Mission

Church Anew is a Spirit-led movement that nourishes Christian leaders and ignites communities of faith by setting an inclusive table of belonging and developing resources for a fresh, bold, and faithful witness in the world.

Core Values

  • We believe that the diversity of the Body of Christ is one of its greatest strengths. Our approach to resource creation and gatherings prioritizes voices that have been historically marginalized in order to listen more carefully to the work of the Spirit across a wide diversity of human experience. We always feature voices from a number of denominational affiliations in each of our resources and gatherings. Contributors to Church Anew are intentionally diverse in race, ethnicity, social location, gender, sexual orientation, theological tradition, denominational affiliation, and region.

  • We believe that the Christian witness has an important word for pressing concerns of our world from global climate change to interfaith conversations; racial reckoning in our neighborhoods to violence in our schools and public places. Our contributors strive to provide timely insight by listening deeply to the wisdom of our tradition in scripture with immediacy so that, as Peter preached to the crowd gathered at Pentecost, “your young shall see visions, and your old shall dream dreams.” One pastor recently commented on the depth of such insight that Church Anew is “theologically faithful, progressive, and robustly Christian.”

  • We believe there is opportunity and possibility in rethinking many of our inherited strategies for Christian belonging. While there is certainly much to lament, Church Anew articulates and amplifies dynamic visions from every corner of Christian expression, whether on the lips of national visionaries or on the streets from emerging change-makers. We help Christian leaders and communities of faith move dreams into bold steps toward innovation. 

  • We believe that the ground floor is the best place to be. Church Anew is nimble in staffing and leadership so that we can respond with immediacy to needs that emerge in communities of faith with timely and responsive action. As a congregationally-born-and-based initiative, we have a unique perspective on the needs and rhythms of Christian leaders.

  • We believe there is room for everyone at the table of new vitality and momentum for the body of Christ. In all of our endeavors, we seek to identify and work closely with faith-based organizations, emerging change-makers, and trusted institutions. Recent partner organizations include:

    St. Olaf College and its Lutheran Center for Faith, Values, and Community;

    Concordia College Office for Faith Expression;

    Luther Seminary;

    The Collegeville Institute;

    Ignite the Church Conference, Orlando, Florida;

    The Episcopal Church of Minnesota;

    The Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA;

    The Eastern North Dakota Synod of the ELCA;

    Dr. Tod Bolsinger and AE Sloan Consulting, Pasadena, California;

    Thrivent;

    Augustana Lutheran Church in West St. Paul, Minnesota;

    Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Twin Cities, Minnesota

Strategic Pillars

Feeding Faith

Christians around the world trust Church Anew to feed their faith every week in their inbox. Every week, brilliant writers like Dr. Walter Brueggemann, Rev. Dr. Dorothy Wells, Rev. Angela Denker, Dr. Michael Chan, Dr. Eric Barreto, Dr. Diana Butler Bass (and so many more!) share nourishment for the journey of faith. Additionally, we produce worship resources like Lent in a Box and video-based curriculum for faith formation like Old & New. Each of these offerings prioritizes voices often marginalized in our mainline context.

Gatherings that Ignite Imagination

There is nothing better than an assembly of people who worship, learn, listen, share, and grow together. Each of our gatherings and cohorts propels a new imagination for faith expression and leadership. We host in-person, online, and hybrid learning gatherings on a variety of topics including preaching series, leadership through change, working with grief, and more. We have been honored to host renowned speakers such as Dr. Kate Bowler, Kirk Whalum, Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman, Jeff Chu, Rev. Emmy Kegler, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, Rob Bell, Rev. Grace Imathiu, Brian McLaren, and so many more. Each of our gatherings provides fresh witness alongside skill-building workshops and ample time to connect with other leaders for mutual connection and encouragement. View past events.

