THE CONFLUENCE empowers high school youth to discover how they are uniquely gifted to create a more just and sustainable world by exploring the intersections of their story, God’s story, and the world’s story. Join us for a weeklong residential experience during which we will:

• Build intentional community
• Develop meaningful relationships
• Practice vocational discernment
• Engage in theological inquiry
• Explore spiritual practices
• Learn through experiences and relationships in the Twin Cities

Open to all youth who have completed 9th–12th grades.

COST: The cost is $400/participant. Participants are responsible for transportation to and from Augsburg University.

�鶹ԭ�� SCHOLARSHIP: Students who decide to attend Augsburg University as a full-time student will receive a minimum $22,000 Augsburg scholarship for up to four years.

Here’s what 2024 participants had to say about The Confluence:��

God has called me to hear and amplify the voices of people around me so they can be heard. God has allowed me to have an open mind and respect those around me, which will help me help God mend the universe. The Confluence has taught me about my faith and about who I am. It has shown me the lives of other people and has impacted me in massive ways. In listening to and lifting up the stories of others, I will ensure that every voice contributes to God’s mending of the universe.

– Vera Bezemer

While I was at The Confluence the things I learned about my story were that God’s wonderful plan is through self-learning and understanding beauty. First of all, I had a strong feeling of direction and purpose, I’ve also discovered tenacity and inner strength. My faith has helped me go through life’s obstacles and come out stronger by providing consolation and support. Finally, I’ve grown more capable of interacting and communicating with others. This new journey with God gave me the possibility to be empathetic and compassionate toward both myself and others.

– Gabriel Niola

The Confluence me inspiró y me abrió los ojos a un mundo de posibilidades en la cual tuve la oportunidad de conocer a nuevas personas y nuevas culturas se que tal vez Dios me está llamando a reparar este universo por que hay personas que lo necesitan. Necesitan mi ayuda porque hay personas malas que discriminan o hacen el mal lo cual yo debería de intervenir y hacerles entender que podemos vivir en un mundo donde las personas no sean maltratadas por su color su religión … Y pienso que puedo ayudar a este universo a ayudar a incluir a todas las personas y hacer entender que las personas ”con más poder” no pueden abusar de los demás.

The Confluence inspired me and opened my eyes to a world of possibilities in which I had the opportunity to meet new people and new cultures. I know that maybe God is calling me to repair this universe because there are people who need it. They need my help because there are bad people who discriminate or do evil, which I should intervene and make them understand that we can live in a world where people are not mistreated because of their color, their religion … I think I can help this universe to help include all people and make it understood that people ”with more power” cannot abuse others.

– Daykell Navarro��

QUESTIONS?

Gretchen Roeck, Program Director

roeck@augsburg.edu

612-330-1412

FIND OUT MORE:��

The post Announcing our 2025 Confluence Dates: June 22nd-June 27th, 2025! appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

Dr. Patrick Reyes, Dean of Auburn Seminary

The Christensen Symposium

The Christensen Symposium and the Christensen Center for Vocation were both established to honor the legacy of Dr. Christensen, the 8^th president of Augsburg University who served from 1938-1962. His legacy was one of critical inquiry and genuine hospitality. We have drawn these lessons from that legacy which still shape our work.

• Christian faith liberates minds and lives
• Diversity strengthens vital communities
• Inter-faith friendships enrich learning
• The love of Christ draws us to God
• We are called to service in the world

It is my hope that you will hear echoes of Dr. Christensen’s lessons in Dr. Reyes’ presentation.

Dr. Patrick Reyes

Dr. Patrick Reyes currently serves as the Dean of Auburn Seminary in New York City.

He is a Chicano writer, theologian, and executive leader and the award-winning author of The Purpose Gap and Nobody Cries When We Die. Prior to his current position he was the Senior Director of Learning Design for the Lilly Endowment’s Forum for Theological Exploration (FTE) where he provided strategy and direction for their diverse programs, grants, and teams supporting the next generation of leaders. In addition, he led the historic fellowships supporting scholars of color, the Institutional Doctoral Network, and partnerships in theological and higher education.

