Our Church Family Album
New chapter for Lutheran education
Almost 160 guests gathered at St Paul Lutheran Church Blair Athol, in suburban Adelaide, to witness the installation of Jodie Hoff as executive director of Lutheran Education Australia (LEA). Installed by LCANZ Bishop Paul Smith, Jodie reflected on the personal significance of the church where her parents were married and she was baptised. She shared her hope that Lutheran schools and early learning centres will be places ‘where students, staff and families know they belong – just as they are – uniquely created in the image of God’. Pictured are members of the LEA team: Olivia Harman, Sue Kupke, Holly Lang, Suzanne Jessen and Jodie Hoff
Gathering together in the name of the Lord
More than 850 delegates and 1,000 visitors gathered in Siassi, Morobe Province, for the 35th Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea (ELCPNG). The Synod featured joyful worship, music and cultural celebration. LCA International Mission Project Officer Erin Kerber said it revealed ‘a church alive with devotion, courage and a genuine desire to grow together in the freedom of Christ’. Speakers of the PNG language Tok Pisin summed it up well: Yumi bung wantaim – ‘We gather together’. See also page 4. Pictured: ELCPNG Assistant Bishop Lucas Kedabing, LCANZ Bishop Paul Smith and ELCPNG Bishop Jack Urame
Asante! Celebrating Lutheran love in action
Supporters of Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) attended ‘Asante’ (meaning ‘thank you’ in Swahili) events around Australia in March. Guest speaker Mary Obara (pictured left, being interviewed by Julie Krause of ALWS), Lutheran World Federation program manager for Kenya and Somalia, shared first-hand stories of Lutheran- supported work in Africa at gatherings in Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Adelaide and the Adelaide Hills, western Victoria and Geelong, and Canberra and Albury, where ALWS began 75 years ago.
Answering the call to youth ministry
For Sarah Hoff-Zweck (pictured), the June–July 2025 edition of The Lutheran, which had the theme of ‘Servants of the Word’, arrived at just the right time. After 25 years in Lutheran and Christian education, she now serves as ministry lead for Lutheran Youth Queensland and is a Specific Ministry Pastor candidate at ALC. She said the edition ‘felt especially personal as I discerned my pathway toward ordination and ministry with young people’, reflecting her journey of ‘letting go, trusting God’s leading and responding to his call’.
This is your church family album, so we'd love your contributions. Email us at lca.comms@lca.org.au with a high-resolution photo or two, and a few details regarding how people are serving others or about recent events within your church community, and you may see them here in a coming edition.
'Festing' together in faith
At the LCANZ Western Australia District’s 2026 Mission and Ministry Fest at Rockingham– Mandurah Lutheran Church, participants shared highlights and reflections. Under the theme ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken’ (2 Corinthians 4:13), the weekend offered worship, learning, fellowship and encouragement for congregational life and mission.
It began with an ordinary Sunday in 2016. I walked through the doors of Grace Lutheran Church in Bridgewater, South Australia, where I met Linda Macqueen, who was serving as communications manager for the LCA and executive editor of The Lutheran at the time.
I was newly married and had recently graduated with a degree in writing and creative communication, quietly wondering what on earth I was meant to do with it. We chatted after the service, and when Linda discovered what I had studied, she said, ‘Oh! I’m looking for an editor.’
We exchanged email addresses, and that small conversation led to a few casual proofreading jobs for the LCA, which over time evolved into a part-time role and eventually a full-time position with LCA Communications. I lacked confidence and experience, but Linda had patience and wisdom. She gently corrected, carefully explained and gradually entrusted me with more responsibility. Along the way, Linda showed me that this work is actually ministry – whether it’s sharing news or helping someone communicate their message more clearly.
Years later, when Linda retired, another mentor stepped in. Lisa McIntosh, who faithfully edited The Lutheran for a decade, taught me in different but equally important ways: how to shape a news story, how to ask one more clarifying question, how to check facts twice and how details matter because people matter.
When she handed the baton to me earlier this year, I felt deeply aware of how much I still had to learn. I wondered whether I was the right person for the role at all. And yet, looking back, I could see the steady way God had been preparing me through the investment of others.
