Pastor Amy Starr Redwine, a pastor in Richmond, Virginia, tells a story about a class she took while a student at the seminary. The class was called: Confession and Forgiveness from a Pastoral Perspective. Pastor Redwine wrote that the class was incredibly popular, and the 45 slots filled up as soon as registration opened. On the first … More Drawn into Community
I was baptized at Diamond Lake Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis on June 6, 1965. Don’t bother doing the math. There is nothing particularly remarkable about that day…it was just a day like any other. June 6, 1965 was the 21st anniversary of the D-Day invasion in World War 2. On that day, the top 3 songs on … More Remember
What goes in to making up a person? I’m not talking about the biology here…the DNA, chromosomes, and cells. I’m talking about who you are. I’m talking about a person’s spirit, their personality, their faith, their very identity. Every single one of us has building blocks that go into creating our sense of self. Like a Lego set, we grow and … More Foundation
There are events that occur that make you absolutely stop in your tracks and say to yourself “I can’t believe that just happened.” I remember when Lori woke me up in the middle of the night and said with a smile, “I think it’s time.” And we hustled to the hospital. Eight hours later, I’m holding Nathan … More We’ve Got to Talk
On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy took the podium at Rice University to speak to a crowd of 40,000 people. It was a hard time: Our nation was struggling. Viet Nam was escalating. The Bay of Pigs incident had taken place the year prior. The cold war was heating up, and our nation, … More It is Time
Have you ever been a witness? I mean a real, live, actual legal witness? Like in a courtroom? I have. Years ago, I was on a church summer trip with a bunch of the young people from my congregation when they witnessed a crime. They did the right thing, and reported it, and the individual … More No Filter
As human beings, we sometimes miss things. We just do. We’ve all done it. We are supposed to see, or do, recognize something…and we just don’t. I think we can all admit that it happens to us. A few examples of what I’m talking about: A colleague of mine at my last congregation was doing … More Take a Walk
There are days when the world seems pretty upside-down and unexpected. Did Nancy Williams from Owatonna High School, (who is, by the way, one of my heroes) really talk about high school students who are homeless? Or who don’t have enough food to eat? In the past, when I’ve mentioned these issues that our schools … More Not The Way It Will Be For You
There is a fundamental truth that I think we can all agree on: In life, you don’t always get what you expect. We get certain ideas, or visions in our mind of how something is going to be, and we can be surprised, shocked even, when the reality differs from these expectations. I think we’ve … More Seen, Known and Loved
I have a group of good friends who live in California. They never tire of reminding me that they live in the land of beaches, palm trees and movie stars, while I love on the frozen tundra. They like to give me a hard time about being from and living in Minnesota. They like to … More Point
Test Driving Theology 