Thursday Theology: Resources for Holy Week Preaching and Listening

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 you to. …

Thursday Theology: A Cancer Patient’s Sermon on John 12:20-33

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 spread the …

Thursday Theology: Reflections on “Faith” and on “Following Jesus”

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 Father has …

Thursday Theology: A Baptismal Reflection on Psalm 90

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 …

Thursday Theology: Seminex Recollections by Michael Hoy and Amandus Derr

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 the …

Thursday Theology: “Sleep Tight!” A Homily for Evening Prayer

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 Metevelis, …

Thursday Theology: A Pastor’s Lamentation

Co-missioners, Today’s post is intended as something of a witness to everyone who loves the church in these years of its American decline. Our writer is Matt Metevelis. We’ll hear from him again next week. If you follow Thursday Theology, you’ll have encountered him a couple of times last year. He’s also one of the newer additions to …

Thursday Theology: The Crossings-Seminex Connection

Co-missioners, Today’s post is largely a reprint of an item buried in the corner of our Crossings website where old newsletters get lodged. The date on this one is Advent, 2006. It was published a month or two before our first-ever Crossings conference and devotes some space to touting the event. It was an ambitious conference, to say …

Thursday Theology: Remembering Seminex in 2024. An Introduction

Co-missioners, We are nine days shy of the fiftieth anniversary of a momentous event in the recent history of U.S. Lutheranism—or even, one might argue, of American Christianity. The year was 1974. On the evening of January 20, bells began tolling on the campus of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, the premier theological institution of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. …