In the previous issue of Let’s Talk, contributors weighed in on the question “Should we evangelize?” The focus of this issue, centering around our synod’s vision for “turning around” our congregations from inwardness and complacency to Spirited evangelical mission, proceeds very naturally to the question “How do Lutherans do that?” Too often we take cover […]

“Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” These words from Joel, heard on Ash Wednesday, are a liturgical sentence sung throughout Lent. Lent is a season of repentance, of turning around. It originated as the time in which the candidates for baptism […]

Breaking Open the Scriptures It’s a cloudy Sunday morning in early February as I pull up outside of the parish center of St Vincent De Paul Roman Catholic Church. In the basement, a group of about a dozen young adults are gathered in a circle. I ease my way into the room quietly and sit […]

 What do we mean when we say we should repent? The concept of repentance appears throughout the Bible, yet when its theme returns the accents and the texture often change. The topic of repentance in the Bible requires careful translation and an openness to ancient ideas of repentance. We cannot assume that if we […]

The new years walk, restoring Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring With a new verse the ancient rhyme T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, I took a class entirely on the poetry of T.S. Eliot. I don’t remember now what made me so eager, […]

I heard this story from the bishop of another synod: A woman was talking with him and said that she thought her smallish congregation was “just the right size” the way it was and shouldn’t try to get bigger. He asked, “Do you think there might be one person left in the neighborhood of your […]