Being Church in Emerging Culture

The postmodern time is one in which people are skeptical of authority and see themselves as having a global identity, Pastor Jay Gamelin told the 2013 Synod Assembly. We now also live in ambiguous times where there is a tension between reason and mystery, he said.

“Some of the most faithful people I know are physicists, said Gamelin, “because they get what it means to live in theory rather than truth.”

He said what begins to show up and come together in postmodernism is the character of Christ. We don’t just talk about the words Jesus said, book look at how he lived his life. We are actually watching Jesus. Read more

“What Needs To Die In Your Church?”

In his second Assembly presentation, Jay Gamelin talked about his time in campus ministry at Ohio State University. When he arrived he could tell the Lutheran Campus Center had an identity crisis just by its many names on the sign. He decided to create a “gray space” in which he and the students could explore their struggles. The first year they studied the story of Jacob and for eight weeks put themselves into the story and wrestled with God. They explored what it would mean to not only wrestle with God, but leave limping like Jacob.

“The community eventually changed its name to Jacob’s Porch — because we wrestle with God and… because it’s a liminal space that faces outward,” said Gamelin. Read more