
PLACE (Professional Leaders' Aid for Continuing Education)
SYNOD ASSEMBLY
WEEKLY SERMONS
Recorded Sermons
We now offer prerecorded sermons for times when a minister or lay leader is unavailable to preach during a service.
A heartfelt thank you to Christ Lutheran Church, Mahanoy City, and Events Staging for producing these sermons, and to Pastor Carl D. Shankweiler and Pastor Ken T. Melber Jr. for delivering the messages.
Available Sermons
For seamless, uninterrupted playback, we recommend downloading the recorded sermon to a local computer. If you are watching directly from a TV, you can download the sermon onto a thumb drive and use the TV's USB input.
January 5, 2025 - Pastor Carl D. Shankweiler
January 12, 2025 - Pastor Ken T. Melber Jr.
Interested in recording a sermon?
It's simple! All you need to do is prepare your message and attend a recording session. Recordings are held at Christ Lutheran Church in Mahanoy City. If you are a rostered minister or licensed lay minister interested in providing this service to the church, please contact Rev. Carl D. Shankweiler for information on recording dates and times.
