thriving congregations Archives - Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation

Neighbor, Beloved Child of God, You Matter

Posted on December 20, 2023December 20, 2023

Written by Kristina Frugé

Wrapping up a season of orientation

As we wrap up the calendar year of 2023, our RIH learning community is concluding its first season of work – the season of orientation. These first few months of gathering, learning and connecting have been saturated with lots of new ideas, invitations and challenges. I may have heard one or two folks describe this season feeling as though we’ve been drinking from a fire hydrant – a fair way to describe it. However, our intention has been to zoom out in this season and look at the journey ahead from the 30,000 foot perspective. We have been aiming to offer an overview of a new map of sorts. We believe this map will help our learning community of folks explore God’s call to them in this present moment of our changing world.

For many of us in congregations, we’ve been working off of older tried and true maps to help us get our bearings and shape our ministries. Those maps may have been more reliable in previous times. However, the landscape of the world we live in and its challenges has shifted significantly in recent decades. These shifts have only intensified in recent years…the global health crisis of Covid 19, a racial uprising in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, increased economic insecurities, a growing mental health crisis, increasing impacts of our global climate crisis, war and violence, just to name a few. The list of hurts, heartaches and fears in the world and in our own lives is overwhelming. The church has been deeply impacted by this increasingly unpredictable landscape. But also, we are a people rooted in a story that is rooted in love and whose fruits are intended to bring healing, nourishment and wholeness to God’s creation. This means that while the church attends to its own struggles, it is simultaneously holding a particular call to help respond to the bad news being generated daily in our communities and around the globe.

We need new maps. And we need to cultivate different orienteering skills that help us show up in the world looking for and aligned with God’s vision for flourishing and mending in our places. Our season of orientation has attempted to offer some insights on these new maps to inform the journey we intend to pursue together, each in our unique corners of this map…on the ground, from within our congregations’ local neighborhoods. Continue reading “Neighbor, Beloved Child of God, You Matter” →

Transforming From Within: Reflections from Cohorts

Posted on November 16, 2023

Geoffrey’s Reflection

Peace friends,

So far, in our shared journey of faith and community, an essential truth emerged: real change begins within. As Lauryn Hill insightfully puts it, “How you gonna win when you ain’t right within?” This feels like it resonates as a deep undercurrent with our congregations’. .

We’re on a mission, not just to extend our sacred influence into the neighborhood but to first cultivate it within our own teams. It’s a process of aligning our hearts and minds, ensuring our internal compass is set towards genuine humanity.

This isn’t just about strategy; it’s about soul-searching. We’re engaging deeply with each other, understanding that to truly touch our neighborhood, we must first be united and aligned in our purpose and vision.

As we undertake this internal journey, we’re igniting a transformation that extends beyond our walls. We’re becoming the change we want to see, equipped to be sacred spaces in our neighborhood’s story, whether it’s filled with joy or echoes with grief.

This path we’re embarking on is and will be progressively challenging, yet incredibly rewarding. As we align within, our capacity to impact our neighborhoods grows exponentially. We’re not just changing – we’re evolving, ready to make a real ripple in the world around us.

Brenna’s Reflection

October brought the first of many cohort meetings for this round of the Riverside Innovation Hub journey. We met at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Bloomington, sharing in the rich history and context of their space. We heard their team members tell stories of teen lock-ins and Sunday school classes held in the room where we met from multiple generations in the past to today. Over the next year, each of our congregations will get a chance to host a cohort meeting in their space so that we can all get a taste of their place and story as we build relationships together. Continue reading “Transforming From Within: Reflections from Cohorts” →

Meet the Newest Riverside Innovation Hub Congregational Learning Partners!

Posted on October 26, 2023October 26, 2023

Written by Brenna Zeimet

Our new Thriving Congregation Learning Community has launched for the 2023-2025 RIH Journey. We have 3 cohorts, two local groups made up of Twin Cities Metro churches and one distance cohort made up of churches from coast to coast. We have a great mix of large suburban churches, smaller outstate churches and everything in between, giving us a diversity of experience and perspectives that will make our learning communities deep wells for growth and change.

Geoffrey Gill has returned as a congregational facilitator. He is at the helm of our distance cohort and will also facilitate one of our local learning communities. His passion for connection and deep relationship allows him to bridge geographical and cultural differences to create a welcoming space where churches from Massachusetts, Oregon, and rural Minnesota can find commonality and bond over the love for their neighbors. This distance cohort combines passion for racial justice in Oregon, innovative ministry to unhoused folks in Massachusetts, and community building across the small towns and cornfields of Southern Minnesota.

