The Crossings Blog

Co-missioners, We’re in the middle of Lent today, yet we bring you a reflection on the Gospel for the Third Sunday after Epiphany. Steve Kuhl sent it our way toward the end of January when the pipeline was still choked with ruminations on the events of January 6. As it happens, Steve’s piece is the perfect complement to Dick Gahl’s …

Co-missioners, The item we send you this week is uncharacteristically brief. It’s also plain, as down-to-earth ordinary as ordinary gets. It doesn’t sound at all like “theology.” We think it’s worth your attention anyway. Our editor calls it the finest example he’s seen of Crossings theology encapsulated in a 250-word devotion. For more on this, see said editor’s uncharacteristically brief …

Co-missioners, Our mission correspondent, Richard Gahl, returns this week with a quick missiocentric tour of the Gospel of Mark, the one that those of us who follow the Revised Common Lectionary are hearing from at church this year. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Mission in the Gospel of Mark by Richard Gahl In previous posts I examined the Gospels …

Co-missioners, This is the fifth and final installment in a sequence of posts addressing the riot in Washington D.C. on January 6. An unintended sequence, we add. One post led to the other which led to the next, all with little or no planning along the way. We babbled, as it were—so much to be said. There comes a time, …

Co-missioners, Come Saturday it will be a month since we saw the images streaming from Washington, D.C. of things we never imagined taking place in the United States of America. The event has unleashed a Noah’s flood of commentary and reflection, of which our last three posts have been the merest drop. Turns out we have two half-drops to go—today’s …

Co-missioners, At the end of last week’s post our editor, Jerry Burce, promised a third installment of some unfolding reflections arising from the Capitol riot of January 6 and responses thereto. What comes your way instead this week is an interlude of sorts—more grist for that third grinding, as Jerry wants to put it. A year and a half ago …

Co-missioners, This is Part II of what seems to be evolving into a three-part series by our editor on the tumult of January 6. We pray you find it of use. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community A Sermon in the Wake of the Capitol Riot by Jerome Burce Preface “Yes, there is Gospel sufficient to our …

Co-missioners, We pass along the first part of an unfolding reflection by our editor. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community First Thoughts on the Sack of the Capitol by Jerome Burce The last thing anyone can need or want today is another loud and lengthy fulmination about the wickedness that unfolded in Washington D.C. a week ago. …

Co-missioners, We are either a week or a day late with this post, depending on the item that grabs your eye. The day-late item is a prod to take a look—or another look—at Ed Schroeder’s “Take the Jerusalem Bypass.” Call it a sermon. Alternatively, call it an exercise in Law/Gospel theology at the ground-floor level of everyday …

Co-missioners, On this seventh day of Christmas we send along a letter that popped into our editor’s inbox on Christmas Eve. It came from Michael Hoy, the editor of two posthumously published books by Robert W. Bertram. Mike has spent much of this year working hard on a book of his own, on the topic of hope. …