Did you know that our synod resource center, located in the Wescosville synod office building, is one of more than 70 resource centers in the ELCA?

These centers are located in synod offices and multisynod centers, on college and seminary campuses, and in ecumenical and specialized centers.

Personnel in ELCA resource centers communicate with each other in an online meeting hosted by the ELCA on Ecunet, a not-for-profit, online network of Christian organizations. In the resource center meeting, people review new resources, answer questions, and share resources.

The network of resource centers also makes available self-published and parish-generated resources on a shared Web site, www.synodresourcecenter.org. Hosted by the Northwest Synod of Wisconsin (our ELCA partner synod, by the way), this Web site provides a large number of resources from a variety of sources via links to 10 ministry areas.

You can take a virtual tour of six ELCA resource centers at www.elca.org/alrc/index.html. The Association of Lutheran Resource Centers was formed in 1996 to support and articulate resource center ministry across the ELCA. Currently there are 44 member centers. The synod Resource Center is a member of the ALRC.

For more information on ELCA resource centers, check the ELCA Web site at www.elca.org/co/centers.html. This site includes links to individual resource center Web sites, photos of centers across the country, online catalogs, and collections of resources on specific topics.

Staff of ELCA resource centers meet monthly with Augsburg Fortress and ELCA churchwide staff in a telephone conference call hosted by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Topics covered in the hour-long call include requests for information about AF publications that have come from synod consumers and updates from AF about products that will soon be released and/or resources that are being planned and developed.

Read about our synod resource center in the January 2004 issue of Synod News. You can access this issue at www.godslove.org/pdf/snjan04.pdf.