The Crossings Blog

Co-missioners, Christ may be risen indeed, yet countless people for whom he died don’t believe this, nor will they in their lifetimes. All too many don’t know of Christ at all. What becomes of them when all is done? Dare we assume that God gives up on them? Christian thinkers have tussled with this question since the ...

Co-missioners, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Much of the Church will hear Christ saying this again three days from now, on the Second Sunday of Easter. The day’s appointed Gospel is John 20:19-31. That this text gets read on Easter 2 in every year of the three-year lectionary cycle that lots ...

Co-missioners, Assorted musings led me this week to an old Good Friday hymn that I recall from my childhood. Written by John Ellerton, a nineteenth-century Church of England cleric, it featured one of those first-line titles that tends to stick in a boy’s memory. “Throned Upon the Awful Tree”—thus Ellerton. The later editors of the Missouri ...

Co-missioners, This past February 20 featured one of the biggest gatherings yet for an online Crossings event. It was the second of two episodes in our Table Talk series devoted to the fiftieth anniversary of Seminex. Over twenty participants were asked to offer brief reflections on the following questions: What was Seminex really about, and why? How has ...

Co-missioners, Today we set a new record for the shortest Thursday Theology post ever. It will also be one of the meatiest posts ever. That’s because we’re sending you some links to items on our website that we urge you to explore between now and next Thursday. It will involve more reading than we usually summon ...

Co-missioners, The Rev. Lori Cornell surprised us late last week with a submission for Thursday Theology. We can’t help but share it with you today, our first chance for doing so. That the work is pegged to the Gospel text for the Sunday after next is the lesser reason for the rush. The greater is to ...

Co-missioners, Consider this word, the one we’ve been greeting you with for the past six years: “co-missioners.” As in “fellow participants in the great, ongoing mission of the baptized.” As in people to whom the Instigator of that mission was also speaking on the first night of Easter when he said to his disciples, “As the ...

Co-missioners, Today’s quotable quote: “The Message makes the messenger.” You’ll find it in this timely reflection by one of last week’s authors, our interim text-study editor, Mike Hoy. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community ______________________________________________________________________   A Baptismal Reflection on Psalm 90 by Michael Hoy   My brother and his spouse ordered a special gift for my birthday in 2022. Knowing my liking of ...

Co-missioners, Five Thursdays ago we announced an intention to devote some of our posts this year to the story of Seminex and its implications for the Church’s mission in 2024. The present work of Crossings is certainly rooted in that story, as we pointed out in our post of January 18. A few days after that post ...

Co-missioners, Sermons have long been featured in Thursday Theology. Even so, we try as a rule not to send you two of them in a row. Today this rule gets broken. For good reason, we think. Chances are that our last two posts left some of you grieving for the state of the church. Written by Matt ...