“Our birth inscribes us as beings-in-relation to others. But we do not always honor that birth or those relations.”1 — Mayra Rivera Rivera While I traveled as a singer-songwriter and kind of artist-missionary, songs became a way to enter the stories of the people I met. I formed friendships within the prisons of Bolivia and […]
Welcome to Let’s Talk
We invite submission of papers and talks from members of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the ELCA, talks given to members of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, or articles from other pastors and theologians, not limited to ELCA. Send submissions in Word docx. to fcsenn70@gmail.com.
The Changing Face of Law and Gospel
As someone who will celebrate his second year as a Lutheran on his first day of Divinity school, I find it hard to look towards the future of the Lutheran church when I am still grasping at its past. I can watch the Lutheran church divide over sexuality without the story of Seminex coming to […]
Skeptical Youth and Prophetic Ministry
Attendance is down, giving is down; one could be forgiven for getting the sense that the Church isn’t doing too well these days. And nowhere is that more apparent than with our youth. I work with the high school youth group in my home congregation. The youth leaders at my church share a concern that […]
Economic Downturn and the Church’s Mission to Serve
Imagine if you will, a double pendulum suspended from a great height. At the end of a long wire is a large spherical mass. From the bottom of that sphere another wire of some length, shorter than the first, extends to another smaller sphere. The first mass is moved a distance away from the center […]
Be My People!
I’ve heard a number of people talk about what they would do if they won the lottery. Most of us have probably given some thought about what we would do if we suddenly had resources most people only dream about. Since December 2007 (the date economists give for the start of the Great Recession), however, […]
Not the Way to Show Compassion
The voice on the phone was hesitant and apologetic. The story that unfolded was as follows. He said he was a German translator. He had worked in Berlin and Leipzig, but work was drying up so he returned to the United States with his wife and six children. He had taught German and Latin in […]
The Unexpected Struggle of LVC
When the financial recession began, I had been working as the Chicago/Milwaukee City Coordinator for the Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC) for almost two years. My colleagues and I didn’t know what to expect for the upcoming years. Would we have to downsize? Would our partner nonprofits and social ministries be able to afford LVC volunteers? […]
Stewardship Strategy
In April, a group of pastors held the first annual “Epic Fail” conference in Pennsylvania. If the reviews are to be believed, they gamely and genuinely questioned an experience many pastors grow painfully accustomed to: Attend a ministry conference. Sit through a hyper-successful, charismatic pastor’s high-octane delivery. Leave the conference with, a) the knowledge their […]
Vision, Mission, and Recession
Reading the title for this issue of Let’s Talk, “The Church’s Mission in Financial Recession,” my mind wanders in two different, though not unrelated, directions. As a pastor who has spent almost 30 years in congregations living in impoverished conditions or in relationship with people critically impacted by the systems and structures of poverty, I […]
Stewardship in Hard Economic Times
Last year, our congregation president, a sales executive, lost her job. She’s still not working. A few months ago, our former treasurer, a CPA with a finance company, was also let go. And two months ago, the son of a couple in our congregation, a painter who did beautiful work with home interiors, lost his […]
“Religionless” Again for the First Time
I have made two visits to St. Augustine’s House in Oxford, Michigan. The first was in 2006, after my second year of divinity school and my summer clinical pastoral education unit with a hospice care provider, and before my endorsement interviews and my wedding. The second, deferred for the sake of internship, the arrival of […]
Rods and Blessings
And Moses answered and said, “But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.” And the LORD said unto him, “What is that in thine hand?” And he said, “A rod” (Exodus 4:1-2). It has always been difficult convincing un-churched twenty […]
The ELCA and the Economic Downturn
What effect has the economic downturn had on the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)? The ELCA is church in three interdependent expressions: the churchwide organization, synods, and congregations. Or, as St. Paul would have it, when one member in the body suffers, we all suffer. When we all suffer, well, maybe new life finally […]
Proclaiming the Good News
That both the Gospel at the heart of Christian mission and the family of words related to evangelism derive from the New Testament phrase “good news” is a commonplace. Yet what is known to every Sunday school student and confirmand in our congregations seems to be all but forgotten in our reflections on mission. More […]
Evangelization and Religious Diversity
The very being of the Church is inextricably tied up with its participation in the mission of the Triune God. That this mission involves “evangelization,” that is, bearing witness in the power of the Holy Spirit to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by word and deed, as individuals and in community, is not to be […]
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