Geoffrey’s local cohort includes churches from St Paul to Plymouth who are passionate about doing work in their neighborhoods – amongst immigrants and politicians, for affordable housing and environmental justice, with students and community partners. These churches are joined by a team of mentors from Diamond Lake Lutheran Church in Minneapolis who will share the wisdom they gained as participants in our last round of RIH learning communities.

Brenna Zeimet has joined as our new cohort facilitator and she will be leading the other local cohort as well as piloting a new program for our alumni churches that helps them continue this work and weave the love for the neighbor into the culture of their congregations.

Brenna’s local cohort spans the Twin Cities Metro area, from Roseville to Eagan and St Paul to Bloomington. The churches in this group come from different denominations and neighborhoods, some are historic churches with a long legacy in their communities while others are young congregations who are growing and innovating in their new spaces. They all share an excitement for this work and a desire to live into being vital neighbors who make a difference in the people around them.

This learning community has proved to be passionate and excited to jump into this work. They already have great ideas and partnerships and seem to enter the space with a heart that beats for the neighbor. The feeling as we launch into this two year journey is one of hopefulness and anticipation. These churches are going to be forces for good in their respective communities and they can’t wait to get that ball rolling. For the full list of congregations, check out our RIH website.

The Journey Begins…

Posted on September 28, 2023September 28, 2023

Written by Brenna Zeimet

On September 16th church leaders from across the country gathered in person and via zoom to embark on a two year journey towards becoming vital neighbors in their communities. Riverside Innovation Hub launched three cohorts of churches, two of them composed of local congregations from the Minneapolis/St Paul metro area, and one distance cohort that will meet online with congregations from Oregon, Massachusetts, and rural Minnesota. We’re inspiring the flourishing of our neighbors from coast to coast!

Cohort participants got the opportunity to learn from our own Jeremy Myers about the Art of Becoming Public Church; diving deep into the cultural impacts of postmodernism, church outreach models, and what our neighbors want and need from us in our post-pandemic world. Jeremy helped our congregations think through what the public church framework is and why it is important to engage our neighbors in a different way than the Church has before.

Next our congregations explored their “why” with the help of our program director, Kristina Fruge. She walked through what it means to engage in “place based vocational discernment in the public square for the common good”, and then invited congregations to talk about their own places and the common good they long to work for in their particular public squares. Congregations also heard from each of our staff members about our own personal “why” that drives us to do this work of investing in our neighbors and building relationships for the flourishing of others. Over lunch, cohorts talked with each other about their personal “why” and began to build relationships with the co-laborers that will walk beside them on this journey. Continue reading “The Journey Begins…” →

Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices

Posted on March 10, 2022March 17, 2022

The Riverside Innovation Hub at Augsburg University is just one of 115 organizations who received a grant through the Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations Iniativitive in 2019 and 2020. The aim of the initiative is to help congregations strengthen their ministries and thrive so they can better help people deepen their relationships with God, enhance their connections with each other and contribute to the flourishing of their communities and the world.

One such organization is Augsburg’s neighbor – the Minneapolis Area Synod! While our efforts are distinct, both initiatives seek to create learning communities of congregations exploring their call to be neighbor, rooted in the particularities of their faith traditions. These tandem projects also allow additional opportunities to learn from each other about this work.

Please enjoy this contribution from our partners at the Minneapolis Area Synod – Nick Tangen and Maya Bryant – who are leading the synod’s Thriving Congregations work called, “Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices.”

Continue reading “Faith Practices & Neighboring Practices” →

Riverside Innovation Hub Congregations Gather & Learn Together

Posted on February 12, 2022February 23, 2022

Our 12 partner congregations gathered for a third learning event this February. This group began together in July 2021 with a launch event to build community and introduce key ideas about the call to be public church. In the fall, an Interdisciplinary Developmental Inventory (IDI) training was offered to congregational teams to develop a posture of cultural humility. This was followed by a hybrid event in October where teams focused on ways to practice accompaniment in their neighborhoods. Accompaniment is simply the big and small ways we set out to hear our neighbors’ stories – to hear how they are experiencing bad news and good news in their lives. Congregational teams have spent the last handful of months learning about their neighborhoods and listening to their neighbors in a variety of ways.

This most recent gathering on February 5, brought us back together to continue our vocational discovery work together by introducing the second artform of the public church framework – interpretation. Our current public safety realities prevented us from gathering together at Augsburg, but we still found meaningful connections during our online Saturday morning session. We learned some new technologies to enhance our online conversations and stayed cozy with hot chocolate, tea and the companion of our pets from home. We reflected on key themes congregations are hearing from their neighbors in their accompaniment work and we began to explore and name our key beliefs and theological convictions to aid our interpretive work. You can read more about what these interpretation questions sound like in this blog post by Congregational Facilitator, Amanda Vetsch.

