I was having a conversation with my students tonight about different denominations and what distinguishes us as a Lutheran church. Being a part of a Lutheran church within a few miles of bastions of Baptist (Southwestern Baptist Seminary) and dispensationalist (Dallas Theological Seminary) theology, we are definitely in the minority. Most of my students go […]
The Church and the Rich Young Ruler
I’m going to be preaching later this fall, and the gospel text for that Sunday includes Mark 10:17-23. In an initial reading of the passage, I couldn’t help but wonder if today we need to be reading the passage something like this: As Jesus started on his way, a pastor ran up to him and […]
The Mentoring Project
A commercial for a project being led by Donald Miller. The Mentoring Project – Elephant Musth Cycle from The Mentoring Project on Vimeo. Has anyone worked with this initiative?
2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly: Thoughts from One in the Minority
“With the vote today, there was no ontological change in the church catholic or the ELCA” I am going to reveal my voting record pertaining to the resolutions regarding sexuality at this year’s ELCA Churchwide Assembly in order to hopefully offer some helpful perspective. I expect that my friends on both sides of the issue […]
Transforming Churches into Mission Centers: Rethinking Ordination
I’m at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly as a voting member, and there has been some very encouraging discussion on the requirement for the church to become a missional church. Those of us in emergent/missional conversations know this to already be true, but making this a strong emphasis across a mainline national church body is a […]
Adventures in Ecclesiology: ELCA Churchwide Assembly
Some of you may or may not know this, but I am a voting member in next week’s ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Because of that, I received about 500 pages worth of the Pre-Assembly Report in the mail a few weeks ago. It’s filled with reports from churchwide officers and offices, recommendations for action, information about […]
Why We’re Not Going to the ELCA Youth Gathering
Disclaimer: Read this First! November 11, 2007, I wrote the original version of the post below as part of a larger series on a new way to do youth ministry. I have copied and pasted it with a few slight edits to make it applicable to this year’s ELCA Youth Gathering. So, please understand that […]
A New Job
Yesterday was my first day at my new job. Okay, that might be a little bit of a stretch. Yesterday my job at Hope Lutheran Church changed from Youth Director to Director of Youth and Ministry Development. Our Associate Pastor of Ministry Development, Wendy Berthelsen, decided that she wanted to devote her time to the […]
A Trinitarian Model for YM – Conclusion
In addition to confirmation, opportunities for cross-cultural engagement will provide students an opportunity to consider the “other.” In a culture where selfishness, affluence, and “success” abound, teens would benefit from building relationships with those who are vastly different than them. Hopefully, this would take the form of something more than a typical mission trip, but […]
Craig Van Gelder on the Church as Hermeneutic
From The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit: As the church lives “into” and “out of” the biblical story, its life is transformed by its power. The biblical story is contextualized in the life of the church. The church becomes, in fact, the hermeneutic of the gospel. That is, the world […]
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