The Crossings Blog

Co-Missioners, This week we share an exercise in practical, urgent, and down-to-earth theology, anchored in the word and promise of Christ—or so we hope you’ll find it to be. It’s one of what we guess are several thousand letters that pastors around the U.S. have dispatched in recent days to congregants beset with anxiety over COVID-19, ...

Co-Missioners, Our gift today is a homily for Ash Wednesday by the Rev. Dr. Bruce K. Modahl. He preached it twelve years ago at Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, Illinois. Its pertinence to Christ-confessors everywhere in 2020 will be obvious as you read. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Learning to Beg An Ash Wednesday Homily by Rev. Dr. Bruce ...

Co-Missioners, Our editor weighs in again with a few notes on things that have lately snagged his eye—all pertinent to the mission-minded, he thinks. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community “Mixed Observations, All Brief” Transfiguration Terrors Anyone destined this coming Sunday to attend a church that uses the Revised Common Lectionary is going to hear St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ transfiguration. ...

Co-Missioners, We send you to our library this week for another gem that lies there unnoticed—though perhaps not forgotten by those who followed Thursday Theology in the days when Ed Schroeder was its editor and main contributor. This item dates to February, 2007, the year the iPhone revolutionized the way we communicate and transact our daily ...

Co-Missioners, A week and a half ago Michael Hoy sent us a reflection on the impeachment trial that ended yesterday. It still bears reading. Mike served for a time as a Crossings editor. He is also the scholar who ushered two books by Bob Bertram into posthumous publication. God grant the repentance that Mike invokes. Peace and Joy, The ...

The Homiletical Bind: Preaching Law and Gospel in the Congregation

Co-Missioners, On a day when our editor is still scrambling to get his wits together in the wake of this week’s Crossings conference, we send along a bit of follow-up to last week’s post on the politics of Epiphany. There will be more of that in coming weeks. The aim for now is simply to stir ...

Co-Missioners, We send along a piece of commentary by our editor. “Unfinished,” he calls it, and for several reasons. Feedback is welcome. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community The Politics of Epiphany by Jerome Burce Many years ago I imagined the Word of God working on me the way a stream of water works on a piece of granite. It takes ...

Mission in St. Matthew Co-Missioners, St. Matthew is the Gospel being heard this year in churches that follow the three-year lectionary. So we send along some tips from Richard Gahl on how it speaks to our calling as agents of the Gospel, dispatched week after week to those corners of the world we inhabit in 2020. Peace and ...

The Hebrew Stories Swimming Beneath Jesus’s Baptism Co-Missioners, Today’s post is the briefest ever, at least where our own writers are concerned. It consists of a link we want you to follow to a little essay by Chad Bird. Bird will be one of the key presenters at our forth coming conference (January 26-29). Here, then, is ...