Pivot

#57: How to Help Your Church Listen into a Hopeful Future

In this episode of the Pivot podcast, co-hosts Terri Elton and Dwight Zscheile, joined by guest Mark Lau Branson, explore alternative questions, embrace disruption, and align with God's actions in scripture for a hopeful future

In this episode of the Pivot podcast, co-hosts Terri Elton and Dwight Zscheile are joined by guest, Mark Lau Branson.

Mark Lau Branson is the Homer L. Goddard Senior Professor of the Ministry of the Laity and has taught at Fuller Theological Seminary since 2000. As a senior professor, his work focuses on Ph.D. students.

Leaders, if you’re tired of navigating rigid church structures, this conversation empowers you to explore alternative questions and delve into scripture and community stories. Embrace disruption and uncertainty, as these moments align with God’s actions in scripture.

In our next episode, we continue to explore the key pivots the church needs to make today.

Show Notes:

Shift Ministry Models
Faithful Innovation

Featuring

Prof_MarkLauBranson

Mark Lau Branson

Mark Lau Branson is the Homer L. Goddard Senior Professor of the Ministry of the Laity and has taught at Fuller since 2000. As a senior professor, his work focuses on Ph.D. students.

Dr. Branson was ordained at San Francisco Christian Center, an African American Pentecostal church, and has served on the pastoral teams in United Methodist and Presbyterian churches.

He has worked with several agencies active in education, community development, and community organizing, and continues to serve as a consultant and speaker. His most recent books are Leadership, God’s Agency, & Disruptions: Confronting Modernity’s Wager, coauthored with Alan Roxburgh (2021), a revised edition of Churches, Cultures, and Leadership: A Practical Theology of Congregations and Ethnicities, coauthored with Juan Martínez (2023), as well as Memories, Hopes, and Conversations: Appreciative Inquiry, Missional Engagement, and Congregational Change.

He has contributed to the Journal of Missional Practice, the Journal of Religious Leadership, and Transformation: An International Journal on Evangelical Social Ethics.

Branson is on the national Advisory Board of the nonprofit CHERP Solar Power, and has served on the boards of the Institute of Urban Initiatives, the Ekklesia Project, and the Academy of Religious Leadership. Mark and his wife, Nina Lau-Branson, are active at La Fuente Ministries, a bi-lingual, multicultural church in Pasadena; they have two adult sons.

Meet Your Hosts

  • Dr. Dwight Zscheile

    Dr. Dwight Zscheile is vice president of innovation and professor of congregational mission and leadership at Luther Seminary. His latest book is Leading Faithful Innovation: Following God into a Hopeful Future (with Michael Binder and Tessa Pinkstaff, Fortress Press, 2023).

  • Terri Elton

    Terri Martinson Elton began teaching at Luther Seminary as an adjunct instructor in 2004 before becoming the director of the Center for Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2008. In addition to her continued work with the Center, Elton accepted the position of associate professor of Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2010 and associate professor of Leadership in 2014.

    Prior to her call to Luther Seminary, Elton served as an associate to the bishop in the Saint Paul Area Synod where her responsibilities included working with congregations, leadership development, First Call theological education and youth and family ministry.

    Before her work in the synod, she served at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minn. for 16 years. While at Prince of Peace she worked in various roles within children, youth and family ministries, as well as served as the director of Changing Church Forum, an outreach ministry of Prince of Peace. She also authored To Know, To Live, To Grow, a confirmation curriculum, and co-authored What Really Matters, a book for congregational leaders, with the Rev. Mike Foss.

    Elton holds a B.A. degree in communications from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. (1986). She earned both her M.A. (1998) and Ph.D. (2007) degrees in Congregational Mission and Leadership from Luther Seminary.

    Elton’s research and teaching interests include: congregational leadership, leading in the midst of change and conflict, helping ministry leaders craft a missional ecclesiology with an eye toward the First Third of Life, awakening a vibrant theology of baptism and vocation and reimagining faith and mission practices for children, youth, young adults and their families.

    Elton is a member of the Academy of Religious Leadership, the Association of Youth Ministry Educators, the ELCA Youth Ministry Network and the American Society of Missiology and is on the board for Real Resources. Elton spends much of her time working with congregations and congregational leaders and seeks out opportunities for enhancing ministry with those in the First Third of Life within the ELCA.

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