Our Women of the ELCA Purpose Statement is carried out through three different perspectives: Action, Community, Growth. They cannot be separated any more than God the Father (Creator), God the Son (Redeemer), and God the Holy Spirit (Sanctifier) can be separated. Instead of wondering which issues, programs or resources belong to Growth, which belong to Action, and which belong to Community, know that all issues, programs and resources need all three perspectives to be wholly addressed. Women of the ELCA consists of three interrelated mission areas: each unique but cohesive and interdependent elements of the focus (center of activity).
ACTION: Our local project for the 2027 Convention is serving the Appalachian communities within seven counties in the Upstate of South Carolina (Spartanburg, Anderson, Greenville, Pickens, Oconee, Cherokee, and Union). We are in partnership with our host venue, Holy Communion Lutheran Church, in supporting A Place to Call Home and The Starlight Recovery Program. We will announce details for these projects soon.
For our Global Outreach Ministry, we will be collecting monetary donations to Lutheran Disaster Relief (LDR). More details about both as we near convention time.
COMMUNITY: Our goals for this coming year are as follows:
1. Through The RIPPLE, website, and our Facebook page, we will feature, support, and educate South Carolina women about projects for the upcoming year.
2. We will continue to educate and communicate concerns and strategies for preventing teen suicide. In 2024 year we established the Teen Suicide Task Force. This is led by Jennifer Miller. In October 2025, Jennifer was certified with the Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) concentrating on Youth. We will be highlighting the work of this task force.
3. Support the Leadership Task Force in their endeavors to increase membership to WELCA. This group will be creating a curriculum for training our WELCA leaders throughout the state. More information will be emailed soon.
GROWTH: We are planning for a wonderful year of retreats at the Isle of Palms and Camp Kinard. We are making some big changes in that we are moving the Camp Kinard retreat to the fall of next year instead of late winter in February. We are hoping that better temperatures, fall color, and a longer time between retreats will encourage more attendance. We have some terrific leaders lined up for the retreats. Our goals for this year are:
1. To provide two statewide retreats: Isle of Palms & Camp Kinard.
2. To promote our churchwide publications and our SC WELCA website.
3. To create a daily devotional written by WELCA members. Please see The Winter issue of The RIPPLE for details about how to participate.