In Christ for Good: The Gospel and Christian Behavior
A conference for laity and clergy
This conference will explore how trusting Christ gives a distinct shape to the behavior of baptized people.
Our approach to this topic will include a review of the peculiar Lutheran distinction between Law and Gospel. We will ask how this deepens and enriches our understanding of human behavior in general, and of so-called “Christian” behavior in particular.
We will also ask what is meant by the expression “God-pleasing behavior.” Then we’ll explore how best to encourage this in ourselves and in the baptized people we share our lives with. Is it by rehearsing God’s expectations of us (i.e. preaching the Law)? Or is it by rehearsing what God has done and continues do for us specifically in Christ (i.e. preaching the Gospel)? Or is it a mix of both?
In passing we will want to acknowledge the enormous good that God gets done through people who know next to nothing of Christ and wouldn’t dream of calling him Lord. We will also ask if “doing peace and justice” is, as many assert these days, a sufficient description of God’s goal for baptized people. We may well press the question: “Whose peace? Whose justice?”
You will learn much. You will have great fun in doing so. We pray you can join us.
Jerry Burce
President
The Crossings Community
Conference Schedule (subject to change)
In Christ for Good: The Gospel and Christian Behavior A conference for laity and clergy
3:00 – 5:00 pm Arrive/Registration
5:30 – 6:20 Dinner
6:30 – 7:45 Session 1: “In Christ for Good ” (Ella Moehlman, Coordinator)
8:00 – 8:30 Evening Chapel
8:45 – Evening Fellowship: Pop-up Wine & Cheese Bar, Board Games, Whiskey Tasting
7:30 – 8:20 Breakfast
8:30 – 9:00 Morning Chapel
9:30 – 10:30 Session 2: “What is Crossings? Theological Grounding and Six Steps ” (Marcus Felde and Alex LaChapelle )
10:30 – 11:00 am Break
11:00– 12:30 Sesssion 3 “Preaching Law & Gospel and the Consequences of Grace ” (Glenn Monson)
12:30 – 1:20 pm Lunch
1:30 – 3:00 Session 4: “Living Out Our Faith and Hope as the Crucified and Risen Body of Christ ” (Fred Niedner )
3:00 – 3:30 Break
3:30 – 5:00 Session5: Wrestling Jacob and a Series of Tubes: How the Passive Life Gets Things Done (Adam Morton )
5:30 – 6:20 Dinner
6:30– 8:00 Session 6: How God Uses the Gospel (In and Through Us) (Kit Kleinhans )
8:15 – 8:45 Evening Chapel
8:45 – Evening Fellowship: Pop-up Wine & Cheese Bar, Board Games, Whiskey Tasting
7:30 – 8:20 Breakfast
8:30 – 9:00 Morning Chapel
9:05 – 10:30 Session 7: (Robin Lütjohann)
10:30 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:30 Session 8: Report from the Field: Preaching Mentoring Program
12:30 – 1:20 pm Lunch
1:30 – 3:30 Session 9: “In Christ from 9 to 5 ” (Lay Presenters and Panel)
3:30 – 5:15 Free Time – interest groups may meet, swimming, walking trails etc.
5:30 – 6:30 Dinner
7:00 – 8:00 Eucharist Worship
8:30 – Evening Fellowship with wine and cheese, board games, whiskey tasting
7:30 – 8:20 Breakfast
8:30 – 9:45 Session 10: Panel with our Speakers
10:15– 11:30 Session 11: “What is Crossings? Revisited” (Marcus Felde and Alex LaChapelle)
11:45 – 12:15 pm Closing Chapel
12:30 Lunch (boxed option)
January 11-14, 2026
Pallottine Renewal Center
St. Louis, MO (20 minutes from St. Louis Airport)
At the Conference
Ella Mohelman
Ella Moehlman is a pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Lisbon, ND. A life-long Lutheran, she grew up in central Illinois; studied creative writing and classics at Hope College in Holland, MI; taught English at the Evanjelicke Lyceum in Bratislava, Slovakia; and went to seminary in Berkeley, CA. She is also a wife, mother, avid gardener, and lover of cats, books, and thrifting for unique clothes.
