Three years ago at this time, our RIH team was making preparations to host 50 young adults on campus at Augsburg University from across the country. The purpose of this gathering was to listen to the stories of younger generations as they shared their experiences of gratitude, hopefulness and frustration in the church. Collectively these stories spoke to the hunger of this generation for a more hopeful and thriving world. The young adults gathered also shared a belief that God is calling the church to engage seriously in that vision, no matter the challenges.

This gathering unleashed a much longer journey to amplify the voices of younger generations through the creation of a multi-authored book. I am beyond proud and humbled to share that , is now officially released! It will be followed by a book launch party on September 25th, 2025 here in Minneapolis (AND you’re invited – scroll to the bottom for details!) 

In a time when there is a popular narrative about younger generations being less and less engaged in the church, we hope this book will contribute to a different story that is unfolding. A story that can imagine a church and a world that makes room for all of our thriving. A story that starts one relationship at a time, setting a table, and joining others from different backgrounds, generations and walks of life to wrestle honestly with the challenges before us. This book is rooted in a belief that we need to better understand each other’s hopes and fears if we are going to meet the challenges of our day, faithfully. Folks don’t need to agree on all the topics our authors have lifted up, but rather we hope folks will accept the invitation to the tables these chapters create. Tables for connection, understanding, and hopefully, new insights and wisdom to navigate the challenges of our world.

If you’ve read this far, consider yourself invited to celebrate with us! And if you’re busy on September 25th or won’t be in the Twin Cities, we hope you’ll check out the book and read through it with some people in your life. Our local bookstore, , is carrying it as are most major bookstores. The book also comes with an online toolkit to help groups and individuals engage each chapter. The toolkit can be found at our website:

The journey of creating this book has reached a major milestone, but now a new chapter begins as you are invited to join in. On behalf of the writing community of Hungry for Hope, I am eager to welcome you to pull up a chair at the table, invite a friend or two and join the conversation. 

Hungry for Hope Book Launch Celebration

When: Thursday, September 25th, 2025

Time: 5:00pm – 8:00pm

Location: 2708 E Lake St. Suite 207, Minneapolis, MN, 55406

More details here:

The post Hungry for Hope Available Today! appeared first on Riverside Innovation Hub.

Hungry for Hope: Letters to the Church from Young Adults invites readers to the table for an honest, hopeful, and transformative exploration of the pressing challenges and opportunities facing the church today. With voices rooted in the lived experiences of young adults across the United States, this book addresses topics such as climate catastrophe, mental health, marginalization, and more, offering actionable insights for the church’s journey toward renewal and relevance.

Above images from our Panel Discussion at the ELCA’s Extravaganza 2025 featuring our illustrator Lindsay Fertig-Johnson, authors Amber Kalina and Catalina Morales Bahena hosted by Kristina Frugé.

The post Hungry for Hope is Available for Preorder! appeared first on Riverside Innovation Hub.

Two years ago we hosted 50 young adults from around the US at Augsburg for a weekend of storytelling and listening. The reason for this gathering was to unearth the common hopes, concerns and desires young adults hold for the church and the world we share. In sifting through the stories shared, we hoped to distill themes that might give shape to a book we wanted to create – one written by young adults to the church. This book was one of the ways Riverside Innovation Hub was committed to stewarding what we learned in our first five years of the Lilly Endowment’s Young Adult Initiative. After working with congregations and young adults in our inaugural round of the Riverside Innovation Hub, supported through the Lilly Endowment, we were granted additional funding and time to share the wisdom and learnings that emerged. Who better to speak those truths than the young adults themselves? 

Just two years shy of that special gathering this very book has come to be. Well, nearly.

The manuscript was submitted to our publisher early in September and now we will work with them to take the final steps of transforming our authors’ ideas, stories and whole-hearted requests into a book that can be shared broadly. So much has transpired within those two years – an author application process, two writing retreats to launch and further along the writing community, collaboration with an illustrator bringing to life themes of the book, multiple rounds of editing drafts, countless cups of coffee and hours at laptops, and final revisions to compile the completed manuscript over the summer. 

Each chapter provides an invitation to a table. Chapter one describes what courageous curiosity looks like and proposes this posture as a necessary mindset for the church and young adults as we approach the present day challenges lifted up in this book. Chapter two orients us to the young adult experience, too often shaped by tokenization. It offers an alternative approach rooted in relationship; one where young adults are valued co-creators for our shared future. 

Chapter three (our climate catastrophe), chapter four (grief and lament) and chapter five (mental health) work together to paint the bigger picture of our times. Together these three chapters name the very hard realities that shape our human experience, while also offering guidance for finding our way in the ruins. 

Chapters six (abuse of power), seven (marginalization, inclusion and liberation), and eight (sex, shame and intimacy) reveal some of the particular ways young adults have been grieving as our churches have contributed to harm and avoided confronting the ways change is needed. The themes of these chapters are inherently intertwined. 

