What is a thriving congregation? (Part two)
Faith in Action

What is a thriving congregation? (Part two)

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…

What is a thriving congregation? (Part one)
Faith in Action

What is a thriving congregation? (Part one)

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…

Lutherpalians
Faith in Action

Lutherpalians

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…

Equipping for ministry
Mission & Ministry

Equipping for ministry

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…

An ordinary blessing for Christmas
Faith in Action

An ordinary blessing for Christmas

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…

Love coming down
Faith in Action

Love coming down

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…

On holy harvests and chopsticks
Faith in Action

On holy harvests and chopsticks

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…