Welcome, Bishop Laurie!

Bishop Laurie Larson Caesar was born and raised in the small logging town of Libby, Montana. Her family’s church, Christ Lutheran, was founded early in the last century by Norwegian immigrants, including her great-grandparents Anna and Carl Larson.

During her studies at Stanford University Laurie’s campus pastor suggested a mission trip to El Salvador to help the university students there rebuild their school after a recent earthquake, and to meet refugees and mothers of the disappeared dealing with the horrors of the ongoing civil war. There, Laurie saw her faith tipped upside down;  biblical words like hope, community, peace, justice, sanctuary, orphan, widow, love and liberation became real, three dimensional and full of color, texture, life. God picked her up and kissed her, in other words, and sent her into a beloved world to reflect that kind of liberating love and wild, shimmering passion.

Bishop Laurie’s ministry has been shaped by the engaged theological imagination of the Lutherans and Catholics at Spirit of Grace, Beaverton. Their modeling of the shared life of faith has taught her how to weave her spiritual life with authenticity, humility, integrity, collegiality, humor, courage and grace.

Now that she stands on the threshold of the office of bishop in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, she is thrilled to begin new collaborations with a wider community of wise and passionate leaders in the Oregon Synod and beyond.