He is a peer among public theologians and deeply respected among faith and justice leaders and funders. He is the current Board President of the Religious Education Association and serves as the Co-Dean of the Freedom Seminary for the Children’s Defense Fund, offering an immersive experience for diverse seminary students from across the country to engage and cultivate prophetic voices with communities on the margins.

Patrick provides leadership on several boards in theological and higher education, publications, and the nonprofit sector, supporting the next generation of Black, Indigenous, and Chicano spiritual and cultural leaders. In the last decade, he has been recognized for his service and scholarship by Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Boston University, Claremont School of Theology, Drew University, Children’s Defense Fund, Hispanic Theological Initiative, Hispanic Youth Leadership Academy, and others.

Patrick was also recently inducted into the Morehouse College MLK Jr. Collegium of Scholars. He lives in New Mexico, where he and his family embrace the cultural and religious traditions and communities they have inherited.

The Purpose Gap: Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive

“In The Purpose Gap, Patrick Reyes reflects on a family member’s death after a long struggle with incarceration and homelessness. As he asks himself why his cousin’s life had turned out so differently from his own, he realizes that it was a matter of conditions. While they both grew up in the same marginalized Chicano community in central California, Patrick found himself surrounded by a host of family, friends, and supporters. They created a different narrative for him than the one the rest of the world had succeeded in imposing on his cousin. In short, they created the conditions in which Patrick could not only survive but thrive.

Far too much of the literature on leadership tells the story of heroic individuals creating their success by their own efforts. Such stories fail to recognize the structural obstacles to thriving faced by those in marginalized communities. If young people in these communities are to grow up to lives of purpose, others must help create the conditions to make that happen. Pastors, organizational leaders, educators, family, and friends must all perceive their calling to create new stories and new conditions of thriving for those most marginalized. This book offers both inspiration and practical guidance for how to do that. It offers advice on creating safe space for failure, nurturing networks that support young people of color, and professional guidance for how to implement these strategies in one’s congregation, school, or community organization.”

(Description from Bookshop.org)

Recording of 2023 Christensen Symposium

The post 2023 Bernhard M. Christensen Symposium appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

A journey of self-discovery and empowerment! In my latest vlog, I delve into the impact of body language and the importance of being true to yourself. This thought-provoking vlog was inspired by MLK Day and will leave you feeling inspired to embrace your power, find your voice, and follow your heart. — Geoffrey Gill

Featuring: Pan African manager- Kezia Burrows, Drummer Spirit Boy, “Change Gonna Come” Traiveon Burrows

(In order of performance)

Poet: Curtis Love

Poet: LeeRayvone Gibson

Keynote speaker – Terrance Kwame-Ross

Thank you Augsburg University

The post “The Unleashed Voice” A Thought-Provoking Vlog by Geoffrey Gill appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

Churches who become a learning partner will journey together with 10-12 congregations over two years shaped by these characteristics. This time will include gathering for large group learning events 3-4 times a year, gathering with cohorts of several congregations and an RIH facilitator to support and share wisdom with one another, work done individually by congregational teams supported by an RIH facilitator, and opportunities for team leaders from congregations to connect around leading this work in our congregations.

Project Description & Eligibility

Riverside Innovation Hub

Augsburg University’s Riverside Innovation Hub is an incubator for people and communities exploring the public church in the neighborhood. These congregations learn a process for discerning how God is inviting them to become more engaged in their neighborhoods.

Learn More about Riverside Innovation Hub

Application Process

Step 1: Submit Letter of Intent

Accepted on a rolling basis

Congregations interested in pursuing the application process are asked to have their senior pastor submit a letter of intent to apply, via a google form. Letters of intent will be accepted on a rolling basis, until the end of the application period.

Submission of your letter of intent will:

• Allow congregations to indicate why they are applying for the project.
• Help RIH staff streamline communications as the application process moves forward by adding you to direct mailings about the process and being available to you for further conversation.
• Help your congregational leaders move through the application process in a timely and thoughtful way.

Step 2: Learn more: Informational Sessions

Step 3: Submit Application

Submit on or before April 20, 2023

The application is a google form, but please see the questions in a pdf below.

