The Crossings Blog

Co-Missioners, For the third week running we send you thoughts from our editor. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Glimpses of Easter: The Eucharist as a Visual Gift “Now we see in a mirror, dimly….” —1 Cor. 13:12 I saw a flash of Easter last Sunday at the congregation I serve. It had been while since the last glimpse—thirteen weeks, to ...

Co-Missioners, Our editor shares some clarification on the item we sent you last week about under-told Gospel and its present consequences. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Law or Gospel? A Follow-up to the Post of June 11 A treasured colleague sent me an unhappy note about last week’s post. I wish I could share it. One paragraph in particular ...

Co-Missioners, Our editor speaks his mind today. With fear and trembling, he adds. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community George Floyd as a Summons to Lutheran Repentance If anyone is in Christ—new creation! The old is gone. Look! Here is the new! —2 Cor. 5:17 On March 23 I started posting a daily devotion on my congregation’s website. This was the ...

Co-missioners, George Floyd is dead. Our cities burn. The nation is awash in wrath, judgment, recrimination and dumbfounded dismay. Against this backdrop, we send you the sermon that Pastor Nathan Hall of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity, North Conway, New Hampshire, delivered to his flock last Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost. It comes to you ...

Co-Missioners, We’ve been hearing about America’s dwindling churches for several years now. The evidence is easy to find. The trends in your own congregation will likely provide some. Or look at your judicatory’s reports to see how any of its churches have dissolved over the past five years. Steve Kuhl serves an Episcopal congregation that is presently ...

Co-Missioners, Today is the Feast of the Ascension, the most underplayed and underappreciated occasion in the entire church year. Or so opines our editor, Jerry Burce, who trolled his files for an argument that the Gospel on this day is as thunderously good as the Gospel can get. What we send you is the better part ...

Co-Missioners, Today Steve Albertin tackles a question that many are quietly asking, and few are daring to face. Avoidance is rampant also in swathes of the church, where one would wish to find backbones sufficiently stiffened in Christ to have honest and forthright discussions about matters like this. How pleased we are to assume that all ...

Co-Missioners, From Richard Gahl comes another installment in his ongoing series on the mission of the Church. We send it along for your reflection and encouragement. Dick’s closing observations prompt us to remind you of a forthcoming series of Bread for the World webinars. We mentioned these two weeks ago. They’re scheduled for May 19 through May ...

Co-Missioners, Death is on a tear this week. A few days ago, Sherman Lee, one of Crossings’ co-executive directors, lost his father to covid-19. In the wretchedness of this hapless world, Alfred Lee is now a digit in that ever-mounting number of U. S. coronavirus victims, 60,000 and counting by yesterday’s report. The report we get ...

Co-Missioners, A few weeks ago we invited a handful of writers to reflect on the current pandemic from their particular areas of interest or expertise. Today we send the first of these. It’s a pastoral letter that Steven Kuhl sent recently to the flock he serves through St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in South Milwaukee. Steve is ...