The Crossings Blog
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Co-missioners, Last week our editor stumbled across a little piece he wrote two decades ago. It was intended as an appendix to an essay on justification that appeared in Gospel Blazes in the Dark, Crossings’ 2005 festschrift for Ed Schroeder. For some reason the appendix didn’t make the cut when …
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Co-missioners, Today we share a revised version of Lori Cornell’s homily at our recent Crossings conference. Lori preached at the Tuesday evening Eucharist. Our thanks to her for having taken the time to prepare it for publication. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community _______________________________________________________________ Not the God We Want, but the …
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Co-missioners, Today our editor offers some initial reflections on last week’s Crossings conference. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________ A Post-Conference Effusion by Jerome Burce The then-pending Crossings conference I wrote about two weeks ago is now behind us. I caught a lot of happy sounds on the event’s final …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: A Pastor’s Letter to his Small, Gritty Congregation
by Steve KuhlCo-missioners, The Rev. Dr. Steven Kuhl, a long-time leader in the Crossings Community, was serving five years ago as the rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in South Milwaukee. Early that year he sent a pastoral letter to the congregation addressing the financial straits they were in. His aim was …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Conference Updates and Recollections, with some Meat to Chew On
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, Today we send an update from our editor on the Crossings conference that starts this Sunday evening. Appended from a past conference is a piece of theological reflection that you will not want to miss. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ Crossings Conferences: A Bit of What’s Coming, A …
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Co-missioners, A new movie about Dietrich Bonhoeffer appeared in U.S. theaters within the past two months. You may have heard of it. Today we’re pleased to send you a thoughtful and timely review. Peace and Joy.The Crossings Community ____________________________________________________________________________ The Betrayal of Bonhoeffer and his Christ:A Review of the …
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Co-missioners, Some post-Christmas thoughts from our editor as we plunge toward Epiphany. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________________ Late Christmas Observations by Jerome Burce A Prelude of Sorts— Today is the Ninth Day of Christmas in Western Liturgical Time—WLT, if you will. In BST—Boring Secular Time—it’s a deflating January 2nd, …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: “God’s Christmas Break”: (A Homiletical Supplement, Crossings-Style)
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, A year ago today I heard from a Crossings veteran and dear friend who was gnashing her teeth over the sermon she had heard two nights earlier at an otherwise fabulous Christmas Eve service. There was no Gospel, she said. This friend was much in mind as I got …
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Co-missioners, Today we send you the second half of Fred Niedner’s address at the recent closing of the Lutheran School of Theology, St. Louis. If flows directly from the end of Part One where Fred has named the event as the funeral it is and declared his intention to “preach …
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Co-missioners, We’re about to jar you with a post that will sound distinctly un-Adventish. Is not this brief and blessed season about beginnings? A new church year? An old promise still lurking just past the horizon, and who can say when we’ll get to see it starting to unfold? How …
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December 5, 2024 Co-missioners, The Crossings Table Talk session this past October featured a lively discussion about Lutheran worship in the classic liturgical style. Today Marcus Felde explores the origins and theological rationale of “contemporary” worship, as it’s frequently called. Heavily featured in America’s small “e” evangelical churches, it has …
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Co-missioners, Today we send along—what else?—a Thanksgiving Day reflection. It was first thought out eleven years ago when Barack Obama was president of the United States. Its pertinence to the waning weeks of 2024 is eerily obvious, we think. God grant that this particular angle on the promises we have …
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November 21, 2024 Co-missioners, Our editor having spent last week more or less underwater, we favor you today with another reprint. Emphasis, by the way, on the word “favor” –such is the item we’re reprinting. It appeared in Thursday Theology twenty-one years ago. As with so many early ThTheol gems, …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Thoughts On Liturgy from Last Month’s Table Talk
by Carol BraunCo-missioners, In recent months, our Crossings Table Talk series has featured some especially lively theological conversations. The Table Talk of October 2024 was no exception. Our main speaker was the Rev. Amandus (Mandy) Derr, who retired in 2020 from a long career in Lutheran pastoral ministry. Mandy presented his thoughts …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: An Angle on the Raising of Lazarus as God’s Good Word for Us Today
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, Once again we send you an item a few days late—late, that is, if you happen to be a preacher who was looking for a fresh take on the Gospel text appointed for this past Sunday. Then again, not so late if you’re someone who sat through a sermon …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: A Deep Read and a Quick Poke for Reformation Day
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, We have two items for you on this 507th anniversary of Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses. Our editor stumbled across them recently and couldn’t help but pass them along. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ 1. A Deep Read (about faith and works, eventually) Today’s chief offering is …