Chapter nine brings us back to the importance of community, and how the church can more fully embody a community defined by the centrality of Jesus. Chapter ten (beyond the walls) further fleshes out the faithful next steps for our church communities. Being centered on Jesus, in fact, means our churches are called to be decentered towards our neighbors, becoming trustworthy partners in God’s mending work in the world. Finally, chapter eleven (scarcity and abundance) lifts up a more adequate and faithful narrative from which we can enter into the challenges before us. A narrative rooted in reclaiming “enough” that roots us in God’s abundance, mending our relationships – with God, with each other, and with the earth. 

Editing and stewarding this process has been perhaps one of the largest professional projects of my career, certainly the one with the most moving pieces! I am so proud of what this team created together and deeply grateful for all of those who helped bring this project to fruition. The list is too long to name in this blog post, but as we get closer to releasing the book to the public, you will hear more about it and the many hands and hearts behind it. 

As we shared the draft manuscript with a handful of readers, we asked them, who do you think should read this book once it’s completed. Take a read at their feedback of who they hope reads this book. And if you hear yourself in their reflections, and we’ll keep you posted as the book gets closer to release!

“I imagine using it [this book] for student leadership development. Peer group book study and for young adults who are in discernment about their faith journey. And as a preacher, I confess there are definitely some quotables and “that’ll preach!” material here.”

“For me this will be a reference point any time someone brings up the fact that young people are leaving the church! I think it could be helpful in a congregational council setting, maybe for a retreat. And I think it needs to be required reading for every faculty/staff member at our schools of theological education and hopefully met with empathy. Better yet, you could have trainings with these faculty/staff based on this book so that they can meet with empathy and not scorn.” 

“I would recommend it to people who have young adults in their lives, church people who are worried about the future, young adults seeking meaning, theologians. AND! Older people who feel disconnected from the younger generation. I thought of my dad—a retired Presbyterian minister—who grew up and practiced ministry in a different world than the one his grandchildren live in. There’s a lot in here that could inform conversations we’ve had about why society looks the way it does and why young people make some of the choices they do (including to leave church in droves).”

“Every call committee and church council who are going through the process of calling a new pastor and/or figuring out a vision for their specific congregation should read this book. As one going through this process at the moment, I deeply resonated with Amanda, Jia, and Kristina’s writing in the introduction, specifically, the invitation to sit together around the table especially on the Holy Saturday moments we continue to find ourselves in. I think it’s also important for the young adult demographic to read this book, so that we can add to the conversation from our own perspectives and so that this book can become a living document of sorts, rather than another resource for older generations to try to understand “young people.”

Anticipated release is fall of 2025, but follow us for more updates on this project. We have several ways we hope to engage interested folks in the learnings from this book before and after its public release

The post The Manuscript is in! Let’s Celebrate! appeared first on Riverside Innovation Hub.

We recently asked the young adult writers for the project to reflect on this experience. Below is the reflection from Amar D. Peterman.

Amar D. Peterman (M.Div., Princeton Seminary) is an award-winning author and constructive theologian working at the intersection of faith and public life. His writing and research have been featured in Christianity Today, Faithfully Magazine, Fathom, The Berkeley Forum,, The Anxious Bench, Sojourners and The Christian Century. Amar is the founder of Scholarship for Religion and Society LLC, a research and consulting firm working with some of the leading philanthropic and civic institutions, religious organizations, and faith leaders in America today. Amar also serves as Program Manager at Interfaith America where he oversees programs related to emerging leaders, American evangelicalism, and Asian America. He writes regularly through his newsletter, “This Common Life.” You can learn more about him at amarpeterman.com. Amar’s co-author is Nicholas Tangen.

Why did you say yes to this experience and what are your hopes for the project? 

Written by Amar Peterman

Writing is always shaped by the people around us and the places we are located in. The best writing embraces this, capturing every moment as an opportunity to tell a story or find meaning in the ordinary moments of our life. Writing that reflects these daily experiences and infuses such with sacred meaning holds the opportunity to change us—even convict us—and as we are called into a community beyond ourselves. 

I said yes to this experience because of this truth. Through this project, I am not only brought into conversation with other writers across the country, but into active participation towards a shared goal. As we gather to envision a hopeful future for the Christian church, we are diligently writing and marking out tangible steps to create equitable spaces of inclusion and belonging for young people in local congregations across the United States. Together, we represent a diversity of experiences, locations, denominations, and beliefs within Christianity. These differences, though, are not a hindrance to our cooperation; they are gifts that allow this project to speak to more people than any individual could do on their own. 

Out of this project, I am encouraged by the consistent reminder that I am not alone in this work. Whether it is the weekly conversations I have with my co-author, poems shared by fellow contributors, or drafts uploaded to our shared project planner, this experience has given me the opportunity to witness God’s redemptive work taking place in the lives of each member of this project. As we write about the leadership and contributions of young people in the church, we are actively living out this mission in our lives. 

Like writing, I think faith is also formed by the places we inhabit and the people found there. My hope for this project is that we might acknowledge this—that community is a fundamental aspect of the Christian life, not a tangential one. As Christians, then, our formation within the walls of the local congregation ought to be marked deeply by the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. In doing so, the community of the congregation becomes different from any other because we are united by something that connects our very souls together: the redemptive work of God in the world. 

