Co-missioners, Our colleague, Marcus Felde, has emerged in recent years as a specialist in the theology of the Lord’s Prayer. He delivered a paper on the topic at the Crossings Conference of 2008. Seven years later he published an article in Word and World entitled “The Lord’s Prayer: Who Could …

Co-missioners, Lori Cornell, longtime editor of our Crossings text studies, reflects today on her opening months of service as Lead Pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Spokane, Washington. She took a call there last summer. We thank her for the abundance of insight, both theological and pastoral, that she shares …

Co-missioners, We launched the recent Advent season with a startling reflection by Chris Neumann on everlasting life, a bedrock Christian promise that most all of us look forward to with delight. Chris found it terrifying. This brought a response from Bruce Martin, a longtime member of our Crossings Community and …

Co-missioners, On this final Thursday in the current Advent season, we send you a challenging reflection by Karen Clapp, a member of Grace Lutheran Church, River Forest, Illinois. It’s a sequel of sorts to a presentation she made at the Crossings conference in 2020. Those remarks are available on our …

Co-missioners, Last year’s Christmas was the bleakest any of us have lived through. The pandemic was raging. Vaccines were not yet. Seniors stayed home. Their dear ones kept a distance for fear of making Grandma sick. A lot of churches were closed on Christmas Eve. Those that dared to be …

Co-missioners, Today’s post is both late and timely. Late, because it discusses a text we heard in church two weeks ago on this year’s First Sunday of Advent. Timely, because the issues God pushed us to face that day are issues we deal with every day. “How are we judged?” …

Co-missioners, Kudos to writer Chris Neumann for today’s one-of-a-kind post. We urge it on you for three reasons. First, Chris raises an issue that has never surfaced in Crossings. We know of no prior writer who has addressed it. That includes Bob Bertram and Ed Schroeder. We doubt that it …

Co-missioners, There is an endless list of gifts to thank God for this Thanksgiving. Among them is the simple fact that more Americans than usual will take a break from the crabbiness of the times to express some thanks of one kind of another. Not that all of these thanks …

Co-missioners, Today’s guest writer is the Rev. Dr. George C. Heider, a Senior Research Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University. Dr. Heider is a product of the system that trained many of us who connect with Crossings these days. He graduated from Concordia College, Bronxville, from Concordia Senior College, Fort …

Co-missioners, Atop the sounding board of the imposing pulpit in Cape Town’s Strand Street Lutheran Church—the oldest church building in South Africa—there sits a swan; or to be more accurate, the carved and painted figure thereof. From the floor of the nave it appears like a white dot incongruously marring …

Co-missioners, Today’s contribution is about preaching. It comes in the form of a book review by Bruce Modahl for which a bit of background might be helpful. In 1871 Yale Divinity School inaugurated an annual series of lectures on preaching named after a famous Yale alumnus, Lyman Beecher. Beecher was …

Co-missioners, Reformation Day is three days hence, and on a Sunday for once. Lutherans will celebrate, or so one hopes. Will the music be robust and daring, pandemic strictures notwithstanding? One hopes for that too. Lutherans have a deep tradition of singing the Gospel, and often better than they preach …

Co-missioners, This week we send you another a classic from the Crossings’ library. Going forward we plan to do this at least once a quarter. Today’s item was written by Ed Schroeder in 1976 and originally published in Currents in Theology and Mission, launched two years earlier as the theological …

Co-missioners, Our editor, Jerry Burce, is still the full-time pastor he was when took up with Crossings two decades ago. Much of his theological work spills out in the sermons he preaches at Messiah Lutheran Church in Fairview Park, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Here’s one from the Sunday before …

Co-missioners, In recent decades a group of New Testament scholars have set lots of Protestant teeth on edge with a so-called “new perspective on Paul.” They argue among other things that the 16th century reformers skewed Paul’s gospel by equating it with his teaching on “justification by faith.”

Co-missioners, Carol Braun reflects today on how the pandemic has driven changes in the way she thinks about church and appreciates it too. We think you’ll want to share this widely. We pray that you will.

