Light The Cauldron

On Saturday I got to enjoy some time with my father doing one of our longest and most fun tradition: visiting Michigan Stadium and watching a football game! Watching a Michigan game is fun, but in my opinion, the best parts of the game aren't the 60 minutes that take place between two endzones. While that is still a lot of fun, going to a Michigan football game is all about the atmosphere before, during, and after the game. Our game on Saturday wasn't very exciting, but that didn't matter. I was just glad to be back at the Big House! Parking Michigan Stadium doesn't have a giant parking lot for games, so most people have to park on the streets and lawns of the surrounding neighborhood. I am quite familiar with the area around the Stadium - I pass by there whenever I attend one of our churches. Normally, it's a pretty quiet neighborhood, but on football Saturdays, the area is completely different. Pauline Boulevard, where the church is located, is clogg

When you enter a WELS church, what would you say is the group demographic that you see the most? Would it be the families with small children? Would it be the seniors ages 55 and older? Or would it be a group somewhere in between? Churches often struggle to keep members that are entering their 20s and 30s. These men and women are graduating college, moving out of the home, and beginning their careers. In the midst of all this transition and change, a foundation based on church life might be lacking. The unfortunate statistics about Millennials and church attendance are no secret. According to a 2014 Religious Landscape Study conducted by the Pew Research Center, about four-in-ten Millennials (adults born between 1981 and 1996) consider religion to be very important in their lives (compared to every other demographic, which were over 50%), and only 28% attend religious services at least once a week. About that same amount are active in a religious group.* It is very importan

For the past few years, this time of the year gets me a little jumpy. I get a little more reflective, too. This year especially makes me think of two major events in my life that happened at this time - one from ten years ago, and the other from five. It's not pre-Halloween jitters or anything (though yes, I do despise the holiday). It's just that past history has taught me to tread on this third weekend of October very lightly, because stuff in the past has taken place that's very much outside my comfort zone. Saturday, October 14, 2006 I was enjoying a nice quiet Saturday at Martin Luther College. I was nearing the end of my Practicum - a four-week student teaching warm-up before I did the real thing in Wisoconsin - and was starting to get excited for a new congregation, school, supervising teacher, and location. (One can only handle rural Minnesota for so long.) Not only was I excited about that, I was anticipating something I'd never seen in my lifetime - a