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Co-missioners, Today we send you a homiletical reflection on one of the issues at hand as another bitter election bears down on us in the U.S. Steve Albertin wrote this. It’s an edited rerun of a sermon he preached at different congregations in the lead-up to the last two elections. …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: What’s Driving America’s Christian Nationalism
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, Our editor points you this week to an item published elsewhere that he urges you to read. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ What’s Driving America’s Christian Nationalism?by Jerome Burce I’ve caught some muttering in recent months about how Crossings should address the matter of so-called Christian Nationalism in …
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‘Now I Can Rest in Christ’s Embrace’ Dragged and Drawn — A Reflection By the Rev. Lori Cornell Several years back I was captivated by a poem entitled, “Drag Marks”— a satirical re-creation of the poem, “Footprints in the Sand.” The poem offered me a less saccharin version of Christ’s …
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Co-missioners, This week’s post is a little late. It’s personal too, as you’ll see. It also touches a little on a topic that’s come up in a number of conversations I’ve had over the past month. More on this next week, I trust. Peace and Joy, Jerome (Jerry) Burce, Editor …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On “Seminex Hermeneutics”: A Response to Ron Roschke (Part Two)
by Steve KuhlCo-missioners, Today Steve Kuhl continues his response to Ron Roschke on the topic of how the Scriptures were heard and listened to in the classrooms of Seminex a half-century ago. Simmering in the background is Steve’s reaction to Ron’s suggestion—see his posts of last April—that historical critical methodology needs to …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On “Seminex Hermeneutics”: A Response to Ron Roschke (Part One)
by Steve KuhlCo-missioners, Last April we sent you a two-part essay by Ron Roschke on the interpretive tools that shaped the theology of Christ Seminary—Seminex. One of these tools was the Historical Critical Method used by Seminex’s biblical scholars. The other was the distinction between Law and Gospel that the school’s confessional …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On Patches, Wineskins, and Online Teaching in the Age of Generative AI
by Carol BraunCo-missioners,With school resuming this month in the northern hemisphere, Carol Braun explores a pressing issue that she and teachers around the world are suddenly wrestling with these days. Carol, of course, approaches this from her Crossings perspective, inviting all of us to notice how Christ’s benefits are absolutely of use to …
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Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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Co-missioners,Steve Albertin, a longtime member of the Crossings Board of Directors and a co-host of our monthly Table Talk series, has just completed an assignment as interim pastor at King of Glory Lutheran Church in Carmel, Indiana. This was the third such assignment to have come his way since he …
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Faith Seeking Understanding Volume 2
FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING: Chapter 15 Am I REALLY a Christian?
Steve Albertin reflects on the question Am I REALLY a Christian?
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Faith Seeking Understanding Volume 2
FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING: Chapter 14 Do I have to get baptized or go to church?
Steve Albertin reflects on the questions Do I have to get baptized? Do I have to go to church?
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Faith Seeking Understanding Volume 2
FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING: Chapter 13 Were Adam & Eve Real People?
Steve Albertin reflects on the question “Were Adam and Eve real people?”
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Does prayer work? Can it change anything? Can it change God? Many think that prayer can never change God. If prayer changes anything, prayer changes us to accept what God is going to do anyway. Instead, prayer is “part two of a conversation started by God.” God starts the conversation by …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On the Mess and on Mark: A Little of Each
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, We have two items for you this week. The first is another response to our invitation of July 25 to send in thoughts about “the mess we are in.” The second is a quick reflection on the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community __________________________________________________________________ …
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BlogBy Jerome BurceThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: “Living Jesus-Smart.” A Re-cycled Homily
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, The writer scheduled for today begged off at the last minute, so our editor rummaged in his personal storehouse and dug up this. It’s most of a sermon he preached three years ago when the covid pandemic was still a pressing concern in the U.S. The texts that day …
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Co-missioners, One of us was poking around recently in a well-organized box of the late Ed Schroeder’s files. From it she extracted the sermon we send you today. Ed preached it on August 29, 2010, at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Belleville, Illinois, about fifteen miles east of St. Louis. …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: More Thoughts on the Mess We Are In (Set Three of ???)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Last month we started sharing brief reflections about the political and cultural state of the U.S. this summer as seen through the lenses of Crossings-style theology. We posted two sets of these reflections on consecutive Thursdays. Then came a break. Today we send you a third set. It combines …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Thoughts on the Mess We Are In (Set Two of ???)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, We meant it last week when we launched a community discussion of America’s current political and cultural situation as seen through the confessional lenses we use at Crossings. Today we send you two ice-breaking contributions to the conversation. One of them predates last week’s post. It first appeared on …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Thoughts on the Mess We Are In (Set One of ???)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Our editor sends an initial response to a question that came our way in recent days. Peace and Joy,The Crossings Community ____________________________________________________________________ Thoughts on the Mess We Are In (Set One of ???)Initiated by Jerome Burce Four Thursdays ago, the sitting president of the United States, aiming for a …
