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Rhoda Schuler

About Rhoda Schuler

https://rhodaschuler.com

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Save the Date! June 1 – 3, 2021 for the Next Online Conference

Orbiting Christ: Belonging, Believing, Behaving

An Online Conference on Adult Faith Formation & Congregational Transformation

Building on our earlier conference (Treasures Old and New: A Conference on Adult Faith Formation), this follow-up event will unfold ways in which the emblems of the Church intersect with the process of drawing people into Christ’s orbit, thus making them disciples. Belonging, believing, and behaving describe the person’s journey toward discipleship. Each of these three descriptors serves as a daily theme for the conference and will be paired with the emblems of the Church.  By exploring what the Church is (a community of faith in Christ) and the activities that identify a community as Church (liturgy/worship, preaching and teaching, and witness and service), the conference leaders will explore how living as the Church opens a Christian community to Christ’s missional calling: to teach and baptize and to love one another and the world.

The conference is designed

  • To foster a vision of missional identity through practical ways of building a process of adult formation centered in Christ.
  • To reflect on the Christological nature of Church’s emblems—community, worship, preaching, teaching, witness, and service—as key to the missional nature of congregations by
    • Envisioning community and worship as vehicles that create a sense of belonging rooted in Christ for those on the path to discipleship;
    • Exploring the overlap between and distinctiveness of preaching and teaching; and recognizing the role of both in the Holy Spirit’s work in creating believing hearts;
    • Examining anew witness and service in the world as transformative ways of behaving that can draw those outside the Church into Christ’s orbit.
  • To inspire pastors and lay leaders to such a winsome and Gospel-centered, missional approach to ministry.
  • To remind participants from the “Treasures Old and New” Conference: that we are not peddling a “program for new members” but offering visions of a robust adult catechumenal process that leads to congregational transformation. 

Participants in this conference will

  • Hear church professionals dialogue on the daily topic as it relates to their ministry setting;
  • Engage in Q & A time with presenters;
  • Choose from a variety of breakout sessions that will explore practical ways to implement a catechumenal process and introduce new resources on adult faith formation.

Click here to register for the conference:

https://www.forminglutherans.org/conference-registration/

For more details, see “Events” on the website.

Photo: https://www.rawpixel.com/image/441103/the-solar-system

Passover moon 2

A Blessed Great Week!

Literary evidence from early Christian writers (Epistula Apostolorum; Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha)  as well as St. Paul’s words to the Christians at Corinth (1 Cor. 5:8) indicate that the Paschal Feast was the earliest annual celebration shared by the Faithful. Thus, this week is a good opportunity for us to seek wisdom from the saints gone before us, and as Lutherans, to mine the resources of our own tradition. The following is quoted from The Church Year: Studies in Introits, Collects, Epistles and Gospels by Paul Zeller Strodach, published in 1924, for Tuesday in Holy Week (pp. 137-138, emphasis in original).

Introit: God forbid that I should glory: save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Gal. 6:14]

In Him is salvation, life and resurrection from the dead: by Him we are redeemed and set at liberty.

Psalm: God be merciful unto us, and bless us: and cause His face to shine upon us. [Ps. 67:1]

Collect: Almighty and Everlasting God, grant us grace so to contemplate the Passion of our Lord, that we may find therein forgiveness for our sins; through the same Jesus Christ … [Gelasian Sacramentary]

The Collect turns our hearts to the true use of these hours—the most fruitful use—contemplation…. The Introit calls [this contemplation] glorying in our Lord’s Cross; the Collect tells us what we find, not by merit or discovery but in the fullness of communion with our dear Lord one finds what it means when the hearts knows the forgiveness of sins!

Photo: The Passover Moon setting in the west over St. Paul, Minnesota on the morning of March 29, 2021.

Three Bes

Update on June Conference

“Orbiting Christ: Belonging, Believing, Behaving” is the title for the online conference we are planning for June.  We are still working to finalize the dates, based on the availability of our leadership. Potential dates for the conference are June 1-3, 2021 OR a series of Tuesdays: June 1, 8, and 15.

The “three BEs” of the title come from authors Alan Kreider (The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom) and Diana Butler Bass (Christianity after Religion), both of whom use this alliterative phrase to describe the path toward Christian identity and discipleship. The image of “orbiting Christ” places our Savior at the center of the life of the Christian; it is Christ who orders our path and who gives stability to our lives. Each day of the conference will pair the marks of the church with one of the “BEs.”

Day 1: Belonging   How can congregations foster a sense of belonging in adult faith formation? Two of our pastoral leaders will discuss why and how community and liturgy are the essential marks of the Church that create a sense a belonging among adult catechumens. This day will also offer several practical workshops on topics related to community and liturgy.

Day 2: Believing   As St. Paul writes, “Faith comes through hearing” (Romans 10:17), and central to the pastoral role is preaching and teaching. Two pastoral leaders will unpack these overlapping yet distinctive marks of the Church. The workshops on this day will consider concrete aspects of teaching (particularly for adults) and the intersection between preaching and teaching in relation to adult faith formation.

Day 3: Behaving   Witness and service, the marks of the Church that correlate with behaving, send Christians out into the world. Two deaconesses, whose identities are wrapped in this language, will consider how and why Christians are called into the world (and are yet not “of” the world). The workshops will focus on methods of equipping laity for witness and service.

Once we have finalized the dates of the conference, registration will open on the website.

xFinal final Plenary

“Could listen to those three brothers speak all day”

So wrote one participant on the evaluation form for the January Webinar, “Treasures Old and New: A Conference on Adult Faith Formation.” “Those three brothers” are the parish pastors whose expertise is the foundation for the conference attended by 46 people from 21 different LCMS districts, ranging from coast to coast and from the deep South to the upper Midwest.  Another participant captured well a central theme of the conference as expressed by the three pastors, saying they “showed me the great variety in the catechumenate process and [that] adaptation to context is key.”

Wednesday morning of the conference was devoted to the ritual aspect of adult faith formation, drawing on the experience Rev. Dr. Dien Ashley Taylor (Redeemer Lutheran, The Bronx) and on videos provided by his congregation. The fruits of that presentation were expressed by this comment from a participant: “It taught me that I need to embrace ritual more …”

Others spoke glowingly of Rev. Daniel Eggold’s presentation on catechumenal resources, saying “Loved, loved, loved this session.” Another reported that he had already ordered two of the resources Pastor Eggold had suggested and is “looking forward to … begin to implement [an adult faith formation] process here.”

Our heartfelt thanks to Pastor Eggold and “those three brothers”: Pastor Taylor of Redeemer Lutheran, Rev. Timothy Droegemueller of Living Faith Lutheran, Cumming, Georgia, and Rev. Dr. Scott Bruzek of St. John’s, Wheaton, Illinois, for sharing their wisdom and experience with the pastors, commissioned ministers, and laity who attended the conference.

This Quadrivium is working with us to plan the next event for June 2021. Stay tuned for details about this coming attraction!

Theology in Motion3

Drs. Burreson and Schuler on a Podcast! So Hip!

Our thanks to Rev. Steve Zank, Director of Theology for the Center for Worship Leadership, Christ College, Concordia University, Irvine, California for inviting us to converse about our research on the CWL’s “Theology in Motion” podcast.

In the podcast Steve Zank explores with us our research project on worship and the adult catechumenate, funded by the Calvin Institute of Worship. This wide ranging, hour-long conversation covers these main topics:

  • The implications of baptism for the local community of faith;
  • The integration of worship and discipleship;
  • The ways in which rituals form us; and
  • The four stages of discipleship.

You can listen to the podcast via various platforms.

These links requires no subscription to access:

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/theologyinmotion/id/17798117

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnELKkR-Oj0

For podcast subscribers of Apple, Amazon, or Spotify:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/worship-formation-and-the-catechumanate-burreson-schuler/id1452426842?i=1000507519059

https://www.amazon.com/arya/webplayer?asin=B08VRXJXB5&useRelativeUrl=true&contentDeliveryType=PodcastEpisode&fetchNewPlayQueue=true

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3U9DFfKPypkwgK3ptDueke

Mt of Olives

Welcome to Forming Lutherans Updates!