Co-missioners, So you thought we had it tough at church last month when we struggled through five successive Sundays of John 6? Comes suddenly another challenge for preachers and listeners alike: a stretch of texts from Mark 8 through 10 that leave us wondering where the good news is.

Co-missioners, Fourteen months ago we published an essay by Pr. Paul Theiss (ELCA, retired) about the potential of small group ministry to help churches rebound from the pandemic. Today Paul reflects on an older and perennial plague that continues to afflict the Church.

Co-missioners, Matt Metevelis reflects today on current anxieties about the future of the church and its institutions. As you’ll notice in the opening paragraph of his essay, there couldn’t be a better day than this for getting it to you. God grant encouragement as you read.

Co-missioners, Our editor reflects this week on a pressing issue of our day. Seriously! Don’t let the opening paragraphs fool you.

Co-missioners, The gap between rich and poor gets ever wider in the United States—in the world as a whole, for that matter. God has much to say about this, also through people who can’t imagine they’re speaking for him. Today Carol Braun wrestles with the dilemma

Co-missioners, A new chapter in Thursday Theology launches next week. Some months ago I pulled together an editorial support team comprising Steve Hitchcock, recently retired from Bread for the World; Bruce Modahl, retired pastor par excellence and current editor of Crossings’ quarterly newsletter; and Carol Braun, an online teacher of …

Co-missioners, This week we send along a homily by our favorite Lutheran in Episcopal clothing, Steve Kuhl. He delivered it in Milwaukee a few days ago, on the third of five successive Sundays that feature a piece of John 6 as the Gospel for the day. Read More

Co-missioners, Our editor is enmeshed in some family responsibilities this week—all good, to use a phrase that merits some musing in future weeks. He left us two items to pass along to you. Both are brief. Read More

Co-missioners, The exhibitionism of our latest space adventurers, Messrs. Branson and Bezos—Musk perhaps to follow—prompted Mike Hoy to pen the essay we send you this week. Michael the Confessor (as we ought to call him) will drive us to Christ for the hope these others would seem to offer but …

Co-missioners, Lori Cornell reflects this week on an agony that many other Gospel-trusting parents are facing of late as their children lapse into adulthood. Lori is the long-time editor of the six-step text studies you get from Crossings every week. Read More

Co-missioners, A quick note, tongue somewhat in cheek, before we get to today’s main item: We’ve been hearing in recent weeks about the intense heat on North America’s west coast, reaching all the way up to Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. An ELCA pastor in that area posted a photo …

Co-missioners, Early in the Easter season we brought you an essay on preaching by Steve Hitchcock. Turns out that Steve had more to say. Here’s his second installment, as helpful for Gospel-minded preachers as the first one was. Read More

Co-missioners, Noticing that America’s July 4th super-holiday falls on a Sunday this year, Matt Metevelis was moved to nudge us—his fellow preachers in particular—into some better and deeper thinking about the idea of patriotism. We’re pleased to share his argument with you. Read More

Co-missioners, This week we send a smattering of items that landed recently in our editor’s “Passing Thoughts” file. Perhaps you’ll find them of interest. If so, there are more where these came from. Read More

Co-missioners, As we’ve mentioned here before, Steve Kuhl serves as priest at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in South Milwaukee. Lately he’s been sending us pieces that he writes for the saints there. Another arrived a few days ago. It has to do with revisions to worship plans as vaccination rates …

Co-missioners: With Trinity Sunday still in the rearview mirror we send along another item unearthed from our library. It’s a sketchy little piece by Ed Schroeder about an old issue in Trinitarian theology that continues to resonate in our day. Read More

Co-missioners: Last Sunday was one of the more stressful days in the church year for preachers and hearers alike. The former felt pressed to explain the inexplicable. The latter yearned to be edified and squirmed when they weren’t. Read More

Co-missioners: Our editor had a few mini-“Aha’s” this Easter. We pass them along on the chance you’ll find them useful. Read More

Co-missioners, Two weeks ago Steve Kuhl sent us a reflection he wrote for his parishioners at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in South Milwaukee. It deals with St. John’s vine-and-branches text for this year’s Fifth Sunday of Easter. Yes, that day is already behind us. Not so the days of absorbing …

