Tag: ELCA
Detroit 2015: Everyone Please Take a Breath
It was with some dismay and a bit of disappointment that I’ve been reading the ongoing comments and conversation in blogs and on Facebook about the City of Detroit as the site of the 2015 ELCA Youth Gathering. I know that the news about the legal bankruptcy of the City of Detroit is very big ...
Trending
Over time, I’ve noticed that ministry with those in the first third of life seems to be kind of “trend driven.” There are new ministry concepts…thoughts and ideas that tend to bubble up. They become a big deal…they become mainstream…they fade…they are replaced… When I first started doing this work, congregational youth ministry was all ...
Leadership Matters
Nominations open today for the Board of Directors of the ELCA Youth Ministry Network. Two seats on the board will become available when the next term begins. Those terms don’t begin until February 3, 2014, a long time from now. So why are we already opening up the nomination process for terms that don’t begin ...
Dr. Rollie Martinson Retires from Luther Seminary
The following letter was released today by Luther Seminary: Dear President Foss, I write to inform you of my decision to retire June 30, 2013. While many personal and professional considerations surround my retiring at the end of this academic year, the timing of the decision is primarily informed by my commitment to joining others ...
Being Made New
There is change happening in the church. Maybe it’s a new awareness…perhaps it’s a new reformation…I’m not sure what to call it. But something is different. There are new conversations taking place. There are new questions being asked. When I enter into conversations with those who do ministry alongside young people and their families, the ...
The Tom Hunstad Award Presented to Lisa Jeffreys!
Text from Rev. Larry Wagner’s presentation: While tonight’s announcement regarding the recipient of the 2013 Tommy Award won’t be covered by any of the major networks, and it won’t likely be printed in the morning edition of the LA Times, it matters deeply to those of us who are gathered in this ballroom tonight. One ...
Who We Are
In the last couple of weeks of November, we did a demographic survey of our Network members. We e-mailed our members, inviting them to take the online survey sometime over a period of two weeks. We had a good response to the invitation. Our response rate was 52%. There are two reasons we did the ...
Practice Discipleship Launches!
The second phase of the Practice Discipleship Initiative will launch in January of 2013. This project is the result of a dynamic partnership between the ELCA Youth Ministry Network, the ELCA and its Youth Gathering, ELCA Lutheran seminaries and colleges and their faculty who teach children, youth and family ministry, and resource providers of the ...
First Visions
As I have mentioned, the Network is working on a new strategic planning process. I hope to be able to write about some of that later next week. I’m really excited about the stuff that the Board is working on! In the process of this, Larry Wagner, our board chairperson and I were talking about ...
Network Board Gathers Today
Today, members of the Network’s Board of Directors are traveling to Denver, Colorado for their annual fall meeting. The vision, direction and policies of the Network are overseen by this Board. Seven individuals are called to serve in this role, and meet for prayer, discernment, visioning and policy setting three times a year. The Network ...
Network is a Verb 