The Crossings Blog

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 ...

Co-missioners, Last week we sent you Matt Metevelis’ thoughts in the days before the last worship service at the congregation he’d been serving in Las Vegas. The service was held on Reformation Sunday, October 29, 2023. Matt preached. He sent us his manuscript. We share it with you here. In doing this, we invite prayers for the ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

Co-missioners, Once again our editor weighs in. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ Eleventh Day Observations by Jerome Burce   Here with a few reflections on this Eleventh Day of Christmas, one eye looking back at things completed and the other forward to matters pending— +  +  + Well, They Tried… “The church was packed, the music grand, the preaching so very disappointing.” Thus the ...

Co-missioners, With three days left before Christmas dawns, we send another batch of observations from our editor. Our thanks to God for all who read this, and for everyone who makes our work at Crossings possible. And a note that Crossings will not send out a Thursday Theology next week as the editor and team will be ...

Co-missioners, Today you’re getting a piece by the late Ed Schroeder that hasn’t been generally available until now. You won’t find it in our library. We understand that it surfaced from the files of the Rev. Ron Neustadt, one of Ed’s dear friends. Three days ago it landed in our editor’s lap. He promptly dropped what ...

Co-missioners, Today Steve Hitchcock helps us remember our late brother, the Rev. Art Simon, an LCMS pastor who founded Bread for the World. In doing so, he led innumerable Christians, including many at Crossings, to think more broadly and vigorously about their vocation as baptized people. Steve, who knew Art well, will discuss this. He’ll also ...