That’s the thing about mentoring. It rarely feels noticeable or significant in the moment – I certainly had no idea at the time that Linda was mentoring me. It can look like a conversation after church. It can sound like encouragement offered in everyday moments. It can feel like time taken to explain, guide and walk alongside. And often, you don’t see where it will lead. Perhaps you can think of someone who saw something in you before you saw it in yourself, or maybe you are quietly doing that for someone else, without realising the long-term difference you may be making.
This edition of The Lutheran explores the gift of mentoring – faithful, relational acts of walking alongside another person. The Bible is full of these relationships, where faith is shared and wisdom is passed on. Jesus himself formed his disciples in this way, walking with them, teaching them and entrusting them with responsibility. God so often works through people: through their presence, patience and simple words spoken when they are most needed.
As I step into this role, I know I’m here because others took the time to notice, teach and encourage me. I pray the stories in these pages will remind you that even the smallest act of mentoring may become a thread in God’s much larger story, woven quietly and gently to reveal its unique beauty at just the right time.
Elise Mattiske Editor, The Lutheran
Special features
Walking together in faith
Mentoring – before it had a name
Mentoring as mutual formation
One child. One mentor. One hour
Meet our new pastors
Regulars
Because we bear your name: Bishop Paul’s Letter
Congregational Life
Dwelling in God’s Word
The Inside Story
Celebrating Our Story Faces of Faith Directory
Your Voice
Coffee Break
Our cover: Keira with her mentors, Jamie and Karen, from Tea Tree Gully Lutheran Church in South Australia. Through their encouragement, care and guidance, Jamie and Karen have supported Keira in her faith journey and in many aspects of her life. When Keira was baptised in January, she chose them as her godparents, recognising the important role they had already played in nurturing her walk with Jesus. Photo: Amy Dahlenburg
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following pages
images of people who have died.
Bishop Paul’s Letter
Because we bear your name
In January, I had the privilege of attending the 35th Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea (ELCPNG). I travelled to the northern island of Siassi with LCA International Mission Project Officer, Erin Kerber. For seven days, we attended sessions and events in the purpose-built hall surrounded by 850 delegates representing the nearly two million members of the ELCPNG.
Throughout the days of the Siassi Synod, lunchtime performances were given by various groups of young people from across the districts of the ELCPNG. I have some tremendous video footage of the Logen Ministry young people from Siassi singing a gospel song. The performance included about a dozen young men from the church, singing and dancing, backed by vocals from young women.
Three members of the Logen Ministry team beat out their accompaniment to the singing and dancing with instruments made from a series of bamboo tubes played like xylophones. It was inspiring to witness this community give praise to our Lord Jesus Christ, performed by young people of the church.
buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.'
This edition of The Lutheran is about mentoring. Mentoring is about accompaniment. A person who is a mentor helps someone reflect on ‘how they are going’, as well as acting in some ways as a role model to the person being mentored.
In the case of mentoring Christian young people, the church makes opportunities for young women and men to reflect on what we have received in the gospel passed on to us and how the Holy Spirit has been calling, gathering, enlightening and sanctifying them in God’s mission.
In the case of mentoring Christian young people, the church makes opportunities for young women and men to reflect on what we have received in the gospel passed on to us.
The lesson for ministry here was the opportunity given to young people of the church to witness to the delegates of the convention with their Christian song and dance. The singers were all well-rehearsed and passionate in their performance. The ELCPNG welcomed the witness and service of young adults and placed it centre-stage of each day’s proceedings.
In the singing and dancing, the young adults of the ELCPNG are giving witness to their participation in the work of passing on the gospel. As St Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:
'For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was
‘Lord
Mentoring our young people is about guiding them with good questions to discover how best they can pass on what they have received to the glory of God and for the blessing of the world.
The lunchtime sessions of song and dance at the ELCPNG Siassi Convention teach us how the church can take good risks to enable the witness and service of young people, ‘mentoring’ them into the reality that they are not simply the ‘church of the future’ but the church in the world today. Many of the famous missionaries in church history travelled to faraway lands either as teenagers or young adults.
As you pray for the mission of our church, please remember to pray for the mentoring of our young women and men, that they would sanctify Christ as Lord in their hearts, ready to give a Christian defence of the hope that is in them, doing it with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15,16). ‘Yumi bung wantaim’ is the Tok Pisin phrase for getting together. When the church gathers together, we build each other up in the mission that our God has given to us.
In Christ,
Rev Paul Smith Bishop, Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand
