Leader Training at Lutheran Campus Ministry - Twin Cities

Faith Stories (90) 

● (10) Free Write – 

○ You all got here somehow. Why did you say yes to being a leader for a Christian community? What is it about your spirituality that most matters to you? 

○ Partner Share… 

● (20) Card Activity 

○ We have these cards (linked here)– they don’t get at everything, but sometimes they’re helpful in finding concrete language. They’re going to help us get specific about the words that we use to talk about our faith. 

○ Find 3-5 of these words that most closely get at the “why” of your faith. ■ Put them in a sentence or two and write them in your journal. 

■ OR Answer the questions “What do you believe to be true about God? What is or are God’s promise/s to you? What is God’s invitation or call to you? 

○ Write it down, Share with a partner, share with the group… 

● (20) Lutheran Understanding – 

○ Can you do the same things, working with a partner, trying to find 3-5 words that work to describe what you know about Lutheran Theology? And/or what you know about LCM’s theology? 

○ Overview - 7 principles (below) 

● Our Faith Story (LCM) (20-30 depending on time) 

○ I think it’s important to give words to some of the feelings we have, or who/what we understand our “sense” of God to be. Words aren’t everything, but they are 1 important gift that we have to describe what we know and feel, even if it seems ephemeral or mushy, I’m grateful to you for trying. 

○ As leaders, people may ask you, or will likely ask you why you’re a leader for LCM, or what it is. Maybe it’s at an LCM table, or maybe a dinner where your roommate has a bunch of friends over for...This exercise is meant to give you an answer! 

○ I want you to take what you know about your own theology, the bits you know about Lutheran theology, what you know from your own experience of LCM, and construct a “who we are as LCM” kind of sentence. Write it down! Just one line please! 

○ You can use the cards if you want to help you land on some words. 

● Write, Large Group Process

SEVEN ASPECTS OF LUTHERAN FAITH, THEOLOGY, AND IDENTITY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY.[1] 

1. Grace and Mercy: 

a. God loves you before and beyond anything you do or don’t do. God comes to us. You are not God, thanks be to God. Full stop. 

2. Freedom in Christ - vocation, love the neighbor on their behalf. 

a. God’s reputation for mercy before judgment inspires our systems for liberation and love. 

3. Incarnation: 

a. Our whole humanity is valuable, so much so that God becomes human, too. b. God becomes human for us in Jesus Christ. 

c. Note that for Orthodox Christians, Incarnation is salvific 

4. God and Human Suffering: 

a. God is deeply familiar with suffering and death, and stays in solidarity with us. God feels our pain and suffering. 

b. Theology of the Cross vs Theology of Glory 

5. Sin and Human Nature: 

a. God delights in our goodness, not our grind toward perfection. 

b. God delights in our goodness and judges sin. 

c. Sin as Separation, rather than a list of acts that we might participate in 6. Sacramental: 

a. Visible Signs of Invisible Grace 

b. God comes to us, but makes room for mystery 

c. Extraordinary promises become tangible, tangled up with ordinary things. God meets us in bread, wine, and water. 

7. The Word: 

a. We take the bible seriously, not literally. It is a source of authority for us, though not the only one. 

b. Respect for scripture’s authority doesn’t discount other ways God is still speaking. God is revealed in ancient traditions and the evolution of human experience. A Blessing 

The God who knows what it’s like to be human, who makes and keeps the very promises we need, who works through ancient wisdom and new experiences, who is with us in the suffering and tension and pain of this life, who delights in our goodness, not our grind toward perfection, who is still speaking in scripture and the mysteries of the Spirit, who is love and mercy that interrupt judgment…who meets us in the curiosity, grace and freedom of faithful conversations that never end. 

[1] THESE CONCEPTS ARE ADAPTED FROM A PAPER THAT REV. DR. GUY IRWIN

PRESENTED AT THE LUTHER CONGRESS IN 2022, also using Kate Reuer Welton’s language and notes from the following article: 

https://wp.stolaf.edu/lutherancenter/2024/04/the-seven-principles-of-a-living-catechism