One family, one fellowship, one body of Christ. As an ongoing personal project, LCMS photographer Erik Lunsford photographs altars in Lutheran churches around the world. Look to the cross as we all gather around Word and Sacrament.

With more than a million Middle Eastern asylum-seekers, flooding into Europe, a new mission field is growing exponentially for the Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche (SELK), a church body that has been actively receiving refugees and catechizing them for decades. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, managing photojournalist in LCMS Communications.

Lutherans and other supporters protest Planned Parenthood on Saturday, August 22, 2015, outside the facility in St. Louis. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist in LCMS Communications.

About 75 St. John Lutheran Church members and guests join the Rev. Terry Makelin, pastor of the church, for a Day of Supplication and Prayer service at St. John Lutheran Church on Tuesday, June 16, 2015, in Pilger, Neb. A year ago to the day, with the service almost to the hour, rare EF-4 twin twisters destroyed the church along with the majority of Pilger. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and a writer in LCMS Communications.

Parishioners begin to pick up the pieces in Delmont, S.D., after a tornado swept through the area on May 10, 2015, destroying Zion Lutheran Church and nearby buildings. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford. staff photojournalist and a writer in LCMS Communications

Offering mercy in Peru, LCMS Disaster Response Director Rev. Ross Johnson was on the scene soon after heavy late-March rains triggered massive landslides there. In the region around Lima, Johnson and local missionaries surveyed effects of the landslides that killed residents and displaced others, while causing significant infrastructure damage. Also affected was a preaching station and a local school named Noe (Spanish for Noah), where the LCMS is involved in an ongoing mercy project. Johnson led training on the Theology of Mercy and the Theology of the Cross with the missionaries — the Rev. Herb Burch, the Rev. Mark Eisold, the Rev. Joshua Gale and Deaconess Intern Caitlin Worden — and discussed with them potential ideas to further partner on existing mercy projects in Peru. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and a staff writer with LCMS Communications.

“Today we give thanks to God,” the Rev. Dr. Timothy Quill said March 14, “as we celebrate the graduation of the first pastoral and deaconess classes from the Bishop Makala Training Center” in Tanzania. The next day, the 21 new pastoral candidates were ordained and seven deaconesses commissioned in a service with more than 1,000 worshipers at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania — South-East of Lake Victoria Diocese’s (ELCT-SELVD) Ebenezer Cathedral in Shinyanga. Quill is director of International Studies and associate professor of Pastoral Ministry and Ministry and Mission for Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Ind. (CTSFW), whose faculty teaches in the two-year training-center program that stems from a partnership between the Synod and the ELCT-SELVD. That partnership developed after Bishop Emmanuel Makala of the diocese requested help in developing the training program in 2013 from CTSFW President Rev. Dr. Lawrence R. Rast Jr. Funding for the training program is made possible by a grant from the LCMS Global Seminary Initiative, which Quill oversees. Makala preached at the March 15 service of ordination and commissioning. Following the service, he invited Rast, Quill, LCMS Office of International Mission Area Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Rev. Shauen Trump, and a group from the LCMS Mid-South District to offer greetings to the congregation. The Mid-South District provides financial support for the theological education of Tanzanian pastors. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and writer in LCMS Communications

Since opening in November 2013, Redeeming Life Maternity Home in Sanford, Fla., has provided a home and a family setting for 13 women experiencing crisis pregnancies. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and writer in LCMS Communications.

See how LCMS church partners, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia and The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Lithuania, are bearing mercy and service through Diaconia work in the Baltics. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and writer in LCMS Communications.

Commander Charles Varsogea, a chaplain in the U.S. Navy, helps nourish the young recruits at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, Calif. See photographs from his work during worship, his prayer and presence at the graduation ceremony, and his late night call for help from a troubled recruit. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and writer in LCMS Communications.

In hospitals, senior centers, and other facilities, chaplains work often behind the scenes nourishing the sick and elderly. See photographs of several chaplains at work in their daily vocations. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and writer in LCMS Communications.

See photographs from the 2015 TABOO National LCMS Campus Ministry Conference at Saint Louis University. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist in LCMS Communications.

In the extreme southern part of Madagascar, the Malagasy Lutheran Church — known locally as the Fiangonana Loterana Malagasy (FLM) — and the LCMS have joined in a project to install tin roofs on FLM churches around the country. For that project, the LCMS gave a $100,000 grant. Church leaders note that this is just one indication of the developing relationship between the two church bodies that are committed to Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions. They also say the tin-roof project has enhanced opportunity for witness in local churches’ communities and fostered teamwork among members involved in roof construction. Other signs of that growing relationship over the past decade include FLM pastors studying at the Synod’s two U.S. seminaries and the LCMS working with synods of the Malagasy church to carry out mercy projects like HIV awareness, hospital projects and Mercy Medical Team trips.

Members of the Mercy Medical Team traveled to small towns near Antsirabe, Madagascar, to treat nearly 2000 patients in October, 2014. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist in LCMS Communications

See photographs from the inauguration convocation for the Rev. Dr. Daniel Lee Gard, president of Concordia University Chicago, at the college in River Forest, Ill., on Friday, Oct. 10, 2014. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist in LCMS Communications

See photographs from the week-long filming for 'The First Rosa' documentary film in and near Selma, Ala. Led by Director Dr. Ardon Albrecht, the film tells the untold story of Lutheran educator and church planter Rosa J. Young. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist and writer in LCMS Communications.

The Rev. Benjamin Ball leads a Divine Service of Rededication at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Hamel, Ill., on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014. It's the first time the congregation has worshipped in the sanctuary since a fire damaged the building in November 2013. "Returning to the House of the Lord after being away for 10 months was one of the greatest days of my life, mostly because I was thinking how much joy it was bringing to the people of God. They were back in the place they were baptized, where they heard the funeral sermons of the blessed dead, where week after week they hear the gospel and receive the body and blood of Christ. The children of God were back in their Father's House which really is the gate of heaven, so there was all joy and thanksgiving." A grant from LCMS Disaster Response was given to the church to aid in the rebuilding. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist in LCMS Communications.

On August 10-17, 2014, thirteen LCMS young people (including two proctors) spent days together in service, learning, and community. They took part in a pilot program for Lutheran Youth Corps, a project of LCMS Youth Ministry. The participants ranged in ages 16-20, and were either upperclassmen in High School or are attending or entering college. Participants came from across the United States, as far west as New Mexico and the Dakotas. The students came together under the program’s theme, “Life Together through Witness and Mercy.”

Presented by LCMS Worship, the 2014 Institute on Liturgy, Preaching and Church Music at Concordia University Nebraska attracted more than 400 participants. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist in LCMS Communications

14 members of an LCMS Mercy Medical Team (MMT) from different LCMS congregations around the United States traveled to rural Kenya in East Africa to treat about two thousand patients from surrounding villages. Photographs by Erik M. Lunsford, staff photojournalist in LCMS Communications