Nebraska Synod ELCA

Gwen Edwards didn’t grow up in church. As a military kid, Sundays varied—Catholic one week, Protestant the next. What stuck wasn’t a denominational label; it was an invitation. Middle-school friends said, “Come with us.” Years later, when life brought her to Omaha, another invitation from a pastor led her to Lord of Love Lutheran. And then the women of the congregation—seeing gifts she hadn’t yet named—invited her deeper.

Today Gwen serves in many places where invitation meets responsibility. She’s the Nebraska Synod Secretary and a member of Synod Council. She helps lead a Bible study at Lord of Love and rings handbells (“it’s healing,” she says, after the death of her husband 14 months ago). She’s served with Women of the ELCA at the churchwide level and continues to mentor and nudge new leaders: “Have you thought about submitting your name?” she asks, not as a recruiter with a clipboard, but as a friend who recognizes God-given gifts that people rarely see in themselves.

For Gwen, worship and community are inseparable. “We’re not meant to walk this earth alone,” she says. “I need a little church right now.” She finds that church in the sanctuary on Sundays, around the Synod Council table, and even at work—over lunches with colleagues who listen and support. Service spills into the rest of her life too: coordinating blood drives, giving through United Way, and still showing up for her “other family” in Boy Scouts. “A Scout is reverent,” she smiles, a reminder that callings thread through ordinary places.

Recently, Gwen’s name appeared—unexpectedly—on a nominating ballot for ELCA Secretary. She prayed, phoned trusted voices, and let it ride. She wasn’t elected, and that was okay. The process itself affirmed her gifts. That, too, is call: not always a title or a yes, but a faithful openness to what God might do next.

Asked what she hopes others hear in her story, Gwen doesn’t hesitate: keep your heart open. Invitations—big or small—are how the Spirit gathers us, heals us, and sends us. “It takes people to help us see our gifts,” she says. “And it takes us to help other people see theirs.”