Co-missioners, Messiah Lutheran in Fairview Park, Ohio, is one of the few ELCA congregations we know of that continues to celebrate Ascension Day with a festive liturgy. While musing on a sermon to preach there tonight, our editor browsed the Crossings library and ran across a fabulous telling of the …

Co-missioners, Apologies. We’re putting the cart before the horse this week. The horse is a little set of gospel gems that one of us has been gleaning from the Johannine texts of the current Easter season. The cart is an example of how it might it look when you start …

Co-missioners, Last week’s post by Matt Metevelis (“Better Medicine”) prompted Steve Albertin to submit a sermon he preached three years ago on the Gospel appointed for the Sixth Sunday of Easter in Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary. A lot of us will be listening to this come May …

Co-missioners, Does the church you attend or tune into these days follow the three-year lectionary? If so, you’ll hear a lot about love over the next couple of Sundays. That’s because 1 John is the featured epistle for the current Easter season. Love—agape in Greek—is John’s big word. Read More

Co-missioners, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Thus St. John’s version of the Great Commission. We heard it in church a few days ago as we always do on the Second Sunday of Easter. Those who listened closely caught Christ our risen Lord authorizing a lavish, …

Co-missioners, We celebrated Easter four days ago. For the next several weeks our thoughts in church will be focused squarely on the new age God launched through our Lord’s resurrection. Meanwhile we continue with the rest of the world to stumble through the old age of sin and death. Comes …

Co-missioners, Do the folks who run the church you attend follow the three-year lectionary when they plan their Easter services? If so, they’ll have a choice come Sunday of which Easter Gospel they’ll give you to hear, either St. John’s or St. Mark’s. The ones who love a preaching challenge …

Co-missioners, We are all of three days away from the launch of Holy Week and its deluge of texts that constitute the heart of Christian proclamation. This Sunday we’ll hear St. Mark’s account of Jesus’ passion (Mk. 14-15). St. John’ s account will follow on Good Friday (Jn. 18-19). The …

Co-missioners, Here is one of several reasons for spending time with today’s offering: it will likely be the first time you’ve ever seen Luther’s “Heidelberg Disputation” marshalled as a resource for addressing the hot-button issue of white supremacy as a stubborn feature of American life, and of American church life …

Co-missioners, We’re in the middle of Lent today, yet we bring you a reflection on the Gospel for the Third Sunday after Epiphany. Steve Kuhl sent it our way toward the end of January when the pipeline was still choked with ruminations on the events of January 6. As it …

Co-missioners, The item we send you this week is uncharacteristically brief. It’s also plain, as down-to-earth ordinary as ordinary gets. It doesn’t sound at all like “theology.” We think it’s worth your attention anyway. Our editor calls it the finest example he’s seen of Crossings theology encapsulated in a 250-word …

Co-missioners, Our mission correspondent, Richard Gahl, returns this week with a quick missiocentric tour of the Gospel of Mark, the one that those of us who follow the Revised Common Lectionary are hearing from at church this year. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Mission in the Gospel of Mark …

Co-missioners, This is the fifth and final installment in a sequence of posts addressing the riot in Washington D.C. on January 6. An unintended sequence, we add. One post led to the other which led to the next, all with little or no planning along the way. We babbled, as …

Co-missioners, Come Saturday it will be a month since we saw the images streaming from Washington, D.C. of things we never imagined taking place in the United States of America. The event has unleashed a Noah’s flood of commentary and reflection, of which our last three posts have been the …

Co-missioners, At the end of last week’s post our editor, Jerry Burce, promised a third installment of some unfolding reflections arising from the Capitol riot of January 6 and responses thereto. What comes your way instead this week is an interlude of sorts—more grist for that third grinding, as Jerry …

Co-missioners, This is Part II of what seems to be evolving into a three-part series by our editor on the tumult of January 6. We pray you find it of use. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community A Sermon in the Wake of the Capitol Riot by Jerome Burce Preface …