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Author Ron Roschke Ron Roschke is a retired ELCA pastor living in Denver, Colorado. He graduated from Valparaiso University in 1970 and from Concordia Seminary in Exile in 1974. He has served calls in Kansas, New York City, Colorado, and most recently served as an Assistant to the Bishop for …
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July 18, 2024 Co-missioners, Carol Braun, a long-time member of our Thursday Theology editorial team, reflects today on a question that likely weighs on countless others who are getting ready for another season of Christian education this fall. Parents and teachers will appreciate her insights. So will thoughtful pastors. Peace …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On the Persistence of Bad Lutheran Preaching (A Golden-Oldie Rerun)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, The year was 1977. Seminex was three years old. In recent months congregations distressed by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s turn to the right—its legalism, as they were quick to call it—had begun withdrawing to establish the new Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC). Moderates who remained in the LCMS …
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Co-missioners, On this Fourth of July 2024, when much weighs heavy on every thoughtful American mind and we who pray as a matter of course scarcely know where to start and even less how to pray together, some driven to beg God for this, others to beg God for its …
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Co-missioners, Nine years ago Chris Repp made a presentation at a Crossings seminar about the Augsburg Confession (AC) and how its opening articles overlap with the six steps of the Crossings Matrix. Some of us who heard the presentation at the time were impressed by the clarity with which Chris …
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Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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Co-missioners, This is your editor again with some follow-up to last week’s post. The topic, you may recall, was translation; specifically, translation as a task that all of us are bound to engage in as we go about the mission our Lord has given us. Came a note over the …
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Co-missioners, This is your editor, Jerry Burce, grabbing the reins for this week’s ride. I’ve spent the past several days visiting my father in Wisconsin. Every such visit gets me thinking again about my calling and yours as both missionary and translator. My father wore those labels officially during his …
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Faith Seeking Understanding Volume 2
FAITH SEEKING UNDERSTANDING: Chapter 11 What Makes the Christian Religion the right one?
The world is filled with religions all which ask similar questions about right and wrong, death and eternity, etc. But Luther wants us to ask a different question when it comes to God: What do I fear, love and trust more than anything else? That is my God. Christianity answers …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: “Witnessing Christ”: Fred Niedner on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Seminex (Part Two)
by Fred NiednerCo-missioners, We send you the second half of Fred Niedner’s presentation at the Seminex event in Chicago this past April. You’ll find it stunning. See, not least, Fred’s summation in his second-last paragraph of the Church’s role in the world today. We hope you’ll share this widely. Peace and Joy, …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: “Witnessing Christ”: Fred Niedner on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Seminex (Part One)
by Fred NiednerCo-missioners, Fred Niedner earned an STM degree in 1973 at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, his theological alma mater. Two months later a majority of his teachers would find themselves condemned as intolerable by a convention of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Eight months after that those teachers would be leaving Concordia’s …
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Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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Co-missioners, What we send you today is a gift I got a week ago from Pr. Shaun O’Reilly of Reno, Nevada. It’s a You Tube recording of what Shaun calls a sermon-poem. He delivered it to the saints of Faith Lutheran in Reno on the Seventh Sunday of Easter. A …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On the Lively Use of the Gospel: A Plea for Renewed Discussion
by Amandus DerrCo-missioners, “That’s the discussion I’m hoping to incite.” So writes Amandus (Mandy) Derr about the piece we invite you to read today. It’s another in this year’s irregular series of Thursday Theology reflections on the emergence of Concordia Seminary in Exile—Seminex for short—in 1974. Crossings is one of the many …
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Co-missioners, At the Crossings seminar this past January we heard homilies from three of the younger pastors who had participated in last fall’s trial run of a new Crossings project in mentoring preachers. We have already shared two of these homilies with you. Today we send you the third. It’s …
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Co-missioners, “Quo vadis”: where are you going? Dr. George Heider, a retired member of Valparaiso University’s theology department, made a first contribution to Thursday Theology two and a half years ago. He has kept an observing eye on Crossings ever since. Today George does as Ron Roschke did last week, …
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Seminex Remembered Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: The Other Focus and Unfinished Business: A Project for Seminex-style Theology in 2024 and Beyond (Part Two)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Last week we sent you the first half of an intriguing essay by Ron Roschke. Now comes the rest of it. It’s as meaty as the first portion was and will leave you with a lot to think about. We heartily encourage a quick review of last week’s Part …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: The Other Focus and Unfinished Business: A Project for Seminex-style Theology in 2024 and Beyond (Part One)