Our questions and conversations together set the table to begin wondering…

What does God’s story have to say about the stories we are hearing from our neighbors and vice versa?

How does what we are hearing from our neighbors connect to God’s hopes and dreams for our world, our neighborhood, and our neighbors?

Continue reading “Riverside Innovation Hub Congregations Gather & Learn Together” →

Meet the Newest Riverside Innovation Hub Congregational Learning Partners!

Posted on June 3, 2021July 11, 2023

The Riverside Innovation Hub, an initiative of the Christensen Center for Vocation, is launching a new learning community! We are excited to partner and learn alongside of these eleven faith communities that are located throughout the Twin Cities metro area. Check out the map and list below to learn more about our new congregational learning partners. We’re looking forward to accompanying these churches over the next two years as we focus on being and becoming Public Church.

Faith Communities:

Bethel Lutheran Church, http://www.bethel-mpls.org
Church of the Epiphany, Episcopal, churchoftheepiphanymn.com
Diamond Lake Lutheran, https://www.dllc.org/
Elim Church – Robbinsdale, www.elim-robbinsdale.org
First Covenant Church, https://www.1stcov.org/
Genesis Covenant Church, www.genesiscov.org
Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church, www.gachurch.org
Immanuel Lutheran Church, www.ilcsp.org
Messiah Lutheran Church, www.messiahlutheranmpls.org
Plymouth Congregational Church, www.plymouth.org/
Shiloh Temple – Brooklyn Park, https://m.facebook.com/Shiloh-Temple-Brooklyn-Park-150710588317569/
St. Peder’s Lutheran, www.stpeders.org

Thriving Congregations: Learning Partnership Application Process

Posted on January 29, 2021June 2, 2021

The Minneapolis Area Synod and Augsburg University’s Christensen Center for Vocation were both awarded a Thriving Congregations grant through the Lilly Endowment to support work with area congregations. These individual projects share a commitment to accompanying congregations as they discern their call to BE neighbor, rooted in their faith and opened to the neighborhood.

Our two organizations are partnering to support each other in this work. While the particular experiences of congregations who participate in either project will differ in some key ways, our mutual efforts and curiosities are in sync with each other. This opens room to collaborate and learn together over the life of this initiative.

Our collaboration begins in offering a joint application process for congregations interested in either (or both) of these projects. Whether you are interested in MAS’s “Faith Practices and Neighboring Practices” learning community or Augsburg’s “Riverside Innovation Hub” learning community, we are providing a single application process. Our staff members are partnering closely to offer congregations a straightforward and thoughtful experience as you discern the exciting opportunities that our Thriving Congregation’s Grants are making available.

For brief project descriptions, distinctions, and eligibility for each project you can see this PDF document.

Project Descriptions & Eligibility

Riverside Innovation Hub

The Riverside Innovation Hub, stewarded by the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University, will learn and experiment with the Public Church Framework as a method for place based vocational discernment in the public square for the common good. This new opportunity is an invitation to congregations interested in pursuing or deepening this same orientation in their particular place, in relationship with the neighbor and neighborhood, leaning into God’s promises and challenges that meet us there. This project is open to all Christian congregations within an hour of the Twin Cities Metro Area. Congregations outside this geographic area may apply but should know their experience in the project may differ slightly. Participation in the learning community will include bringing teams to Augsburg’s campus 3-4 times a year (as COVID-19 allows.)
Learn More about Riverside Innovation Hub

Neighboring Practices and Faith Practices

Neighboring Practices and Faith Practices, stewarded by the Minneapolis Area Synod, will focus on faith practices and neighboring practices, because congregations connect best with their neighborhood when they practice their faith and they see with new eyes that God is already at work in their neighborhood. The Minneapolis Area Synod project is open to all Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) congregations within the geographic boundaries of the Minneapolis Area Synod and African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregations within Minnesota.

Learn More about Faith Practices and Neighboring Practices

Application Process

Step 1: Learn more:

Co-hosted informational sessions were offered in February. Each project is hosting one additional opportunity specific to their project.

For Minneapolis Synod congregations, watch for a workshop at the MAS Toolkit event on Saturday, March 13th.

For congregations interested in the Riverside Innovation Hub, RSVP at the link below for an info session on Tuesday, Mar 16th from 10:30-11:30am.

Note: RIH is open to any Christian denomination in the metro area or surrounding cities. MAS is open to ELCA Minneapolis Area Synod churches and Minnesota AME churches.

