By Derek Tronsgard
A funny thing happened this fall. My wife and I were on our way to the Minnesota Golden Gophers homecoming football game against Purdue. We had parked our car in the street several blocks away and had to walk right through the main row of fraternity houses to get to the stadium.
As we walked down frat row it was pretty obvious that the college kids were celebrating homecoming weekend with gusto. It was 10:30 in the morning, but there were young kids out on their
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The ELCA World Hunger program has launched a line of Web-based resources, Hunger Education Toolkits. The Hunger Education Toolkits will help you design, host, and lead a learning experience on hunger or hunger-related topics.
100 People: A Global Village
This activity will help participants see the stark realities of our world by looking at important characteristics of the world’s population. In this activity, the world’s population is represented by just 100 people.
[Part 2 in a series. See also
Timeonomics, Part 1: Quitting Church
]
Roland Martinson, academic dean of Luther Seminary and long-time expert in children, youth and family ministry, discusses the challenges that families face when it comes to devoting time to each other and to church.
Martinson shares tips on how to make time for reflection within families and in the church community, and discusses how the stewardship of time demands our greatest efforts as stewardship leaders in today's church. …
I don't know about you, but as a family with children in school, this time of the year I get caught in the current.
Our family tries hard to be intentional about how we spend our time, who we spend our time with and what commitments we take on all year long, but this time of year it never works.
The annual transition from summer to fall feels like someone else takes over the reins at our house for about six weeks:
- Those dinners we were going to have together were eaten on the run.
- That
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Roland Martinson, academic dean of Luther Seminary and long-time expert in children, youth and family ministry, invites you into a story of encountering a man who has decided -- with his family -- to quit church!
Martinson helps to tease out valuable lessons about how the stewardship of time demands our greatest efforts as stewardship leaders in today's church.
(This video was developed in collaboration with Luther Seminary's
Center for Stewardship Leaders
.)
Sandy Troyan, Luther Seminary student in Children, Youth and Family, weaves a powerful and timely story about the simplicity of connection for the development of faith.
"We really believe in the power of this message of welcome. We see the hope it creates. We see the transformative power it holds."
Probably one of the finest lessons taught to me about time came from a wise and learned friend from Tanzania.
As a part of our growing congregational partnership, we were able to spend time together as ordinary people learning from one another and listening deeply to what the other had to share.
"You see, Pastor Tim" he would say, "in America you have watches, but in Tanzania we have time!"
Implicit in his message was a critique of what he was seeing here in America -- busy people with
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Amber Espinosa, a recent Luther Seminary M.A. graduate, explores the changing face of children's ministry in her prize-winning article, "On Beyond Zebra: Beyond Traditional Models for Children's Ministry."
In the article, she riffs on Dr. Seuss' classic children's book, On Beyond Zebra!, where the young narrator invents letters beyond the conventional alphabet.
A strengths-based journey focuses on fulfilling the calling for which you are uniquely equipped. In turn, that contributes to the fulfillment of God's calling for the church as a whole and for the sake of the other and the world.
Trinity Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn. has been discovering strengths with their children and youth as they seek to steward the gifts that God has given.
(This video was developed in collaboration with Luther Seminary's Center for Stewardship Leaders.)
"Everyone has a calling. Discovering it is what life is about and that calling does not come from God's voice thundering from above; but it more often comes from whispers deep within you, from the very essence of your being. God expects nothing more from you than to live that life for which you were created!" — (
Living Your Strengths
)
A strengths-based journey focuses on fulfilling the calling for which you are uniquely equipped. In turn, that contributes to the fulfillment of God's
…