Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park

Last weekend, at its annual assembly, the Metropolitan Chicago Synod elected Erik Christensen as our next bishop, following interim bishop Wayne Miller and the ELCA’s current presiding bishop Yehiel Curry. Bishop-elect Christensen is currently serving as pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Evanston, following his tenure at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago as Pa...

Please plan to stay after worship on Sunday, June 14 for a work day.  We’ll have both indoor and outdoor tasks, for our building and grounds.  

Eleven years ago, a group gathered at Mother Emanuel church in Charleston, South Carolina, for a time of study and prayer. The congregation is AME, a traditionally African-American denomination, and the two pastors were graduates of a Lutheran seminary. In a mass shooting, a hate-filled white supremacist killed nine of those attending, including both pastors, those we now cal...

Pastor Nancy Goede preached this sermon five years ago, when the Commemoration of the Emanuel Nine was added to our church’s calendar.

This is the first year in which our national church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has commemorated the Emanuel Nine as martyrs of the Church. They’re the nine people you see on the cover of your bulletin. Now...

This weekend, the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the ELCA gathers in assembly to elect a new bishop. It’s worth remembering how old, and how humble, that word really is.

“Bishop” comes from the Greek episkopos — “overseer.” In the earliest church it wasn’t a grand office at all; congregations were led by a circle of elders sharing the work. Only gradually, by aro...