Therefore, the second hope I have for this project is that we might help the church reflect this formation by valuing the leadership, calling, and talents of young people in the church. I believe that the experiences and dreams of young people can lead the church toward our call to love God and neighbor in a unique way. Many problems within the church, I believe, stem from our failure to include the voices and wisdom of young people in our congregation, who are attuned to the realities of our world in a way that older generations cannot participate in. If our congregations seek to thrive in our modern day, young people must be in a position to lead. 

This project is a communal one—gathering writers across generations to model the very reality we propose the church ought to live into. I am honored to be a part of a project that brings together such a wide collection of voices and experiences and confident that God will use our labor to both encourage young leaders across the church and pave forward spaces of leadership and belonging for them.

The post Saying Yes Because of This Truth: Project Reflection by Amar Peterman appeared first on Riverside Innovation Hub.

Working with the Riverside Innovation Hub on this writing project was a task that I stumbled upon. I applied full-heartedly and with a certainty that I’d be adding a rejection to my slushpile. When I received news of the opposite, I was proud of myself, but then I was overwhelmed. Our writing project had “vulnerability” written all over it, something I knew from the very beginning. My topic, “Marginalization, Inclusion, and Liberation” is one I feel both passionate about and often ill-qualified to speak on. Thankfully, I’ll just be writing.

My co-author, Dr. Jimmy Hoke, has guided our discussions and the process with the utmost care, and it’s made a huge difference. But the writing process still has its challenges. We are dealing with problems that aren’t just our own, but also of the generations and the lives that came before us. Novels could and have been written on our topic and there’s no way my writing will be able to speak on everything I wish it could. All I can do is add my own perspective to the mix and hope it reaches the right people, resonates with someone, and contributes to an on-going discussion of what our beautiful church could be. 

The hardest part? Deciding what is allowed on the page and what is still only written in my heart. While I’ve always loved writing personal narratives, I’ve remained selective about who views them. A chapter. Out in the world. Scary. Writing my thoughts, even only in draft form, can feel like an admission I’m not quite ready to make. Even though I know that there is always a backspace and more importantly, a kind conversation available on any differing viewpoints Jimmy and I have. I’m still working on it though, and my current draft is an obvious reflection of my thoughts working themselves out. 

Other aspects of our project are joyous and easy. My favorite part has been connecting with other writers, knowing that even though some of us are states away, we are all dealing with the same vulnerabilities, the same roadblocks. When I’m struggling, I picture my colleagues on their laptops too, typing away and doing their best and working it out, just as I am. We will all get there together. 

I absolutely love seeing the places where Jimmy’s voice and mine come together. One exercise we are partaking in is dreaming of a better church; imagining a world of liberation and what that would feel like. I hope when others read, they’ll imagine their own vision of the church, igniting a fire of hope and determination. Whenever I get stuck writing, I go back to that mental vision.  

I’ve been writing for a long time. From the days when I had my dad type up my hand-written stories to sharing personal pieces with college classmates, bated breath. It’s never easy. Still, I’m always looking forward to the moment when it comes together and I feel proud of what I’ve written despite the imperfections. I’m still waiting for that moment. Until then, I’ll be chugging along and chatting with Jimmy. We’ll get the right words down, written for the right people, focusing on the right things, at the right time. It’s all part of the process.  

Stay tuned for more stories about the writing process from the young adult book project!

The post Abby’s Writing Process So Far: A Joyous and Challenging Journey appeared first on Riverside Innovation Hub.

The Young Adult Book Project authors recently completed a huge writing milestone, they submitted first drafts of each chapter! Each set of co-authors has been working on their chapter draft since the writers’ retreat in March, and submitted their drafts in early July. 

Each chapter has a set of two authors writing on it, a young adult and a thought leader. The writing process is unique to each set of co-authors. Some have regularly occurring check-in calls, with independent writing time in the in-between. Some of them have shared writing prompts they both respond to, and then review similarities, differences, and what they want to hold on to. Some split up their outline and assigned parts to each author. All of them spend time in conversation figuring out how to weave their writing together, into one chapter. 

Each writer has a process that’s unique to them. Some set aside consistent time in the morning to write about a specific thing, some let the ideas simmer while they drive, clean, or garden and capture them in a notes app to later add to and elaborate on them. Some start their writing time by reading. All of them work hard to communicate their experiences, thoughts, wonderings, and questions. 

So far, the biggest challenge to writing a collaborative chapter seems to be finding time, time to write, time to meet, time to rest, time to celebrate. Other challenges include figuring out how to weave the different perspectives into one chapter and right-sizing the content. Does each author write from the first person point of view and just notate when they switch? Do they write as a collective “I” or “we”? How do they tackle a theme that’s so enormous and narrow it down enough to fit in a chapter?

Over the next month, Kristina and Amanda are reading, reviewing, offering feedback and conversation for each chapter’s co-authors. Help us celebrate this milestone by cheering on our authors! 

Stay tuned for more blog posts soon about how the writing process has been going for our young adult authors!

The post Young Adult Book Project Update! appeared first on Riverside Innovation Hub.