Kit Kleinhans
The Rev. Dr. Kathryn (Kit) Kleinhans recently retired after seven and a half years as head of Trinity Lutheran Seminary at Capital University, following 24 1/2 years teaching at Wartburg College, where she held the Mike and Marge McCoy Family Distinguished Chair in Lutheran Heritage and Mission. She is a fifth-generation Lutheran pastor with a passion for the Gospel and degrees in theology from Valparaiso University, Christ Seminary - Seminex, and Emory University.
Alex LaChapelle
Rev Alex LaChapelle currently lives in Marquette, MI, working at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, as well as Campus Ministry at Northern Michigan University. Because of his love of the outdoors, Alex has found Marquette to be a great place to reconnect with nature, especially given its proximity to Lake Superior. Alex has a passion for youth ministry and camp ministry, loves to discuss preaching and worship, and spends too much time reminiscing about his glory days as a mediocre pickleball and tennis player.
Robin Lütjohann
Rev. Robin Lütjohann hails from Berlin, Germany, and has been serving as pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 2015. He graduated from nearby Harvard Divinity School in 2013, where he now co-teaches Lutheran Confessions to ELCA seminarians and others. He is board chair of common cathedral, a street church for unhoused people in Boston, and a member of the Crossings board.
Adam Morton
Adam Morton grew up on an assortment of US Air Force bases, and is the son, brother, and nephew (three times over) of Lutheran pastors. A graduate of Luther College and Luther Seminary, he is ordained in the ELCA and served parishes in central Pennsylvania for the better part of a decade. In 2022 he completed his PhD in theology at the University of Nottingham and relocated there with his family to take up a research position (aka, writing a strange book he still hasn't finished). These days he teaches theology within a very large philosophy department and inflicts as much Luther on his students as he can get away with. His wife Tasha, also ordained in the ELCA, is somehow a priest in the Church of England and in charge of two medieval churches and all the souls in a sizable chunk of the east side of Nottingham. Their math and NFL-obsessed son John is in Year 6 (UK equivalent of 5th grade) and speaks with an increasingly funny accent. Adam likes food, games with too many rules, and shouting at his cats and various pieces of technology.
Glenn Monson
Glenn L. Monson is an active pastor in the ELCA, having served congregations in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. He has degrees from Luther College (B.A.), Northwestern University (M.M.), Luther-Northwestern Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (D. Min.). His preaching method, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted;A Brief Guide to Law and Gospel Preaching, (2015) has been used globally and was published in Swahili by Soma Biblia Press in 2024. He is also the author of several popular daily devotionals, Quarantining with God, (2021), and Together Again with God, (2023). He is also the writer of an active preaching blog "Law and Gospel Everywhere," and a contributing writer to the Crossings Community text study.
Candice Wassell
Candice Wassell is a mom, wife and pastor living in O'Fallon, Illinois. She serves as senior pastor alongside the disciples at Faith Lutheran Church. She credits Crossings for "raising" her in the faith and helping her understand the Promise we have in Christ crucified. She golfs, reads, Facebooks, drinks soda, and plays cards. She's baptized.
Fred Niedner
Fred Niedner taught biblical studies at Valparaiso University for 40 years and is currently Senior Research Professor in Theology. An ante-bellum M.Div. grad of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, he received his Th.D. from Christ Seminary--Seminex in 1979. He preaches regularly, mostly in small, rural churches, and does workshops and writing for several organizations that support the ministry of preaching.
Marcus Felde
Marcus Felde is a retired Lutheran pastor who spent fourteen years as a missionary in Papua New Guinea and twenty-six as pastor of three congregations in Indiana. He holds degrees from Seminex (M.Div. and D.Min.) and the University of Chicago (Ph.D.). He has served Crossings as a text study writer, newsletter editor, board member, and president. He lives with his wife Christine in South Bend, Indiana.
About Us
In the early 1970s two seminary professors listened to the plea of some lay Christians. “Can you help us live out our faith in the world of daily work?” they asked. “Can you help us connect Sunday worship with our lives the other six days of the week?” That is how Crossings was born.
The Crossings Community, Inc. welcomes all people looking for a practice they can carry beyond the walls of their church service and into their daily lives. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, or gender in any policies or programs.
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