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:   In the spring of my senior year at Luther Seminary, I took a course called “Transforming Congregations for Mission,” taught by Mary Sue Dreier. The class launched

By Kristin Eisele When I was seven years old my parents brought home a new set of dishes. It was awful. It was change. I cried. When we changed cars, when I had to get a new winter coat, when my favorite television program was canceled, I cried. Imagine my enthusiasm at the change required of the church in this

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:   When my husband and I moved to small-town Minnesota, an hour away from our closest family and friends, I suddenly found myself without the people who made

Ever wonder how the world around us is changing, and how we might speak of God’s promise in the middle of those changes? Here’s a very brief look at just some of the demographic changes facing one particular church — the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — from the director of multicultural ministries of the ELCA:

Dr. David Lose weighs in on the future of seminaries, and theological education, with this provocative statement: I’d argue the single most significant cause of decline is far simpler: most seminaries are training leaders for a church and world that no longer exists. Lose references Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk’s book, The Missional Leader, and the three zones that organizations

Dee Pederson talks about building cross-cultural relationships in Saint Cloud, Minn., forming the connective tissue between members who don’t share the same culture or language. Dee Pederson: Many Cultures and Languages from Discerning Mission on Vimeo.

Listen as Laurie Skow-Anderson talks about the challenges of moving from a uniracial congregation to a more multiracial one: Laurie Skow-Anderson: “Pentecost on the Prairie” from Discerning Mission on Vimeo.

by Christie Hallenbeck “Death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” The late Steve Jobs’s foreshadowing thoughts now permeate mainstream conversations of death. So let’s enter the conversation. In light of public shock over the death of this modern symbol of immortality,

By Gary Simpson In his August 5, 2011, letter to the rostered lay leaders and pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson highlighted the calling “to discern together” what the ELCA’s 2011 LIFT Report (Living Into the Future Together) confesses is our “missionary God.” It’s no accident that the Holy Spirit’s renewed call to apostolic

One of the terms from the Luther Seminary “insider language” book that used to be bug me a lot was when people would start their description of their church by saying something like “we worship 200 on Sunday.” I would immediately wonder: 200 what? Who are you worshiping? Eventually I began to understand what people meant by that phrase, or

March 13 at 11am CST | Live Online | Tell the Story | Workshop

Thursdays, April 8 - May 27, from 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST | Live Online | Cultivate Community | Course

March 4, 11, 18, 25 at 1:00 PM CST | Live Online | Connect with God | Course