The Crossings Blog

Thursday Theology -full listing Crossings Film Series
  • A Crosser’s Guide to Apology IV (Part One of Six)
    Co-missioners, Students of all ages are heading back to school this week in many parts of the U.S. It’s an apt time for Thursday Theology readers to do the same. With this in mind, we send you the first installment of a six-week-long introduction to one of the fundamental documents that Crossings-style theology takes its clues from. ...
  • A Refreshing Dose of Public Honesty
    Co-missioners, Our editor ran across another article this week that he wants to tell you about. We also pass along that our next post will reach you on August 24th. Those responsible for getting them to you will be busy next week with our annual board meeting. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________   A Refreshing Dose of Public Honesty by Jerome ...
  • A Bit of Gospel, A Bit of Law, A Bit of Astonishment. An Announcement Too
    Co-missioners, We pass along four brief items from our editor. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________   A Bit of Gospel, A Bit of Law, A Bit of Astonishment. An Announcement Too by Jerome Burce Gospel I start this week with a passage from Robert Farrar Capon’s The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel against the Wisdom of the World (Eerdmans, 1998). Two things ...
  • Lowdown Love: A Sermon on Matthew 15:10-28
    Co-missioners, We’re four weeks shy of a Sunday that will rub our faces in Matthew’s tough account of Jesus’ back-and-forth with the Canaanite woman. Today we send you an example—in advance for once—of how this text can be tapped so that it gushes with Gospel for 2023. Feel free to borrow ideas, or even better, to ...
  • Johann Agricola’s Catechism for Girls
    Co-missioners, Last week Carol Braun wrestled with questions about teaching children to pray. This week Paul Jaster draws from a little-known artifact of early Reformation history to imagine how today’s parents might anchor their children in some other essentials of the faith they get to use and enjoy. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________   Johann Agricola’s Catechism for Girls Adapted ...
  • Teach Us to Pray
    Co-missioners, Carol Braun reflects again this week on the challenges of faithful parenting. As she wrestles with the question of how to encourage habits of prayer in younger children, she’ll nudge us all toward a more reckless and joyful confidence in the praying we do. Carol and her family live in the Hudson Valley. You’ll likely have ...
  • Robert Bertram on “The Twice-Free Student—or Citizen.” (Part Two)
    Co-missioners, Here is the second half of Robert Bertram’s 1968 commencement address at Concordia Senior College. Back then, had Bob already tumbled to the terminology of Diagnosis and Prognosis that he would later bequeath to Crossings? If not, he was certainly practicing what the terms describe. Last week you got an expert’s diagnosis of the way freedom ...
  • Robert Bertram on “The Twice-Free Student—or Citizen.” (Part One)
    Co-missioners, Americans will celebrate the Fourth of July this weekend. We can’t think of a better time to send you a reflection on freedom by the late great Robert W. Bertram. Bob took this topic up fifty-five years ago in an address to the graduating class of a late, great school, Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne, ...
  • On the Fear and Love of God
    Co-missioners, We send along a sermon Steve Albertin shared with us recently. He preached it this past May 14th at Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Carmel, Indiana, on the north side of Indianapolis. Steve will soon be wrapping up a year of service there as Interim Pastor. He has also served for many years on the Crossings ...
  • St. Paul’s Dangerous Idea (Part 3)
    Co-missioners, For the past two weeks Steve Kuhl has been exploring how St. Paul thinks about God, and how this contrasts with presumptions common to much of American Christianity. Today we send along the final section of Steve’s essay. A reminder that we extracted the essay from a longer paper Steve presented in 1997 at a ...