Immediate Response and Ongoing Witness to Pressing Concerns

We respond to immediate needs that emerge in our community. 72 hours after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, we published “Racism in America: What Will We Preach This Sunday,” a resource for preachers in the Sundays that followed the murder and uprisings for racial justice around the world. This offering has become a practice for Church Anew, responding to immediate needs that continue to emerge in our communities and our world. Contributors to the Church Anew Blog continue to respond to immediate concerns of the church and the world with the best wisdom our traditions have to offer.

Building Lasting Partnerships through Collaboration and Trust

We build partnerships with congregations, judicatories, church-related colleges, church-adjacent nonprofits, denominations and diocese, and people of faith. With a posture of accompaniment, we listen deeply to the needs that emerge and find unique ways to collaborate from publishing video Bible study resources to producing online worship services to relieve exhausted clergy and tech teams. By building collaboration with partners from a variety of theological and denominational traditions, each new partnership expands the network of people and institutions that rely on Church Anew for support and vision. 

Leadership Ecosystem

We build nimble teams to respond to the pressing needs of the church. Our teams work as an ecosystem of mutually interconnected teams that support the ongoing work of Church Anew.

Staff Team

Intentionally scrappy to be good financial stewards of our resources, the staff of Church Anew carry out all day-to-day operations.

Strategic Team

Born out of a trusted group of leaders from St. Andrew Lutheran Church, this growing team shepherds the resources, vision, and strategy of Church Anew.

Enfleshing Witness Team

A springboard for diversifying leadership and content, this team has developed two preaching and storytelling gatherings for preachers of color and is discerning ways to expand and deepen the impact of this work.

Blog Editorial Team

Tending the rapid growth of our blog, this team recruits new authors, contributes regularly, responds with immediacy when the situation warrants, and manages a topic list for prospective writers.

Old & New Team

Developing a pilot project for faith formation and growing the vision for video-based resources for congregations.

History

Church Anew began in 2018 as a way for Christian leaders to gather around tables for mutual learning, support, and encouragement. Our ministry was born out of renewed vision and life that emerged from St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a congregation serving more than 7,000 members in the Twin Cities region. Church Anew is in excellent alignment with the mission statement of St. Andrew Lutheran Church “to live out our faith in daily life.”

After surveying the needs of church leaders and the emerging gap between the needs of leaders and congregations alike, we launched a series of events, where clergy and lay leaders learned from national visionaries and local practitioners of ministry. Building from the local community services offered to nearly 150 preschool children through our Early Learning Program and the vibrant growth of our camp, Spirit in the Pines, that serves more than 700 campers each summer, St. Andrew Lutheran Church continues to support and uplift Church Anew as a vital offering for Christian leaders and communities of faith around the world. St. Andrew utilizes its convening influence and space to set a table for mutual belonging, learning, gathering, and shared vision through Church Anew. Unlike some congregationally based church-growth initiatives, Church Anew consistently decenters our congregation, listening carefully to the needs of small and medium-sized congregations in a variety of theological traditions.

In 2020, responding both to the immediate needs of the COVID-19 pandemic and the renewed call for racial justice that emerged out of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Church Anew launched a Blog that continues to speak to the pressing needs of the church and the world. We have seen more than 325,000 active users from every continent in the world and nearly every Christian theological tradition in North America receive insight, wisdom, and guidance from national voices and emerging leaders. More than 1500 congregations now rely on Church Anew as a trusted guide in this time of disruptive change for Christian leaders.

We take this responsibility seriously, consistently discerning ways that we can produce and provide resources that these communities need to thrive. As we continue to listen carefully to the needs of Christian leaders, Church Anew now provides learning gatherings, ready-made resources, and ongoing content to equip congregations to make fresh proclamation of good news to a world that longs for healing.

As a congregationally-based initiative, Church Anew has a unique vantage point on the challenges, opportunities, hopes, and dreams of the church that is still becoming in North America. We hear from participants time and again that Church Anew maintains a unique perspective on the needs of Christian leaders and communities of faith as a congregationally-based, grassroots initiative. While there are few models to follow, we trust that our gift to the Body of Christ continues to be guided and shaped by the Holy Spirit blazing a trail ahead of us.