by Ethan Zimmerman and Luke Ratke

Executive Director’s Note: Many thanks to Ethan Zimmerman and Luke Ratke for telling us about their experiences at NEXUS this past summer.  Ethan and Luke are both NALC college students and are planning on attending the NALC seminary after graduation.  They have also made a video about NEXUS, which is posted on our website.  A link to that video can be found here.

NEXUS is a vocational discernment institute rooted in Lutheran theology hosted by Grandview University in Des Moines, Iowa, and it is a week full of blessings! High school students who are contemplating their vocation, what God’s call for their life is, come to NEXUS and experience fellowship with other young Christians who are going through similar journeys. Morning and evening worship, classes on the Old and New Testament taught by solid Lutheran professors, small group discussions led by college-age mentors, and lots of prayer are all part and parcel of what NEXUS is, learning where God’s call meets your life!

Hi, my name is Luke and here are some of my thoughts on NEXUS: NEXUS is a great organization, because God makes it one! I loved being able to be a college-age mentor and a leader for the high school participants at NEXUS. Furthermore, I also liked being able to learn about God at NEXUS with and through the high school students.

My favorite thing about NEXUS this year was getting to meet and talk to Christians I had never met before or only briefly. I was able to talk to pastors, professors, and other Christians about Christianity. For myself, who someday wants to do full-time ministry as my career, working at NEXUS let me have conversations with other college-age students and high school students who think their vocation is full-time ministry. I also was able to practice and learn skills that will someday help me when I am doing full time ministry because I was a college-age mentor at NEXUS. Such skills were helping lead a small group, writing/giving a devotion, talking about the Bible with other people, etc.

Hello all, my name is Ethan Zimmerman, and this is my perspective on NEXUS!

NEXUS is something truly special, something that I don’t think happens anywhere else. NEXUS is not just another church or bible camp; discipleship and vocational discernment happen, and bonds of Christian fellowship that will stand the test of time are forged. My time as a NEXUS mentor was truly a blessing, and as my fellow mentor Chris put it, good for my soul!

The topic of discipleship is something that has been on my mind for quite some time. I have wondered how I can disciple the people around me while I am at college, and being at NEXUS showed me how! Even though we were only with the participants for a week, we lived life with each other, we worshiped together, learned together, ate, laughed, and cried with each other. God showed me that this was how discipleship happened, in the nitty gritty little things of life, right in the trenches with people as they go through things and think about what God has in store for their life. Are they to be pastors? Missionaries? Youth leaders? Being there with these young participants while they pondered these questions and sought to answer what the Lord has called them to was truly a blessing and an eye opener as to what discipleship could look like.

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I left NEXUS feeling encouraged, not just because I saw what discipleship and vocational discernment looked like in the lives of young folk, high school students, but because of the friendships that I left with. From the late nights discussing theology with the other mentors, to the goofy laughs shared with the participants, I left encouraged that there are other young Christians out there yearning to pursue God and answer the call He has given them in their lives, and that not every young person is all about decadent hedonism, but faith is still alive amongst my generation. I praise God for NEXUS, for the lives changed by it, for the doors opened because of it, and for the continued ministry it will have in the future!

We both think that every high school student that is a strong Christian should pray and think about coming to NEXUS next summer. Every high school student should think about going to NEXUS, not just high school students who think or know their vocation is full time ministry. We want to thank Lutheran CORE for financially helping The NEXUS Institute. And last but greatest of all, we want to thank God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for NEXUS! 

With the Delta variant reminding us that this pandemic will be around at least into 2022, many congregations are facing the fact that they will not be seeing a significant percentage of their members returning to in-person worship this fall.  And the longer some members continue to only worship online, the more likely many of them will rarely, if ever, return to worship in your sanctuary.

 As I have been coaching church transition teams and call committees over the last eighteen months I always ask what their current attendance is compared to 2019.  In almost all cases the answer is that average in-person worship attendance has dropped 30 to 50%.

Needless to say, this is a serious congregational ministry crisis that needs to be addressed.  But what can be done?  I suggest two strategies.  One is to provide an on-going, quality member-care ministry for every member who worshiped regularly in 2019 but has been consistently absent from in-person services since then.  The second strategy is to institute ways these online worshipers can be engaged and discipled by and through your weekly online sermons.  Only a combination of these two strategies, in my view, will significantly reduce the number of online worshipers who will eventually be lost to inactivity.

Your member-care effort should include phone conversations, every two to four weeks, with lay volunteers who have been recruited and “trained” for this ministry.  These conversations would be to see how this person is doing, and to ask if he/she has any personal prayer requests.  The volunteer would not only offer to pray personally for the member; he/she would volunteer to pass the prayer request on to the congregation’s prayer team.  Ideally, each of these online worshipers should be contacted, consistently, by the same volunteer. 

Now for the second strategy: Striving to engage online worshipers through your weekly sermons.  One example is how one LCMC congregation in suburban St. Louis used a sermon series on the Gospel of Mark to encourage both in-person and online worshipers to read the entire Gospel.  Members were asked to read a chapter each week in preparation for the following Sunday’s sermon.  The chapters were broken down into daily devotional reading texts to encourage members to develop a daily Bible-reading discipline.  Another idea would be to invite online comments regarding the next Sunday’s sermon theme.  This feedback could be in the form of survey questions where their answers—sent in via email—could be incorporated (anonymously) into the following Sunday’s message.  One more idea is to offer a mid-week online, interactive Bible study for members who are on Facebook.  This would make it possible for live “classes” where participants could make comments in real time.  The result would be a discussion-oriented Bible class/devotional time.  And finally, why not have your congregation host one or more weekly Zoom Bible studies?  This could achieve a group dynamic which would be almost the same as gathering in person.  I have done a lot of work these last eighteen months on Zoom.  I find these Zoom meetings to be very discussion-oriented; especially when the total number of participants is not more than six to nine people.  And since the beginning of this pandemic a great many more Americans have become comfortable with and open to the idea of gathering and conversing online. 

All the above suggestions would help prevent increased inactivity among those members who are not yet able—or comfortable enough—to return to your in-person worship services and classes.  However, please note that the second-strategy ideas above presume that you will continue to offer online worship; at least as long as this pandemic continues.  You will want to do this not only for your members, but also as an outreach to the unchurched in your community.

“For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know” (1 Thessalonians 3:4).

Have we not heard that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and the hope of Christ has therefore been poured into us?  Do not be surprised at the hostility in this world, for the world continues to hate the Lord.  Hear what is told you beforehand so that when it comes to pass you may stand firm in the faith that You have been given.

Lord, all things are in Your hands.  They always have been and always will be.  Lead me, O Lord, to not react to circumstances, but see that You are here with me.  Guide me Lord so that I may stand firm in the truth of Your presence and purpose.  In spite of what happens to me in this world, lead me to learn to be faithful in, through and above all things.  Whatever afflictions may come, guide me to hold fast to You.

Lord Jesus, You know affliction.  The world has hated You from the beginning.  But in You and through You the world is knitted together and has its being.  Let me no longer hold to this world but be transformed by Your goodness and mercy.  Lead me in Your grace to hold fast to You no matter what affliction comes so that I may now and always be known as one who believes in You and all that You have done.  Amen.