LifeDate Fall 2023 – How to Use Your Gospel-Motivated Voice For Life
by Pastor Michael Salemink
Lutherans For Life is celebrating our forty-fifth anniversary with a new logo!
Maybe a picture’s worth a thousand words. But a single image can’t say everything about our sanctity of life community and ministry. Still, it can say something important.
Our previous logo has served well. Many recognize the blue “L” wrapped around a descending dove: “It is the Spirit who gives life … the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). This graphic faithfully communicated grace and peace. Now that Roe v. Wade has gone away, the decades-old emblem has earned its retirement, too. An era of print information gave it birth, and we have since entered the digital age.
The updated Lutherans For Life insignia keeps the sky-blue legacy coloring. It evokes the joy and hope of our sacred vocation to receive life as gift and privilege, no matter what age, appearance, or ability. At the center, of course, stands the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Every human life has purpose because this God creates, redeems, and calls (Isaiah 43:1-2) each one as His own precious treasure from fertilization to forever.
Like the roots and limbs of a tree, the cross branches out into an EKG tracing. Its linear symbol for heartbeat and lifeblood (Leviticus 17:14) connects the whole course from the embryo in the mother’s belly to the final breath the Father bestows. More than simply surprise pregnancies or terminal diagnoses, the sanctity of human life intersects a spectrum of issues and situations – anywhere deception pressures neighbors to view death as a solution to difficulty.
The horizon behind (or is it ahead?) takes the shape of a heart. This background indicates the courage and compassion of our Gospel-motivated message and mission. We speak God’s truth and show Christ’s love. A contemporary typeface shares our organization’s identity (simplified and stabilized without serifs, so that it reads clearer for persons with visual impairments and on the condensed scales of mobile devices).
We’ve put a lot of reflection and effort into this little icon. It reminds us of how the Almighty Maker invests human beings with so much worth and purpose of His own. We eagerly welcome the new opportunities and continuing responsibilities it will encounter. And we hope it sparks the same impressions for you and everybody we reach and serve—equipping Lutherans and their neighbors to be Gospel-motivated voices For Life!