matt+zach | Tips for Moving to College

Jesus & Couch Burning | a sermon on Luke 12

A sermon on the time when Jesus says that he's come to set fire to the earth and bring division (Luke 12.49-56).

As I canvassed the neighborhood on Monday morning, I was confronted with signs of this prophecy being fulfilled. With the return of students, moving truck upon moving truck was stacked in the streets. Concerned parents prepared for battle as they marched with mops and brooms and industrial strength cleaners into well lived-in University Hill residences. As parents gave their parting hugs and handshakes, I saw this prophecy coming to pass. I saw God’s people divided; fathers leaving sons and sons leaving fathers; mothers leaving daughters and daughters leaving mothers. 

The charred remains of furniture deemed too dilapidated for college life, left in alleyways and on street corners, appear to be indicators that returning students are also aware of this week’s prophetic readings and are embracing Christ’s mission to bring fire to the earth. 

How are we to interpret the appearance of these signs? Are they signs of doom? Are they signs that we are preparing to enter into another nine months marked by division, of students turned against community members, undergrads vs grad students, Buffs against Rams and Huskers? Is the present time a time of late night parties, litter in the church parking lot and a time and world in which student driven traffic congestion adds an extra five minutes to our commutes?

Or do Christ’s stern words this morning carry some measure hope, some good news, through which we might interpret the signs of this time? 

Introducing...The Friendship Project with Matt Keadle!

3 Reason Why You Should Connect with Lutheran Campus Ministry!

Why You Don't Need a Personal Relationship with Jesus

A sermon on Luke 10 & 2 Kings 5 preached at Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church in Boulder.

The results of a cookie project.

The collared shirt and the whole alb and stole getup typically gives it away, but I am a pastor. This unique aspect of my identity often finds me in...interesting social situations. Once I was wearing my collar when I was mistaken for a stock boy at a local grocery store and asked where the cigars were. I can be identified as an easy mark for a professional panhandler and it’s been presumed that I’d like to spend a social evening out with my wife hearing about the best new “Christian” fiction on the market. 

Just last week this situation played itself out again. I was at a conference of campus ministry professionals when a woman approached me. After I introduced myself and told her that I lived in Boulder she told me that her children lived in Denver. Being courteous and on the off chance that I happened to know her children, I asked what their names were. The woman’s answer was...interesting. She said, “Oh, you wouldn’t know them.” 

I pushed a bit. I said, “Well, what are their names? I get down to Denver every now and then.” 

But she pushed back saying, “I’m fairly certain that you do not know my children.”

This is our place of life | Thoughts on Boston

Some thoughts on Boston that eventually turned into a sermon.

Easter Evening at Grace: a report from the future

Below is an article I submitted for the Grace Lutheran Church newsletter. It describes @LCMontheHILL's Easter evening worship where one of our students was baptized. Many thanks to our friends and partners in ministry at Grace and at Canterbury Colorado for being a part of that night.

This is a story about the future. It’s a story about the common future God holds for Grace and Lutheran Campus Ministry. 

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Psalm showed up at Grace in January. Despite his serendipitous name Psalm, a 22 year old Marine ROTC senior, did not grow up in the church. With graduation and deployment growing larger on the horizon, his investigation of the faith intensified. He did his research. After clicking through a litany of church websites and pages that described “What we believe,” Psalm showed up early one morning to plumb the depths of the book of Job with the people of Grace. 

Through his connection at Grace, Psalm plugged-in with the student group at LCM. Rooted both at Grace and LCM, Psalm soon told me that he wanted to be baptized. We set that holy process into motion, preparing for baptism on Easter evening. Corey, a student who happens to be a veteran of the war in Iraq, served as Psalm’s sponsor. The three of us met every week during Lent to do bible study and wrestle with the questions that emerge along the road that leads to the font. 

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Finally, Easter arrived. In our weekly meetings Psalm decided that he wished to be fully immersed at his baptism, that the symbols of that night should proclaim the complete way in which God would claim Psalm. So, on Sunday afternoon a garden hose snaked up the stairs and into the sanctuary at Grace where it filled a horse trough.