Shortly after returning home from the Best Practices Ministry 2026, all the attendees (I assume) received an email from Jeff Schrank, pastor of Christ Lutheran in Phoenix, which hosts the conference. Jeff wrote: “Would you please be willing to reflect upon how this event impacts you, your team, your church? I will share these thoughts […]
I, Rhoda, also had the joy of presenting at a breakout session at Best Practices Ministry last week. After a brief presentation that began with the “grim statistics” of the decline in church membership in recent decades, moved to the need for adult faith formation, and zipped through a quick summary of the stages of […]
On Thursday at the Best Practices in Ministry Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Kent’s breakout session room was full of pastors, musicians, and other church professionals to hear his presentation—I counted 70 people. Everyone was engaged as he presented, and the questions and discussion were lively. I had the joy of reconnecting with a number of […]
Kent and Rhoda will both be presenting at Best Practices in Ministry, “a conference hosted by Christ Church Lutheran [in Phoenix, Arizona]. For over 10 years we have offered this FREE conference to remind professional and lay church workers that you are loved, you are not alone, and you matter. And when we say free, […]
Since both Kent and I are alumni of Valparaiso University, we wish to remind our readers that the early-bird registration for the Institute of Liturgical Studies at VU ends on January 31. To save $100 on the registration cost, click here by Saturday, January 31. The Institute meets April 13 – 15, 2026. It’s a […]
Journey to Jesus arrives at the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL)! Here are Rhoda and I standing in a room at Candler School of Theology on the Emory University Campus where the Academy Meeting of NAAL took place in early January. Rhoda and I have been members of NAAL for over 20 years. And […]
Although it is (apparently) an urban legend that the origin of the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” stems from a time when Roman Catholics in England (16th to early 19th centuries) were not allowed to practice their faith openly, we’re featuring the modern legend on today’s post. The carol was purportedly written as a […]
As Alan Kreider and others have adequately demonstrated, the early church catechumenate facilitated the creation of new Christians by focusing on matters of believing, belonging, and behaving. And as Kreider showed in The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, one of the focal points of distinct Christian behavior was the virtue of patience. According to […]
When preaching or teaching Luther’s Small Catechism, I did so with two primary thoughts. Interrelationship First, I tried to illustrate the interrelationships of the parts of the Small Catechism. To understand what sin is and what should be confessed in preparation for coming to Holy Communion, one needs to learn the Commandments so that sin […]
I offer these comments about the selection of the Scripture readings and hymns to help the reader understand how I arrived at the scripture readings, hymns, and sermon texts and titles that were chosen for this part of the sermon series. Sermons on the Sacrament of the Altar The four passages that are the biblical […]