Co-missioners, We pass along the first part of an unfolding reflection by our editor. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community First Thoughts on the Sack of the Capitol by Jerome Burce The last thing anyone can need or want today is another loud and lengthy fulmination about the wickedness that …

Co-missioners, We are either a week or a day late with this post, depending on the item that grabs your eye. The day-late item is a prod to take a look—or another look—at Ed Schroeder’s “Take the Jerusalem Bypass.” Call it a sermon. Alternatively, call it an exercise in Law/Gospel …

Co-missioners, On this seventh day of Christmas we send along a letter that popped into our editor’s inbox on Christmas Eve. It came from Michael Hoy, the editor of two posthumously published books by Robert W. Bertram. Mike has spent much of this year working hard on a book of …

Co-missioners, It’s Christmas Eve, a day for all of us to sit quietly with Mary and ponder the marvel of her newborn son. To that end we pass along an extended meditation by Steve Albertin. It rings some cherished Lutheran chimes that, in Steve’s handling of them, turn out be …

Co-missioners, Our editor, a working pastor and preacher, is also our contributor this week. We pass along a recent sermon of his on a Christmas text that few preachers are drawn to. God grant relief for dark December days, crackling with judgment. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community The Christmas …

Co-missioners, Matt Metevelis, remember? The hospice chaplain in Las Vegas with a side job at a little Lutheran congregation in the downtown area. We last heard from him directly at the beginning of September when he reviewed N.T. Wright’s book on the pandemic. A month later we sent you to …

Co-missioners, Our editor, intent on grinding an axe about the season of Advent and what to make of it, rummaged in our library and found an essay he wrote on the topic some sixteen years ago.  By Ed Schroeder’s sufferance it became his first-ever contribution to Thursday Theology. Much of …

Co-missioners, Happy Thanksgiving! To those of you receiving and reading these words in other parts of the world, this is the ubiquitous American greeting for today, the fourth Thursday in November, commonly called Thanksgiving Day. Wikipedia ranks it as the second most widely observed of American holidays, the first being …

Co-missioners, Election Day 2020 is behind us—and the American electorate is as divided as ever. Joe Biden may have won the popular count by almost six million votes, but Donald Trump got four million more than Barack Obama in his best year, the one that marked him momentarily as the …

Co-missioners, We assume that even in these days of Covid 19 many of you are managing to check in at church on Sunday, if not in person then via the internet. And some of you are among the pastors tasked with making church-of-sorts happen on Sundays. In either case you’re …

Co-missioners, This will reach you two days after the election of 2020. It’s being prepared for publication three days before the election, and the one preparing it has no idea what the outcome will be, reported trends notwithstanding. The shock of Election Night 2016 continues to reverberate. Perhaps we’ll have …

Co-missioners, Today’s episode is the second of two extended clippings from a keynote address we heard at our Crossings conference in 2018. Aside from welcoming newcomers and introducing the conference theme, the address focused on the distinction between Law and Gospel and on the challenge of putting the Gospel to …

Co-missioners, Lutheran congregations will celebrate the Reformation this Sunday. Or at least we hope they will. Here we think chiefly of ELCA churches and the pastors who lead them. One of the concomitants of ecumenical rapprochement is a tendency to downplay the distinctiveness of one’s own tradition and witness. To …

Co-missioners, Steve Kuhl has been writing a lot of reflections over the past several months for his Episcopal church in South Milwaukee. Last week he shared another one with us. It speaks to a dilemma that all too many congregations are wrestling with at the moment. We think you’ll appreciate …

Co-missioners, Early last month we brought you a review of N.T. Wright’s reflection on the pandemic, published this past June. The reviewer was Matt Metevelis, a hospice chaplain and parish pastor in Las Vegas. Matt is a voracious reader, as we mentioned. Luther and Augustine make his heart sing. He …

Co-Missioners, Bruce Modahl, editor of our quarterly newsletter, sent us a book review to share with you this week. We’re delighted to do so. A reminder that our new offering, Crossings Table Talk, launches next Tuesday at 1 p.m. Central Time (2 p.m. Eastern, noon Mountain, 11 a.m. Pacific). Steve …

