Editor’s note: Part one explored how a grant awarded by Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Thriving Congregations Initiative has impacted St. Olaf College’s Nourishing Vocation Project. In the Minneapolis Area Synod, which…
Imagine measuring congregational vitality by how alive people and faith communities feel in their gathering and in their interactions with their neighbors, instead of determining success by counting the number…
More than two decades after the ELCA and The Episcopal Church became full communion partners, congregations from both denominations are joining forces in arrangements that many see as the way…
Henry Zorn, a pastor of Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Cincinnati, is never at a loss for words to describe how the congregation’s disaster-relief ministry benefits people. From helping…
Beginning in the 1960s, Lutherans adopted a unique way of equipping people for ministry, as Christian leadership formation is described in Ephesians 4. A year serving a congregation as an…
Kyle Svennungsen is a missionary in Bratislava, Slovakia, where, among other duties, he is pastor of the English-speaking Bratislava International Church. Its worship space in the city’s Old Town borough…
Some of the sagest advice we receive in this life can sound like a simple thing we already know deep in our bodies, but it gains authority when we hear…
This year some 5,600 older adults who are isolated, homebound, disabled and/or living on a fixed income in Washington or Oregon will receive a visit from Santa. But don’t tell…
For many Christians, meals begin not with picking up a fork but with a moment of silence to give thanks. For Jessica Cameron, who lives in a food desert, that…
Focal verse “Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Corinthians 16:14). Reflection One word guides the way I teach Sunday school: love. On the first day of…
One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories happened in holy surprise. I had been called to my first parish in Chicago, and traveling to see family wouldn’t be convenient. My wife…
Roxana Boroujerdi had spent decades as a social worker serving youth in Everett, Wash., when she opted for a change of pace in her career: She opened an ice cream…
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