RSVP to RIH Info Session

Step 2: Submit Letter of Intent

Accepted on a rolling basis

Congregations interested in pursuing the application process with either the MAS or RIH projects are asked to have their senior pastor submit a letter of intent to apply, via a google form. Letters of intent will be accepted on a rolling basis, until the end of the application period.

Submission of your letter of intent will:

Allow congregations to indicate which project they are considering and why. And if you are considering both projects, why.
Help MAS and RIH staff streamline communications as the application process moves forward by adding you to direct mailings about the process and being available to you for further conversation.
Help your congregational leaders move through the application process in a timely and thoughtful way.

Form to Submit a Letter of Intent

Step 3: Submit Application

Submit on or before April 15, 2021

The Riverside Innovation Hub and Minneapolis Area Synod are collaborating on a joint application. The application Google form will include a “Primary Application” and supplemental questions for each project. Eligible congregations are welcome to apply for both opportunities, however if selected, you’ll only be invited to participate in one.

PDF Copy of the Application

Official Google Form to Submit Applications

Step 4: Invitation Process

RIH and MAS will review applications together and extend invitations to selected congregations (12 RIH) and (15 MAS) on May 15th. Congregations will have until May 28th to accept the invitation.

Augsburg’s learning community begins July 2021 and runs through July 2023.

The Minneapolis Area synod learning community begins September 2021 and runs through September 2023.

Contact us:

Additional questions? You can reach out to Amanda Vetsch with RIH (vetsch@augsburg.edu), Kristina Fruge with RIH (frugek@augsburg.edu), or Nick Tangen with MAS (n.tangen@mpls-synod.org).

Thriving Congregations: Collaboration and Project Descriptions

Posted on January 28, 2021October 12, 2021

Collaboration

The Minneapolis Area Synod (MAS) and Augsburg University’s Riverside Innovation Hub are both launching opportunities for congregations to be a part of a two-year learning community. These opportunities are both funded by the Lilly Endowment’s Thriving Congregations grant.

The two initiatives will work in parallel for the five years of the grant. The hope is to learn with, beside, and from each other during the two, two-year cycles with distinct cohorts of congregational leaders. Both opportunities are for congregations interested in pursuing or deepening an orientation in their particular place, in relationship with the neighbor and neighborhood, leaning into God’s promises and challenges and that meet us there. The promotion and application processes are collaborative, through co-hosting information sessions and a shared application for congregations. More details on information sessions and the application will be released soon.

Each learning community will have two, two-year cycles of learning cohorts, composed of multiple congregations. The cohorts will be coached or facilitated by a staff member at each respective organization. Both learning communities will learn from and with each other, with shared learning Summits in the second year of each cycle of learning cohorts.

PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

RIVERSIDE INNOVATION HUB (RIH)

The Riverside Innovation Hub, stewarded by the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University, will learn and experiment with the Public Church Framework as a method for place based vocational discernment in the public square for the common good. This new opportunity is an invitation to congregations interested in pursuing or deepening this same orientation in their particular place, in relationship with the neighbor and neighborhood, leaning into God’s promises and challenges that meet us there. The first learning community runs July 2021 – July 2023 and the second learning community runs September 2023 – September 2025.

This project is open to all Christian denominations within an hour of the Twin Cities Metro Area. Congregations outside this geographic area may apply but should know their experience in the project may differ slightly. Participation in the learning community will include bringing teams to Augsburg’s campus 3-4 times a year (as COVID-19 allows.)

MINNEAPOLIS AREA SYNOD (MAS)

Neighboring Practices and Faith Practices, stewarded by the Minneapolis Area Synod, will focus on faith practices and neighboring practices, because congregations connect best with their neighborhood when they practice their faith and they see with new eyes that God is already at work in their neighborhood. The first learning community runs September 2021 – 2023 and the second learning community runs September 2023 – September 2025.

The MAS project is open to all Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) within the geographic boundaries of the Minneapolis Area Synod and African Methodist Episcopal (AME) congregations within Minnesota.

Thriving Congregations: PDF Handout

Application Timeline

There is a joint application process for both projects that will be released on Feb. 3, 2021.
A letter of intent from the senior pastor is requested beginning March 1, 2021.
The deadline for submitting the completed joint application is April 15, 2021.
Selected congregations will be notified on May 15, 2021 and have until May 28, 2021 to accept the invitation.
The first RIH learning community runs from July 2021 – July 2023. The first MAS learning community runs from September 2021 – September 2023.

Stay tuned for more details on the information session and application process. If you have any additional questions, you can reach out to Amanda Vetsch with RIH (vetsch@augsburg.edu), Kristina Fruge with RIH (frugek@augsburg.edu), or John Hulden with MAS (j.hulden@mpls-synod.org)