Co-Missioners, Our editor weighs in this week with some thoughts designed to scrape as they’ve scraped on him of late. Before we get to that, allow us to invite you to Crossings Table Talk, a new offering conceived and organized by Steve Albertin and Cathy Lessmann. It’s a monthly chance …

Co-Missioners, Steve Kuhl, a frequent contributor of late, serves an Episcopal congregation in South Milwaukee, not all that from Kenosha, Wisconsin. He sends along a reflection he wrote for his parishioners about the recent turmoil there. He’ll provoke your thinking too—or so we trust. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community …

Co-Missioners, “Discover a different way of seeing and responding to the Coronavirus pandemic, an approach drawing on Scripture, Christian history, and the way of living, thinking, and praying revealed to us by Jesus.” So says the Amazon blurb about the latest book by N.T. Wright, the world’s busiest New Testament …

Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself and he always welcomed children. Bruce Modahl enthusiastically talks about how his congregations did just that: from the children who are baptized into the the family of Christ to a refugee family that his congregation lovingly ministered to and cared for. Be …

Co-Missioners, Here’s another “golden oldie,” as its author would have called it. We found it lurking in our library. It will startle as much or more today as it did when it first saw light forty-four years ago. Is there a one of us who has dared to think of …

Co-Missioners, Today we share what might be called an exercise in devotional theology. It comes from our editor, Jerome Burce. Back in March, when the church he serves shut down its regular operations, he started posting a daily devotion to the congregation’s Facebook page (“Messiah Lutheran Church of Fairview Park”). …

Similar to the movie “The Sixth Sense”, Marcus Felde sees the Gospel everywhere. He simply can’t not see it. And we’re overjoyed that he shares a number of important memorable moments where he has felt God’s peace and love as a pastor, including Ash Wednesday and Good Friday services, and …

Co-Missioners, We take you this week for another dip in our library, where we dredged up a twenty-nine year old article that Ed Schroeder wrote for Lutheran Women Today, an erstwhile publication of the ELCA. You’ll wonder, perhaps, why we bother you with it. It seems on the surface to …

Co-Missioners, Today’s offering by our mission correspondent, Richard Gahl, will introduce you to the theologian who is credited with putting the term missio Dei—the mission of God—at the center of missiological conversation over the past several decades. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Georg Vicedom’s “The Lord’s Prayer: A Prayer …

Chad Bird talks about growing up in a church that focused predominantly on the Law and the impression that ade on him. He contrasts this experience with hearing the Gospel preached in churches he has attended as an adult. Both experiences informed the belief he shares with Martin Luther — …

Co-Missioners, We’re pleased to send you a meaty, down-to-earth reflection on one of this summer’s hot issues in the U.S. Our thanks to Steven Kuhl for thinking it through and writing it out. A reminder that thoroughly Lutheran Steve is the rector of St. Mark’s Church, an Episcopal congregation in …

Co-Missioners, In the seminary days that some of us remember, they called it “practical theology.” This was the curriculum’s how-to section, offering courses in everything that pastors were expected to do: preaching, teaching, counseling, evangelizing, managing a congregation, and the like. Some students thrived in this. Others opted for as …

Chad Bird talks about growing up in a church that focused predominantly on the Law and the impression that made on him. He contrasts this experience with hearing the Gospel preached in churches he has attended as an adult. Both experiences informed the belief he shares with Martin Luther — …

Co-Missioners, Our writer this week is Carol Braun, a former co-editor of Thursday Theology. Carol also served for a while on the Crossing Board. She was featured about a month ago in the first episode of Crossings’ latest film series, “God’s Peace / God’s Justice.” To learn more of who …

Co-Missioners, We send you to our library this week for another gem that’s hidden there. It’s a quick little piece. Ed Schroeder wrote it in 1975, a year into the high-risk venture called Concordia Seminary in Exile—Seminex, for short, and, soon thereafter, Christ Seminary—Seminex. No wonder that risk is the …

