Welcome, Bishop Laurie!

Bishop Laurie Larson Caesar

The Rev. Laurie Larson Caesar was elected on May 19, 2019 to serve as bishop of the Oregon Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).  She was installed on December 17, 2019, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral.  On May 31, 2025 she was reelected to serve a second six-year term. 

Prior to her role as bishop, she served as campus minister at Portland State University and pastor of Spirit of Grace in Beaverton, Oregon, a faith community of Lutherans and Catholics worshipping together.

Bishop Caesar was born and raised in the small logging town of Libby in Western Montana, and baptized at Christ Lutheran Church, a church her great-grandparents helped establish. She completed her undergraduate studies at Stanford University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Human Biology in 1988.)

Initially intending to pursue a career in medicine, several pivotal experiences led to Bishop Caesar discerning her call to ministry. In 1985 she traveled to war-torn El Salvador with Lutheran Campus Ministry which expanded her sense of vocation. Through conversations with displaced families bombed out of their villages, thoughtful and courageous theologians, and committed college students, she saw with new eyes the ways that walking with Jesus can empower people to be grounded, transformational agents in the world for the sake of love.

Following graduation, she served a year as a Clinical Pastoral Education resident chaplain at Stanford Medical Center. The experience of accompanying gravely ill people through their meaning-making journey at the end of their lives clarified her call. In 1992 Caesar earned her Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1996, she was ordained by the ELCA.

Throughout her years as a pastor in Oregon, Bishop Caesar has been active in synod leadership development and spiritual formation projects, ecumenical and interfaith relationships, organizing for peace and non-violence, and antiracism work. Bishop Caesar values contemplative experiences and is grateful for the time she has spent with the Benedictine sisters at Our Lady of Grace Benedictine Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana, as part of their Women Touched by Grace program. She also values the collegial experiences she has had including Practicing the Faith in Salmon Nation: An Exploration of Meaning Making in the Pacific Northwest.

In her personal life, Bishop Caesar finds meaning in hikes in the mountains, playing banjo, women’s basketball, poetry, developing her skills in boxing, improv and downhill skiing, all creative arts and cracking open the treasures of the ancestors again and again and again.

Her favorite Bible verse is Ephesians 2:10: You are God’s masterpiece.

“Imagine if we believed it, in the deepest part of our being. Imagine if we centered our worship and community around in invitation to all into that deep, grace-filled welcome! What courageous love could shimmer out through us then?”

Bishop Laurie hopes to center her next term on God’s invitation to shimmer as the divine masterpiece that we are.

To God be the glory.