Recruit your senior pastor and one lay leader to complete the application and involve others from your congregation in the process as relevant for your context (ie council leadership, staff, lay leaders).��You are welcome to complete the application sections as a group or have one person submit it all after your group has worked on it.

Step 4: Invitation Process

RIH will review applications and extend invitations to selected congregations�� the week of May 16th. Congregations will have until June 8th to accept the invitation.

Augsburg’s learning community begins September 2023 and runs through September 2025.��

Contact us:

The post Launch of RIH Thriving Congregations Partnership Application! appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

Reading:�� By Anne LaMott

My coming to this vocation did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another.�� Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved. �� I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made.�� Yet each step brought me closer to the verdant pad on which I stay afloat today.����

Good morning –�� I have been a social worker for 30 years and I felt like that gave me an easy out on this vocation stuff�� –easy, it was my work – which I described as making the world a better place. Becoming a social work professor was a natural evolution of that original vocational path.�� I was set. No more discoveries to be made. What I never expected, was a mid-life vocation that would grip me for more than 10 years.�� Like Ann Lamott describes, I can look back and see how I leapt from lily pad to lily pad through the course of my life, never knowing that those experiences would become so important to a mid-life vocation I couldn’t have imagined.����

Lily pad 1…..My mother’s spanking – so futile, so “not into it”, her swings and misses.�� My own wriggling away.�� My father’s spanking – so scary, so shaming, having to stop himself because he was big and strong. My 3 older brothers spankings,�� – so harsh, so much anger in both directions.��

My family of origin, the family I grew up in, was happy, I felt loved, we were loud, we laughed, 5 children and 2 parents who were high school sweethearts, pregnant before they were married despite strict Catholic upbringings, we were fine and good and my parents spanked us.�� My parents hit us.�� They never hit each other, they never hit the dog, but spanking a child on the butt….that was acceptable, anytime, parental decision alone, no child input needed.�� In spanking, the perpetrator is always right and the victim is always wrong.

Lily pad 2….my high school boyfriend. We met in the tennis module of gym class.�� We were separated by gender (this was 1984) through the whole unit until the end when the ranked boys played the ranked girls.�� He was ranked first in his gender and I in mine.�� We had to battle it out, and while I lost handily, it was love, love.�� We started dating.�� 2 years into our high school romance I punched him in the stomach in my parent’s basement family room.�� I have no memory of why, but I remember the event vividly.�� My anger, my punching, the look on his face.����

Lily pad 3 – I go to graduate school in social work and begin my field experience at The Initial Intervention Unit in child and family services.�� We were the first social workers to visit a home or school with a child abuse investigation. I see the effects of hitting on little bodies. I see the pain and shame of parents who have to talk to us. I feel their struggle, I see their love for their children.��

Lily pad 4 – I’ll read a section from my book –����I suddenly saw that if I hit my kids, it was the same as hitting my high school boyfriend, back in 1986 (the other parent of my children by the way).�� If I hit them too, I would be the face of modern domestic violence.��

Lily pad 5 – I am captivated by spanking.�� I cannot stop thinking about it.�� Its nearly obsessive.�� It is like a veil has been removed, and I begin to see spanking everywhere.�� I am at the park, and see a child spanked for hitting his brother when it was really his little brother that hit him first, my friend tells me why she spanked her child and I am supposed to be supportive, on the news a child dies from injuries from their parent’s discipline, my perspectives on my children are clearer and I begin to see my own fears and frustrations shadowing my perspective of their childhood.�� Were they really naughty or am I scared or ashamed or perplexed for them.�� I start writing my thoughts down.��

Lily pad 6 – This place.�� Augsburg.�� URGO – Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity program. I decided I need to learn about spanking by using frameworks I understand – that’s research.�� Through URGO, (Check URGO out, this is a blatant commercial) I mentor a paid student researcher and together we study the history of school corporal punishment. From the 1600’s leading up to its current use today (19 states allow paddling kids in schools – yes, with a stick).�� I was really obsessed now. The student and I get an additional URGO funded research project – a policy analysis of school corporal punishment laws in all of those 19 states.��

Lily pad 7 – I keep writing what I see and hear and learn, I start gathering literature, and before I know it I’ve got sections and chapters and I think I have crafted a book proposal.�� I submit it.�� It’s accepted for publication.��

Lily pad 8 – My sabbatical – I go all out now.�� Lit review, ten 30 page papers I cannot wait to write. I smile while I write.�� My mid-life vocation makes me happy. My mid life vocation even saves me when hard times show up in my life…. It was my anchor, my prayer, my sanity in an insane world and an insane time of my life. Remember I thought my vocation was to make the world a better place,�� my vocation turned out to make me a better person.��

I spent 10 years shaping my thinking about spanking, revisiting what I thought was a benign event in the lives of children.�� I moved from “maybe we shouldn’t do that” to a full on belief that the legal assault of children is happening every day, in homes all around us.�� It has happened to most of us, and many of us have perpetrated spanking. I feel empathy for kids and their parents, and realize that whether we are being hit or hitting – it is harmful to both of us. It’s time to leave spanking where it belongs – (pun intended)�� behind us.

The post Uncovering Vocation –�� “Spanked: The Sanctioned Violence” appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

An attempt to explain vocation by Jeremy Myers:��“You have probably heard the word vocation used to talk about one’s job. It is sometimes used to describe post-secondary educational institutions designed to train individuals for certain trades such as electrician, welder, plumber, carpenter, mechanic, etc. We use the term differently at Augsburg. It can be associated with your job, but it is also much more than that. Vocation is the way you are equipped, empowered, called, and driven to make our world a better place for all living things.”

On most 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month, some of our favorite members of Augsburg University’s staff and faculty share their stories of their own vocations during chapel worship. Vocation is all around us, lived out in the here and now and in all departments and spaces at Augsburg. Together we can start uncovering vocation in all our lives. Learn more about Vocation here.��

We have been grateful to the staff and faculty who are willing to share their stories with our community. We are especially grateful to those who have already shared their stories the past two months.��Paula O’Loughlin, Mike Grewe,��Najeeba��Syeed and Kao Nou Moua.

We hope you will join us this coming Tuesday, December 6th for our final vocation chapel of the year,��“We Die, We Break, We Love A Jewish Story of Call and Response” Dr. Audrey Lensmire.

Check out the recording of Kao Nou Moua’s vocation below and the past vocation chapels in our recent blog posts.

Kao Nou Moua:

“For some of us, our gifts and skills are still budding. For others, our gifts are in full bloom. And for others, our gifts are giving and giving. No matter what stage of budding we are, keep turning yourself out, and into the world. It’s amazing to realize that what the world needs is just the very thing you’re really good at.”

The post Uncovering Vocation: A Series Highlighting the Vocation of Augsburg Staff and Faculty appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

Here are some of our favorite quotes from the talk:

• “It’s not a journey from point A to point B, where you have to leave this place to go to that place. Instead I want to invite you into a journey that’s really more about becoming rooted deeply in the place where we already find ourselves.”
• “Vocation is ultimately not about you it’s about the space that exists between you and your neighbor.”
• It is “the quest of inquiry to figure out who our neighbor is and what it is our neighbor needs from us to thrive. It’s not a journey where you need to go on a quest to find some vocation that’s hidden out there in the future from you. It’s an invitation into the right here and the right now. That vocation is something that saves us from the nowhere plants us firmly right here with one another in this moment of time to do this good work that we’ve been given to do today. and we get to do that together and I think that’s pretty great.”

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“Being oneself is a superpower we can all access. When you are doing what you believe matters, you can find joy, symmetry and beauty even if you are not always feeling other positive energy. You get to know yourself and what is right much better and at a deeper level when your ego is not fed, when you do what needs to be done simply because it is needed.”

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Jeremy Myers, PhD,��Bernhard M. Christensen Professor of Religion and Vocation, Augsburg University

Join us for this year’s Christensen Symposium where we will dig deeper into the topics of vocation and public church.

Thursday, September 22
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Foss Center, Hoversten Chapel

The pandemic, rampant racism, unfettered injustices, environmental degradation, inflation – these are a few sources of the overwhelming sense of despair in our lives. We are anxious about our future. We desperately seek meaning, purpose, justice, and the common good but they seem to be nowhere in sight. Nowhere. But there is hope and potential for change if we can focus on the here and now. All we are promised is the here��and now, and it is where we are called to live our lives. Now. Here.

Jeremy Myers is the Bernhard M. Christensen Professor of Religion and Vocation and the Executive Director of the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg University.��Myers earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota and his master’s and PhD from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He researches, writes, teaches, and organizes around the topics of vocation and public church. In addition to many articles and chapters, he is the author of��Liberating Youth from Adolescence��published by Fortress Press and is also a sought-after speaker. He has secured millions of dollars in grants to support the work of the Christensen Center for Vocation at Augsburg.

The post You are invited: “From Nowhere to Now Here” Christensen Symposium 2022 appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

It’s sometimes strange to be a young adult that cares deeply about the church. I have so much hope for the possibility of a church that embodies God’s promises, and I lament the way in which the church has created, sustained, and participates in harm.��

So many of my peers who might consider themselves “Christian” have discerned that the institutional church isn’t something that they are willing to invest their energy or resources into any longer. We have often experienced church as a community that doesn’t live out the things it claims to believe in. When we’ve sought out a community of belonging that nourishes us and compels us to live our lives for the sake of the neighbor, we oftentimes found instead a place that intentionally or unintentionally perpetuates harm and exclusion, a place that continues to sustain white supremacy as the status quo, a community that prioritizes the privileged, and tokenizes people perceived as “other.”

There are definitely churches and communities that are practicing their beliefs, and are committed to dismantling the systems of oppression, and living into God’s promises. And yet there are so many more that so badly want people to join them, and haven’t quite figured out how to let go of a way of life that’s no longer serving them, and not in alignment with God’s vision.��

There’s often a really loud narrative about decline, death, and dying. This narrative is one that comes out of a scarcity mindset, rather than abundance. And in the conversation about young adults and church, it often feels like the anxiety around scarcity gets aimed at young adults, seeing them as people who could become new members, and help lessen their anxiety about impending death, they could help lower the average age, and increase the monthly giving. And that is objectifying. It turns wonderful, gifted, wise humans into a “butt and bucks” . I, and my young adult peers, are so much more than that, and we’re seeking so much more than that out of a faith community.��

Realistically, we’re not going to save the church, quite frankly many of us don’t want to. There are parts of the church that I think should die, especially the parts that are interwoven with white supremacy, and perpetuating an oppressive, harmful status quo.��

For the last couple of years, I’ve had the opportunity work alongside faith communities that are chasing after what it could look like to be part of God’s redemptive work in our world, here and now, and wondering about and practicing a way of life together that brings flourishing and life to everyone.

The with congregations chased at questions at the intersection of young adults, church, and neighborhood. There’s so much curiosity, and maybe a little anxiety, around the future of the church that millions of dollars are granted to institutions, organizations, and faith communities chasing after these questions. (Thanks Lilly! Please don’t stop funding our work, I love being able to pay my bills!)��

There are a lot of questions that get asked at the intersections of young adults and church, and I’m not interested in the “why aren’t young adults coming to church?” Question. Often it’s asked in a way that places the blame on young adults for not going to a particular place every week, and committing a certain percent of their finances to an institution. Rather, we’ve shifted that question, and wondered, why is the church not doing life together in the spaces and places where young adults are practicing their faith? And how might we get there?��

Young Adults have wisdom, curiosity, passion, experience wrestling through what it means to be called to be part of God’s redemptive work in our world, here and now, and what it looks like to practice a way of life that brings flourishing and life to everyone.

I am so excited and grateful that some of the funding gets to go towards a book project that’s aimed at applying the voices of young adults, and I’m grateful to help steward it. Learn more about the book project on the website.

I’m looking forward to gathering a group of young adults in November and getting to wrestle with these questions, and more!��

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