The long goodbye

Or, more accurately, the many goodbyes. The farewell process has been quite protracted for me, as I complete my service with eight congregations. But now the final day has come and my internship is over. I moved everything yesterday and stayed one last night in an almost-empty apartment to lead worship at Gol this morning. Now I depart for St. Paul to begin my final year at Luther Seminary.

Here's what I wrote in my final newsletter column:

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel…” (Philippians 1:3-5).

Dear friends in Christ, my year as your intern is winding down. On August 28, I will return to Luther Seminary, preparing to graduate in May 2012. Thank you for the privilege of learning among you this year. It’s been a pleasure to get to know you and to share in your worship, study, service, and fellowship.

Thank you for your faithful commitment to this internship program. Supporting the education of future pastors is a great gift to the wider church. Your witness to God’s power and love will continue to work in me, affecting all the congregations and individuals among whom I serve in the future.

You have helped me expand my role as a student and begin to grow into my identity as a pastor, a process that will continue throughout my ministry. I am deeply grateful for your warm welcome, encouragement, and prayers. I hope you will continue to pray for me, for your pastors, and for the whole church.

You can be certain I will remember you in prayer, with thanksgiving for all the ways you have blessed me, and with joy at God’s faithfulness among you. I rejoice in your presence among my “great cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), and thank you once again for a rich and delightful year of learning.

Peace in Christ,
Intern Amanda

These congregations had a life before me and will have a life after me, just as I had a life before and will have one after. It's a strange reality to get used to when I feel such a connection with this place, these congregations, and these people. I'm actually a little surprised at how connected I feel, when I wasn't fully immersed in any one congregation.

But the gospel love that ties us together is remarkably strong, and that connection will continue, as I have discovered with my beloved home church. I'm delighted that they're now a part of my story, and I'm honored to have added my voice to the ongoing story of these congregations and their life in Christ.

Power and mission

June newsletter for the churches (which will bear some resemblance to the upcoming Sunday's sermon, I suspect, since it was inspired by the Acts text on which I'll preach).


Jesus told his disciples, “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now….you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:5, 8). Then the Holy Spirit came upon the church on the day of Pentecost, with the rush of a mighty wind, with divided tongues of fire, and with a miracle of language (Acts 2:1-13).

That same Spirit was poured out on you in your own baptism: the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the Spirit of joy in God’s presence (LBW baptism service, from Isaiah 11:2).

This means that, along with the disciples, you have been commissioned to be witnesses to the risen Christ in all the ends of the earth! And, along with the disciples, you have been equipped to fulfill that commission with the Spirit’s own power! The Holy Spirit gives us words when words otherwise fail us (Mark 13:11) and intercedes for us when we cannot even manage to pray (Romans 8:26).

So you need not doubt your ability to fulfill Christ’s command to proclaim the good news of God’s love and mercy. Instead, you can trust that the Holy Spirit will guide you to show forth Christ in both words and deeds.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

My May newsletter column for the churches.*


One of my favorite Easter hymns bears exactly that title: “Christ Is Risen! Alleluia!” (LBW 131, ELW 382).

Here’s a gem from verse 3: “See the grave its first-fruits giving, springing up from holy ground.” Jesus as “first-fruits” from the grave tells us Jesus is the first one to be raised from the dead to life eternal, but he won’t be the only one. We will one day join him, along with all of God’s people!

This means that “henceforth never death or hell shall us enthrall” (verse 4). Now that Christ has defeated death, it is no longer a threat for us either, because Easter is not only about Christ—it’s also about us. Because everything God has done through Christ, he has done for us.

In our creeds, we confess that we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. It is Jesus’ resurrection that sets in motion this future reality. Because Jesus defeated death, we too are set free from death, and we will all share in the glory of Jesus’ resurrection. “Be we Christ’s, in him forever we have triumphed over all” (verse 4).

Christ’s resurrection is not just a glorious event to be admired from a distance. It is for you! This Easter season, I hope you run with Peter all the way into the empty tomb to immerse yourself the wonder and glory of this miracle.


* Side note: my April newsletter column was reprinted in the Kenyon Leader. They misspelled my name and messed up the last couple sentences, at least in the online version, but I think the main point was made anyway.

Speech and silence

My April newsletter column for the churches...


We have four different accounts of Jesus’ life from four different authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each story is just a little different from the others, which doesn’t mean that they aren’t true. It just means that the authors write from different perspectives, focus on different themes, and notice different details of the same events.

On Easter Sunday, we usually hear John’s account of the resurrection of Jesus. And it’s a great story. Matthew and Luke each tell the Easter story beautifully as well, but I’ve developed a fondness for Mark’s version.

The way Mark tells the story of Jesus, his disciples are often confused. They fail to understand what Jesus is trying to teach them, and when he tells them to keep quiet about his work, they just can’t seem to do it. After he cured a deaf man, “Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it” (Mark 7:36).

Then, when the women find the empty tomb, the angel tells them to go and tell the disciples what they have seen. So what do they do? According to the shorter version of Mark’s ending, “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:7-8).

So, in Mark’s gospel, the followers of Jesus can’t seem to keep quiet when told to do so, but neither can they manage to speak when they’re supposed to do that! (Of course, the women at the tomb eventually managed to tell the others what they had seen; otherwise the story wouldn’t have gotten to us.)