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Most of you met Ron Roschke for the first time last November via a book review he wrote for Thursday Theology. You encountered him again last month through a thoughtful reflection on his experience of Seminex. Themes from both those contributions will come together this week and next as …
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Co-missioners, Christ may be risen indeed, yet countless people for whom he died don’t believe this, nor will they in their lifetimes. All too many don’t know of Christ at all. What becomes of them when all is done? Dare we assume that God gives up on them? Christian thinkers …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Robert Bertram’s “The Lively Use of the Risen Lord”
by CrossingsCo-missioners, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Much of the Church will hear Christ saying this again three days from now, on the Second Sunday of Easter. The day’s appointed Gospel is John 20:19-31. That this text gets read on Easter 2 in every year of …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: The Awful Tree and the Composting God: Holy Week Reflections
Co-missioners, Assorted musings led me this week to an old Good Friday hymn that I recall from my childhood. Written by John Ellerton, a nineteenth-century Church of England cleric, it featured one of those first-line titles that tends to stick in a boy’s memory. “Throned Upon the Awful Tree”—thus Ellerton. …
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Co-missioners, This past February 20 featured one of the biggest gatherings yet for an online Crossings event. It was the second of two episodes in our Table Talk series devoted to the fiftieth anniversary of Seminex. Over twenty participants were asked to offer brief reflections on the following questions: What …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Resources for Holy Week Preaching and Listening
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Today we set a new record for the shortest Thursday Theology post ever. It will also be one of the meatiest posts ever. That’s because we’re sending you some links to items on our website that we urge you to explore between now and next Thursday. It will involve …
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Co-missioners, The Rev. Lori Cornell surprised us late last week with a submission for Thursday Theology. We can’t help but share it with you today, our first chance for doing so. That the work is pegged to the Gospel text for the Sunday after next is the lesser reason for …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Reflections on “Faith” and on “Following Jesus”
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Consider this word, the one we’ve been greeting you with for the past six years: “co-missioners.” As in “fellow participants in the great, ongoing mission of the baptized.” As in people to whom the Instigator of that mission was also speaking on the first night of Easter when he …
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Co-missioners, Today’s quotable quote: “The Message makes the messenger.” You’ll find it in this timely reflection by one of last week’s authors, our interim text-study editor, Mike Hoy. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community ______________________________________________________________________ A Baptismal Reflection on Psalm 90 by Michael Hoy My brother and his …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Seminex Recollections by Michael Hoy and Amandus Derr
by Amandus Derr & Michael HoyCo-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 …
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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 …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: “The Abiding Promise”: A Last Sermon at the Closing of a Congregation
by CrossingsCo-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 …
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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. …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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Richard Schademann – How Crossings is a weekly resource for church staff View all the 2023 Crossings Film Series videos on Vimeo. Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. …
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Jerri Carlin – How Crossings helps with sermon prep View all the 2023 Crossings Film Series videos on Vimeo. Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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Tim Bertram – How Crossings helps skeptics find truth View all the 2023 Crossings Film Series videos on Vimeo. Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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Brad Haugen – How Crossings is a supportive community View all the 2023 Crossings Film Series videos on Vimeo. Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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Jordan Stone – How Crossings can help seminary students My name is Jordan Stone. I am going to school. I’m currently in seminary through Luther Seminary in St. Paul. I found out about the Crossings Conference from my supervising pastor. He said, I think this would be a really good …
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Mary Hinkle Shore – How Crossings can help us hear the scriptures differently View all the 2023 Crossings Film Series videos on Vimeo. Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily …
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Chris Repp – How Crossings Continues to be Relevant Today Author Chris Repp Chris Repp found Crossings on the internet while teaching church history and Lutheran theology at a seminary in Russia at the turn of the millennium. He has been a fan ever since, and a board member for …
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Ella and Louis Moehlman – How Crossings Helps Pastors and Seminary Students Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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Nathan Hall – How Crossings Affects my Preaching Author Crossings Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives. View all posts
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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 …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Ed Schroeder on “The Futures Market for Advent”
by CrossingsCo-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 …
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Schroeder Legacy Funds Library for Ethiopian Seminary By the Rev. Dr. Bruce K. Modahl Crossings is not the only community with a legacy or memorial fund that honors Ed Schroeder. So too does the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. The Rev. Dr. Ed Schroeder was a university and seminary professor, …
