Our Experience at the 2024 Southeastern Synod Assembly

By Mike and Marge Mynhier

We enjoyed our experience at the May 31 – June 2 Southeastern Synod Assembly held in Columbus, GA. It was an honor for us to represent LCR as voting delegates and to participate in the business meetings and elections that are a key part of the Assembly agenda. We were pleased to learn about the very broad range of interests, ministries, advocacies, groups, and organizations that reported about their activities over the past year. We all can be grateful for the very broad and meaningful impact that the Southeastern Synod is having locally and internationally.

We were also able to catch up and visit with many friends throughout the Southeastern Synod that were also attending – previous members of LCR, Pastors, co-workers on initiatives such as Guatemala, disaster responses, NovusWay camps, etc.

The theme of the Assembly “Striving for Peace and Justice in All the World” really resonated with us and provided two very special experiences for us to learn about how God works through all of us.

Annette Alexa, Marge and Mike Mynhier, Pastor Rich, Sigrid Thies-Smith pose for a photo at the assembly.

We attended a workshop – Sumud: For Justice in Palestine and Israel led by Mary Peterson. Sumud is an Arabic word meaning “steadfastness”. We learned about our ELCA accompaniment with The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL) and watched an internationally acclaimed short documentary film, “The Present”, which gave us an informative and disturbing picture of life in Palestine, behind the wall.

As a result of this workshop, we are now reading a book provided to us at the workshop, Why Peace and Prayers are Not Enough, to learn more about the very complex relationship of Israel and the Palestinians living behind the checkpoints in occupied lands and the challenges to efforts to achieve a lasting peace in the region. The 2024 book was written by Rev. Julie Brenton Rowe, a Lutheran Pastor who lived and worked in East Jerusalem from 2004 – 2008 as the Communication Pastor with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. The book is based on her direct experience of living and working with Palestinian Christians, Muslims, and Israelis Jews in the region.

Regarding peace and justice challenges closer to home, we were inspired by the very passionate and informative Keynote Dinner address delivered by Bryan Stevenson, Esq., founder, and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He is an attorney whose entire career has been dedicated to defending the poor, wrongly condemned, and those trapped in our criminal justice system. Some of his work providing justice to these under-represented people is described in his 2014 book, Just Mercy (which we are both now also reading) and has been portrayed in a 2019 movie by the same name.

We want to thank LCR for giving us this great opportunity to participate in the Southeastern Synod Assembly!

What is a Synod?

LCR is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), a national network of Lutheran Churches with over 8,000 congregations. Regionally, we are part of the Southeastern Synod, composed of ELCA congregations in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. We collaborate on mission work, advocacy, and administrative matters.

To learn more about the Southeastern Synod visit www.elca-ses.org