I’m here to find resources that can help me innovate faithfully and renew Christian communities.
A blog post by Megan Clapp There’s been a lot of “talk” online lately about millennials and the church, why they’re leaving, why they need the church, and a whole bunch of responses along the spectrum. I’ve read a lot by Rachel Held Evans, the author of all the links above, and I appreciate the way she wrestles…
A blog post by Sarah Bane Coming out… I cannot claim to know the courage and poise it must take to come out to someone. But, as someone to whom more than one person has come out, I have started to notice a common thread to each story: middle school. For each loved one who…
Courtney Young is a graduate of Luther Seminary – M.Div. with an emphasis in Congregational Mission and Leadership. Missional, a Millennial, and a new mother, Courtney shares her thoughts with us here: It’s hard to recap a conference with so many different angles and perspectives on a topic that is huge all by itself…
A blog post by Tim Bowman Last week, I wrote about the different service project ideas that my middle school students came up with. Today, I want to use that experience to spark a new conversation. In varying situations, churches have avoided, wrestled with, rejected, and/or embraced our modern culture and contexts. We live in…
A blog post by Megan Clapp About a year ago, I made a pretty big mistake. I attempted to make a huge change in our Sunday School programming, and it was a colossal failure. I had spent a full year working with the youth and family leaders in the congregation. We produced a vision statement,…
A blog post by Adam Butler Yesterday, Aaron wrote these words about idolatry and the dangers of a self constructed God: “We call this the incarnation, and that is the core of what the Gospel is all about: the reality of what it means to be human, in God’s view. And most of the time,…
A blog post by Aaron Fuller “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” ~Anne Lamott My faith has been shaken up a bit recently…well, more than a bit. I’ve been engaging with another blog lately, the author of…
A blog post by Tim Bowman As youth ministry people, so much of our time is spent either planning or being active that it is sometimes difficult for us to listen. It is not so much that we do not want to listen, because I genuinely believe that we do, but when there are camps,…
A blog post by Pastor Nancy Lee Gauche I read this post on Kenda Creasy Dean’s Blog on April 14, 2011, and it got my juices flowing around this question: “What are the Top 10 Characteristics of a Healthy Youth Ministry?” There are a million lists like this floating around, but my challenge to you…
A blog post by Megan Clapp I recently moved from Arizona to Iowa. Before we left, my husband and I spent an evening with a family that we had grown to be friends with. We played laser tag, raced go-karts, and finished up the evening with a round of mini-golf. It was our last time…
A blog post by Sarah Bane A wise educator once told me, “Learning is the residue that’s left over after the experience is over.” If this is true, then how has our Christian witness invited us to experience and think about the world around us? In the case of Abraham and Sarah, God said to…
Courtney Young is a graduate of Luther Seminary – M.Div. with an emphasis in Congregational Mission and Leadership. Missional, a Millennial, and a new mother, Courtney shares her thoughts with us here: Now that Christmas is over, way over, can we please talk about Christmas? I hold this idea that if something actually matters,…
Ecclesiastes 3 begins … “For everything there is a season and a season for every activity under heaven.” Recently I have been reflecting on time and its relationship with leadership. And I am convinced that a key practice of leadership is helping a community identify what time it is and then discover that it means…
Did you read Amanda Nelson’s thesis yet? If not, it is posted at the bottom of the previous post. I want to commend Amanda on her work in digging into what the church needs to learn about the spiritual lives on young adults. Her stories of young adults are similar to so many stories of…
This week on FirstThird.org we begin sharing the amazing thesis work of our Luther Seminary Children, Youth and Family Ministry MA students. We have five finalists, and will feature one writer and their topic for each of the next five weeks. You’ll be blown away by their ideas and the quality of their thinking about…