Listen to Ben Williams as he tells how he experienced God’s judgement in a high school youth group and how his time at college and his faith set him on a path to pastoral ministry. He shares a story of his time as an intern and how one of his …

Co-Missioners, Steven Kuhl is our writer this week. He sends along a reflection he prepared for the congregation he serves in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He submitted it under the title “Sing to the Lord: What to do when Times are Tough.” We’ve taken the liberty of replacing that with one …

Co-Missioners, For the third week running we send you thoughts from our editor. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Glimpses of Easter: The Eucharist as a Visual Gift “Now we see in a mirror, dimly….” —1 Cor. 13:12 I saw a flash of Easter last Sunday at the congregation I …

Hear Carol Braun describe times in her life where she’s seen God’s judgment and God’s love at work: from her time in graduate school, interactions with family, and her career as a high school teacher. She shares that we all have times when we rely on ourselves and we feel …

Co-Missioners, Our editor shares some clarification on the item we sent you last week about under-told Gospel and its present consequences. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community Law or Gospel? A Follow-up to the Post of June 11 A treasured colleague sent me an unhappy note about last week’s post. …

Co-Missioners, Our editor speaks his mind today. With fear and trembling, he adds. Peace and Joy, The Crossings Community George Floyd as a Summons to Lutheran Repentance Fibonacci Blue, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons If anyone is in Christ—new creation! The old is gone. Look! Here is the …

In the final chapter of Steve’s Faith Seeking Understanding, we take a look at fake vs real gospel. “You discover that a beautiful vase of flowers is not real. It is FAKE. It is not the real deal. There has always been a similar problem in the church. We may …

  Given the current pan-demic that is wreaking suffering and havoc upon so much of the world, one of the oldest and most persistent questions that both Christians and non-Christians have asked is now acutely relevant: WHY DOES AN ALL-POWERFUL AND LOVING GOD PERMIT EVIL?Or, why do bad things happen …

Co-missioners, George Floyd is dead. Our cities burn. The nation is awash in wrath, judgment, recrimination and dumbfounded dismay. Against this backdrop, we send you the sermon that Pastor Nathan Hall of the Lutheran Church of the Nativity, North Conway, New Hampshire, delivered to his flock last Sunday, the Feast …

Everyone has an Uncle Charlie in their lives, a good person who never went to church and never believed in God. What about them? Will they be saved? Ultimately, that is God’s problem and not ours. Thank God it is. In the meantime, it is our job to share with …

Co-Missioners, We’ve been hearing about America’s dwindling churches for several years now. The evidence is easy to find. The trends in your own congregation will likely provide some. Or look at your judicatory’s reports to see how any of its churches have dissolved over the past five years. Steve Kuhl …

Co-Missioners, Today is the Feast of the Ascension, the most underplayed and underappreciated occasion in the entire church year. Or so opines our editor, Jerry Burce, who trolled his files for an argument that the Gospel on this day is as thunderously good as the Gospel can get. What we …

Where have you seen God in your life this week? This is a familiar question asked in many churches sometimes even at the start of a sermon. The answers always focus on the pleasant and happy things of life. But what about suffering, sorrow and pain? Can we see God …

Co-Missioners, Today Steve Albertin tackles a question that many are quietly asking, and few are daring to face. Avoidance is rampant also in swathes of the church, where one would wish to find backbones sufficiently stiffened in Christ to have honest and forthright discussions about matters like this. How pleased …

Today Steve tackles the tough subject of Christian freedom and cheap grace. As he states, one of biggest criticisms of Crossings and Luther is that both promoted the notion of CHEAP GRACE, that is “Now that you don’t have to be saved you can do anything you want.” Luther addressed …

Co-Missioners, From Richard Gahl comes another installment in his ongoing series on the mission of the Church. We send it along for your reflection and encouragement. Dick’s closing observations prompt us to remind you of a forthcoming series of Bread for the World webinars. We mentioned these two weeks ago. …

Now more than ever, we know people need to hear the promise of Christ crucified. In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, I hope Crossings is a source of inspiration and insight for your life and ministry. I invite you to watch this video and to consider how you might …