Friends in Christ,

Forming Lutherans has set up an email distribution list through Mail Chimp to send email notices of new content on our website, forminglutherans.org. We plan to use this feature

  • To keep you informed about plans for the online conference in June 2021;
  • To share resources on the adult catechumenate with you;
  • To offer an occasional word of inspiration and hope for congregational renewal; and
  • To preview additional research findings from our ethnographic research on the four congregations that participated in the original Calvin grant.

If you prefer to “opt out” of these email notices, you may scroll down to the bottom of this message and click on “unscribe from this list.”

Of course, we hope you will at least stay with us for a trial period. The link to unsubscribe to the distribution list will be at the bottom of each email you receive, so if you find little of value for your ministry in the posts, you can unsubscribe at any time.

Blessings to you all as we begin our Lenten journey to the cross,

Rev. Dr. Kent J. Burreson
Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri
Louis A. Fincke and Anna B. Shine Professor of Systematic Theology
Dean of the Chapel
Kent@forminglutherans.org

Dr. Rhoda Schuler
Concordia University, St. Paul, Minnesota
Director of LCMS Placement & Colloquy
Scholar-in-Residence; professor emerita
Rhoda@forminglutherans.org

Saint_Cyril_of_Jerusalem

Excerpt from Cyril of Jerusalem’s first Catechetical Lecture

Cyril served as bishop of Jerusalem in the late 4th century. It’s possible that the pilgrim Egeria heard his lectures.

  1. If any here is a slave of sin, let him promptly prepare himself through faith for the new birth into freedom and adoption; and having put off the miserable bondage of his sins, and taken on him the most blessed bondage of the Lord, so may he be counted worthy to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Put off, by confession , the old man, which waxes corrupt after the lusts of deceit, that you may put on the new man, which is renewed according to knowledge of Him that created him. Get you the earnest of the Holy Spirit 2 Corinthians 1:22 through faith, that you may be able to be received into the everlasting habitations. Luke 16:9 Come for the mystical Seal, that you may be easily recognised by the Master; be numbered among the holy and spiritual flock of Christ, to be set apart on His right hand, and inherit the life prepared for you. For they to whom the rough garment of their sins still clings are found on the left hand, because they came not to the grace of God which is given through Christ at the new birth of Baptism: new birth I mean not of bodies, but the spiritual new birth of the soul. For our bodies are begotten by parents who are seen, but our souls are begotten anew through faith: for the Spirit blows where it lists John 3:8: and then, if you be found worthy, you may hear, Well done, good and faithful servant Matthew 25:21, when you are found to have no defilement of hypocrisy in your conscience.

This excerpt is from the website New Advent:

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310101.htm

Links in the text will take you to the website’s commentary on the text.

Egeria

Egeria’s Travels: Enrollment of those seeking baptism at Pascha (Easter)

https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/egeria2.html

XLV. 1. Et illud etiam scribere debui, quemadmodum docentur hi, qui baptidiantur per pascha. Nam qui dat nomen suum, ante diem quadragesimarum dat, et omnium nomina annotat presbyter, hoc est ante illas octo septimanas, quibus dixi hic attendi quadragesimas.

2. Cum autem annotauerit omnium nomina presbyter, postmodum alia die de quadragesimis, id est qua inchoantur octo ebdomadae, ponitur episcopo cathedra media ecclesia maiore, id est ad Martyrium, sedent hinc et inde presbyteri in cathedris et stant clerici omnes. Et sic adducuntur unus et unus conpetens; si uiri sunt, cum patribus suis ueniunt, si autem feminae, cum matribus suis.

3. Et sic singulariter interrogat episcopus uicinos eius, qui intrauit, dicens: ‘Si bonae uitae est hic, si parentibus deferet, si ebriacus non est aut uanus?’ et singula uitia, quae sunt tamen grauiora in homine, requiret.

4. Et si probauerit sine reprehensione esse de his omnibus, quibus requisiuit praesentibus testibus, annotat ipse manu sua nomen illius. Si autem in aliquo accusatur, iubet illum foras exire dicens: ‘Emendet se et, cum emendauerit se, tunc accedet ad lauacrum’. Sic de uiris, sic de mulieribus requirens dicit. Si quis autem peregrinus est, nisi testimonia habuerit, qui eum nouerint, non tam facile accedet ad baptismum.