But isn’t it encouraging to know that God can work through such imperfect people? People who so often can’t get it right? People who speak when they should keep silence and keep silence when they should speak?

It’s a reminder that God can and does work through each of us, in spite of our failures and flaws. None of us gets it right all the time, but still God does his work, and we are each a part of it. I pray that the Spirit inspires you in telling the story of Jesus, and I wish you the joy of knowing that your imperfect efforts are never in vain.

The light of the world

My latest newsletter article...


During the season of Epiphany, we celebrate light, beginning with the bright star that reveals Jesus to the nations, guiding the magi to worship this new king.

You may notice darkness and light as a recurring theme throughout the season’s lectionary texts. We have heard from Isaiah (9:2), “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Darkness and light are presented in contrast—despair and anguish vs. hope and joy.

As we know, Jesus Christ is the light of the world (John 8:12), the light no darkness can overcome (John 1:5). He is the source of hope and joy that breaks through the darkness of despair and anguish.

We will also hear Jesus tell his followers, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). How can this be—that both Jesus and his followers are the light of the world?

When we follow Jesus, we no longer walk in darkness, as Isaiah says, for we have seen a great light. Our lives are in Christ, the true light of the world. So the light of Christ shines within us, and we become the light of the world by reflecting that light to all those around us.

This season, may the light of Christ break into the dark corners of your lives, filling you with hope and joy!

New year, new you?

My January column for the churches' newsletters.


Once again, we find ourselves at the start of a new year. The airwaves and internet are saturated with features about New Year’s resolutions, with hundreds of “experts” telling you how to fix anything you don’t like about yourself.

How might our experience of the New Year be different if we change our focus? What if, instead of concentrating too narrowly on our perceived flaws, we spend this year exploring our baptismal identity and how it plays out in our lives?

Martin Luther said “a Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after” (Large Catechism). So the impulse to improve upon our weaknesses is not totally misguided, but the emphasis in the Christian life is very different.

New Year’s resolutions tend to be about fitting into an identity prescribed by the culture around us. They are often driven by shame—we start out feeling somehow inadequate, and we end up feeling like even more of a failure when we don’t meet the unrealistic expectations we set.

Our baptismal identity, in contrast, is a gift from God, rooted in love and charged with great power. We are a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17)! And we are sealed by the Holy Spirit, whose fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). But this fruit is not produced through the guidance of self-help gurus, for it is not work we can do ourselves!

Now, I’m certainly not suggesting we become complacent. Indeed, the Spirit works through our lives of discipleship. Through regular worship, through the Lord’s Supper, through scripture and study and fellowship with other Christians, the Holy Spirit continually shapes us into closer conformity with the Christ whose image we bear. This work is about joy! It is about love of God and love of neighbor! It is not about shame.

What does it mean that you are baptized? How does your identity as a child of God define you? How does it counter the pressure of culturally-defined perfection or unhealthy expectations?

This year, I wish you the peace and assurance of knowing you are a beloved child of God, defined by the Christ who has claimed you, and in whom the Spirit is always at work!

The scandal of Christmas

Here's my article for the churches' December newsletters.


In the film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, there’s a scene in which Ricky Bobby leads his family in a mealtime prayer, repeatedly addressing God as “Baby Jesus.”

“Dear Lord, Baby Jesus…” he prays, because he likes the Christmas Jesus best, he says. It sounds odd to many of us. It’s not a form of address we often use for God, but I think it illustrates a common attitude toward Jesus. Christmas is a little more “warm and fuzzy” than other festivals, and a baby in a manger is much cuter and easier to understand than a suffering, dying, resurrected, and ascended Lord.

Or is it? Does a helpless, vulnerable baby in a barn seem like a fitting image for God? This incarnation—the true God living among us in the truly human form of Jesus—is a radical idea! This movement of God to join with humanity overturns all our notions of God as cold, distant, and removed from creation.

And nowhere is God more intimately connected with humanity than on the cross. Christmas is not only about a baby in a manger. It is about the entire story of Word who became flesh and lives among us. The story of Jesus the baby begins the story of Jesus the Messiah, and this story will culminate in his passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.

During Advent and Christmas, as we await and celebrate the birth of Emmanuel, may we revel in the scandalous love of God With Us, and may we see the cross even as we approach the manger.

Joy and peace to you!

All Saints Day

Today is All Saints Day, one of my favorite festivals of the church. Two aspects make it especially meaningful to me.

First, I consider it a time to celebrate the “great cloud of witnesses” mentioned in Hebrews 12:1—all who persevere in the faith and pass it along to those who come after them. The “saints” we commemorate are not just people who have lived exceptional lives, but all of God’s people who have “fought the good fight…finished the race…kept the faith” (1 Timothy 4:7).

Second, All Saints Day is a time to lay claim to God’s greatest promises, and to bask in their glow. Revelation 21 is a favorite of mine: “See, the home of God is among mortals….he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” God gives us sure and certain hope that death, painful as it is now, will not have the final word!

Thanks be to God for the great promises in which we stand, and for all who have nurtured our faith in these promises. And thanks be to God for you--my own cloud of witnesses!


P.S. This is (more or less) the column I wrote for my internship churches' November newsletters. Apologies to those who get to enjoy it twice, but I did mean it both times. :-)