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#135: Fresh Expressions: From VBS Burnout to Vibrant Community Ministry (Part 1)

Dwight Zscheile and Shannon Kiser explore how churches can grow vibrant fresh expressions to reach changing neighborhoods.

How Fresh Expressions Saved This Pastor’s Ministry (And Her Sanity).

Many church leaders find themselves exhausted by traditional programming that no longer connects with their changing neighborhoods. In this episode, discover how fresh expressions can move you beyond fixing declining programs to creating vibrant new forms of faith community. Host Dwight Zscheile speaks with Shannon Kiser, Senior Director of Fresh Expressions North America, about her transformation from VBS burnout to pioneering fresh expressions that bring diverse families together through shared activities like soccer and art.

Shannon shares the “loving first journey” – a listening-first approach to developing fresh expressions that begins with discerning where God is already at work in your community rather than planning in committee rooms. Learn how to identify and release pioneers, supporters, and permission givers for fresh expressions in your congregation, and discover why fresh expressions actually energize inherited churches rather than competing with them. Whether you’re struggling with volunteer recruitment, seeking to connect with your neighborhood’s diversity, or wondering how to move from membership-focused to discipleship-centered ministry, this conversation offers practical insights into fresh expressions that create space for authentic community engagement and spiritual formation.

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Featuring

Headshot of Shannon Kiser

Shannon Kiser

Shannon Kiser is a pioneering leader in the Fresh Expressions movement in North America. As a pastor who has led Riverside Presbyterian Church through a radical transformation—including partnering with a title company to purchase half an office building and operating a seven-day-a-week coffee shop—Shannon brings both theological depth and practical experience to conversations about innovative ministry. Her “fresh off the press” book "Opening Space: A Vision for Fresh Expressions of Church and Creative Mission" offers a compelling roadmap for churches seeking to connect with their communities in new ways. Shannon has spent the last decade coaching leaders who have started fresh expressions in community gardens, soup kitchens, fitness centers, parks, cafés, and art studios, helping churches discover how to join God's mission both in the steeples and in the streets.

Meet Your Host

  • Dwight Zscheile

    The Rev. Dr. Dwight Zscheile is vice president of innovation and professor of congregational mission and leadership at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.

    He is the author of Embracing the Mixed Ecology (with Blair Pogue, Seabury Books, 2025), Leading Faithful Innovation: Following God into a Hopeful Future (with Michael Binder and Tessa Pinkstaff, Fortress 2023), Participating in God’s Mission: A Theological Missiology for the U.S. (with Craig Van Gelder, Eerdmans 2018), The Agile Church: Spirit-Led Innovation in an Uncertain Age (Morehouse Publishing, 2014), People of the Way: Renewing Episcopal Identity (Morehouse Publishing, 2012) and The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation (with Craig Van Gelder, Baker Academic 2011) and editor of Cultivating Sent Communities: Missional Spiritual Formation (Eerdmans, 2012).

    A graduate of Stanford University (BA), Yale University (MDiv) and Luther Seminary (PhD, Congregational Mission and Leadership), Dwight previously served congregations in Minnesota, Virginia and Connecticut. Dwight’s experience growing up in a secular home in California has shaped his commitment to helping the church cultivate Christian community with neighbors in today’s changing world.