Renew…Educate…Connect…
Every Extravaganza has a theme. A theme gives direction and guidance to the planing team. A theme gives context for participants. And a theme gives space for the Holy Spirit to work within us…to move us together. Because we can ...
The Extravaganza planning team leaders just completed their annual meeting to review and debrief from the 2023 Extravaganza, and to launch the planning process for Extravaganza 2024. The planning team is thankful for all of the people who chose to ...
In the movie “Jerry McGuire,” the title character, played by Tom Cruise, says at one point “We live in a cynical world.” It was a moment of deep truth in an otherwise funny but pretty forgettable movie. We live in ...
CHICAGO (Jan. 18, 2023) — The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), partnered with the ELCA Youth Ministry Network, has received a $1 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help establish the Formation Lab Project. The goal of the project ...
There is a new webinar that has been added to the catalog of webinars that are a part of the “Practice Discipleship Project” done cooperatively by the Network and the ELCA Youth Gathering. I’m really excited about the webinar. It is titled “Compassionate Justice and Service Learning.” I’d like to give you the description, and ...
It is a simple word. Praying. But it means a lot. There was a another tragedy today, this time in Chardon, Ohio. A school shooting left (last I heard) 5 people wounded, one of whom died from the gunshot wounds. To be honest, I was in meetings today from 8:30am almost straight through until ...
Have you ever had an experience where something you were deeply invested in went really, really well, and it’s all said and done, and everything is boxed up and put away, and you sit back and sigh and you realize “hey, that was really cool…it feels really good to have been a part of that.” ...
So if you haven’t yet booked your hotel room for Extravaganza 2012, you might have a little bit of trouble. First, you have to understand that rooming list at a convention hotel in a city like New Orleans is a bit of a moving target. A quick background: When we book an Extravaganza, a part ...
I hear it actually all of the time. Somebody will send me a question about a ministry topic, or perhaps about a resource, and I’ll drop back a quick note to them and say “you should check out _______________’s talk from the Extravaganza a couple of years ago…there was some stuff said there that I ...
There is another person that we want you to know: Rachel Claseman. Rachel is an individual who helps us to manage some of the changes, problems and glitches that occasionally pop up between our membership records and our web site access. Rachel is a first-year medical school student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. ...
I have been wanting to write something about the crisis/fiasco at Penn State University for a few weeks. However, to be honest, I needed to give myself some time to get my mind wrapped around the strong emotional reaction I had when the details about the allegations began to surface. I react very very strongly ...
There are people within the Network that you will interact with from time-to-time. These folks have different roles that hopefully provide support and assistance to you, certainly in your relationship with the Network; hopefully also in your ministry. I thought it might be helpful for you to (at least virtually) “meet” these folks so you ...
The Network is excited to welcome Trinity Lutheran College as our latest gold partner organization. Trinity Lutheran College, located in Everett, Washington, is a small, Lutheran college whose mission is to provide a biblically-centered education and develop Christian leaders with a global perspective whose lives and ministry serve Jesus Christ in church and society. Trinity Lutheran ...
The Connect Journal is put out by the Network puts out 3-4 times per year (depending on where we’re at budget-wise.) in late spring and early summer we did a survey of our Network membership about how they use the Connect Journal. We’ve been processing this data, and it’s been really kind of fun. When ...
Network is a Verb 