The Crossings Blog

Thursday Theology -full listing Crossings Film Series
  • Heavenly Places? That’s You
    Co-Missioners, Here’s another “golden oldie,” as its author would have called it. We found it lurking in our library. It will startle as much or more today as it did when it first saw light forty-four years ago. Is there a one of us who has dared to think of ourselves in terms like these? To ...
  • The Jesus Mask
    Co-Missioners, Today we share what might be called an exercise in devotional theology. It comes from our editor, Jerome Burce. Back in March, when the church he serves shut down its regular operations, he started posting a daily devotion to the congregation’s Facebook page (“Messiah Lutheran Church of Fairview Park”). That’s one way of working from ...
  • Ed Schroeder on Thankfulness
    Co-Missioners, We take you this week for another dip in our library, where we dredged up a twenty-nine year old article that Ed Schroeder wrote for Lutheran Women Today, an erstwhile publication of the ELCA. You’ll wonder, perhaps, why we bother you with it. It seems on the surface to be altogether irrelevant to the urgencies ...
  • The Lord’s Prayer as a Prayer for Mission
    Co-Missioners, Today’s offering by our mission correspondent, Richard Gahl, will introduce you to the theologian who is credited with putting the term missio Dei—the mission of God—at the center of missiological conversation over the past several decades. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Georg Vicedom’s “The Lord’s Prayer: A Prayer for Mission” A Review by Richard Gahl Georg Vicedom’s The Mission of ...
  • Mask or No Mask? Crossing Elisha and Dr. Fauci
    Co-Missioners, We’re pleased to send you a meaty, down-to-earth reflection on one of this summer’s hot issues in the U.S. Our thanks to Steven Kuhl for thinking it through and writing it out. A reminder that thoroughly Lutheran Steve is the rector of St. Mark’s Church, an Episcopal congregation in South Milwaukee. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Mask ...
  • Best Practices for the Post-Pandemic Church
    Co-Missioners, In the seminary days that some of us remember, they called it “practical theology.” This was the curriculum’s how-to section, offering courses in everything that pastors were expected to do: preaching, teaching, counseling, evangelizing, managing a congregation, and the like. Some students thrived in this. Others opted for as few such classes as they could ...
  • The Peril and Promise of Holy Love
    Co-Missioners, Our writer this week is Carol Braun, a former co-editor of Thursday Theology. Carol also served for a while on the Crossing Board. She was featured about a month ago in the first episode of Crossings’ latest film series, “God’s Peace / God’s Justice.” To learn more of who she is and what she does ...
  • Ed Schroeder on Faith and Risk
    Co-Missioners, We send you to our library this week for another gem that’s hidden there. It’s a quick little piece. Ed Schroeder wrote it in 1975, a year into the high-risk venture called Concordia Seminary in Exile—Seminex, for short, and, soon thereafter, Christ Seminary—Seminex. No wonder that risk is the topic Ed takes up here. He ...
  • Crossing Our American Moment through Psalm 13
    Co-Missioners, Steven Kuhl is our writer this week. He sends along a reflection he prepared for the congregation he serves in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He submitted it under the title “Sing to the Lord: What to do when Times are Tough.” We’ve taken the liberty of replacing that with one more suited to this audience. Before we ...
  • Glimpses of Easter: The Eucharist as a Visual Gift
    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 ...