Church #28. Meet Rachel Holston. She is the Director of Children, Youth and Family Ministries at Diamond Lake Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis, MN. With an average worship attendance of 200 people on a given Sunday, Diamond Lake is a church that embraces a love for all people. Once a month on Wednesday nights, Holsten gathers families … Continue reading Story Stick Paraments

Lent 2018 Don't Forget to Pray (before sleeping, eating, or flushing)! Welcome to Lent - a time to prepare our hearts and minds to hear the stories of Holy Week and Easter. To help kids enter into the spiritual discipline of devotions, 50 church workers, parents and pastors from across the USA came together to write … Continue reading Lent 2018 – Free Kid Devotionals

Church #27. Meet Emily Dalen. She is the Director of Children’s and Family Ministries at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, and she is on the board for the Christian Education Network for the ELCA. With an average worshiping attendance of 400-450 people on a given Sunday, St. Paul’s is working hard to connect … Continue reading One Step Backward, Two Steps Forward

People often ask to if they can "pick my brain" about all sorts of creative things. Brainstorming is one of my favorite activities. Combine it with storytelling, art and faith, and it feels like I have hit the Jackpot! With the onset of Lent, people from different parts of the USA have been reaching out … Continue reading Be Inspired.

Church #26. Meet Marie Gettel-Gilmartin. She is a member of Spirit of Grace in Beaverton, Oregon. Her congregation is an intentional community of 150-200 members made up of Lutherans, Roman Catholics and other faith traditions, who worship and serve together. Gettel-Gilmartin is a lay leader in her community–one that affirms all sexual orientations, gender identities, … Continue reading Radical Welcome – Radical Love

My Sunday School kids love to be involved in worship. We do something called G.I.F.T. or Growing in Faith Together, parent and child classes to dig deeper into the churchy topics. (Check out this post for more information and thanks Rich Melheim for the acronym.) In a couple weeks, the littlest ones will lead the the "Greeting of the … Continue reading An “I Spy Church” Greeting

My family is not unusual. Just like yours, there are Christmas programs, school concerts and cookies swaps. December 1st rolls around with the reminder that there are 24 days to Christmas. Yikes! Since I wrote my Thanksgiving Blog, Take Time To Hide, I have been thinking about how can we slow down to seek God. … Continue reading Busy Lives? Use FAITH5 for Advent!

My oldest son, Noah, spent the first six years of his life as missionary kid in Madagascar. His best friend, Tafita, was our next door neighbor. Communication, as you can imagine, for these two preschoolers was an odd mixture of French, English and Malagasy. Sometimes language barriers led to tantrums and sometimes to laughable moments. But there was one game … Continue reading Take Time to Hide

I have been in ministry for almost 20 years. My call has taken me to 3 different continents, where I have learned, worked and preached in 4 different languages. From camp counselor to children, youth and family ministry, from missionary to pastoral intern, my work has been centered on sharing God’s love with God’s people. … Continue reading 25,000 Hits on Church Change