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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 …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: In-Between-Time Thoughts about Christ as King
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, Our editor chips in again this week. Two reminders before he lets the chips fly: First, registration is open for the Crossings seminar at the end of January. Scholarship help is available if needed. Don’t hesitate to ask. The topic: “Delivering God’s Goods.” Speakers include Fred Niedner, Robin Lutjohann, …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: “The Ultimate Turkey” and other Thanksgiving Reflections
by Jerome BurceCo-missioners, Today is the fourth Thursday in November. For readers who aren’t American, we mention that this is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. It was established as a national observance in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. The Civil War was raging at the time; bodies were still being buried at …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On Reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Part 2
by Ron RoschkeCo-missioners, We’re not surprised that last week’s post prompted a couple of quick rejoinders from readers steeped in Lutheran confessional theology. The post’s author, Ron Roschke, is steeped in this theology too. You’ll discover this in today’s second part of his reflection on Romans Disarmed, the book he invites us …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: On Reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans. A Review of Romans Disarmed
by CrossingsCo-missioners, We are “justified by faith.” What does this mean? The classic Lutheran answer to this Luther-style question is up for grabs these days in mainline Protestant circles. This includes much of the ELCA, where the term “justice” is replacing “justification” as the focus of teaching and proclamation. This shift …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: A Review of Russell Moore’s Losing our Religion
by CrossingsCo-missioners, Tuesday was Reformation Day on the Lutheran church calendar. Today we send you the first of three posts that will either echo its themes or address them directly. They’ll also point you to a pair of new and useful additions to your reading lists. Speaking of lists, here’s an …
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Co-missioners, We send you a reflection from our editor today. We add a reminder about the Crossings Seminar at the end of January. The topic is preaching, or to put this more sharply, about delivering the goods that God in Christ wants people to use and enjoy. Registration is now …
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Co-missioners, Our gift today is a text study that was supposed to reach you two Sundays ago. It didn’t. It couldn’t. We sent you news on Tuesday of Lori Cornell’s battle with cancer. Lori had been editing our text studies for over twenty years. She had begun her usual work …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Fred Niedner on Preaching that Actually Works (Part 2)
by Fred NiednerCo-missioners, Today we send you the second half of Fred Niedner’s essay on “the sweet swap.” And again we add our hope that you’ll be able to join us at the end of January to hear Fred in person along with other gifted presenters, all of whom who will push …
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BlogThursday Theology
Thursday Theology: Fred Niedner on Preaching that Actually Works (Part 1)
by Fred NiednerCo-missioners, For the past six weeks we’ve been reviewing the core insights of the Lutheran reformation as presented by Philip Melanchthon in Article IV of the Apology, his defense of the Augsburg Confession. Now our focus shifts to the matter of putting these insights to work in 2023 for the …
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Co-missioners, The year was 1530. That’s when leaders of the incipient Lutheran movement confessed their faith at the Diet of Augsburg and prompted the hostile reaction that drove Philip Melanchthon to pen the counter-response we’ve been poring over these past five weeks. The very title of the response flashes an …
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Co-missioners, The end is in sight. Paul Jaster will walk us today through Philip Melanchthon’s rebuttal of his opponents’ claim that he and his fellow-confessors have either made a hash of key Biblical texts or ignored them completely. God says a person needs more than faith in Christ to wind …
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Co-missioners, Today Paul Jaster walks us through a critical section of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article IV. Here Philip Melanchthon discusses the relationship between faith and works, between trusting the Gospel and keeping the Law. This matter is as much in contention among Christians in 2023 as it …
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Hear why Carol Braun makes time to attend the Crossings conferences each year (in fact, it is the ONLY conference she attends each year!) Carol also explains why Crossings is relevant to her and what the Crossings community offers to others. You can find these videos, links to our text …
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Co-missioners, We’re devoting this current stretch of weeks to guided tour by Paul Jaster of the Fourth Article of The Apology of the Augsburg Confession. When last Thursday’s installment ended, Paul was walking us through Philip Melanchthon’s take on the essential disagreement between Lutheran confessors and the papal theologians who …
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Co-missioners, Last week Paul Jaster reviewed the events that gave rise to The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, touched briefly on its English translations, and discussed a key word in today’s standard translation that calls for the reader’s close attention. Today he begins his discussion of the Apology’s critical Fourth …
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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 …
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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, …
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Crossings is a community of welcoming, inquisitive people who want to explore how what we hear at church is useful and beneficial in our daily lives.
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