Jason Lief

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or stow away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them." This week is spring break out here in Northwest Iowa. It's been beautiful with temps in the high 60's and…

This semester I'm teaching a course on Spiritual Formation. Most of the students are theology majors interested in youth ministry or worship arts, and it's safe to say that none of them consider themselves liturgical. I began the class with a modified morning prayer taken from…

I became infatuated with vinyl records as a kid. My dad would buy little 45 singles and my brother and I would listen to them upstairs on a portable record player. Back then it was The Oakridge Boys—Elvira was the anthem of my childhood. What I remember…

https://youtu.be/A-V8ykNMHuE In yesterday's worship and liturgy class I showed students the "new thing" in worship—at least it's new to me...I'm sure for everyone else it's old news: environmental projection. No longer is there just a screen with images or words projected, now the entire sanctuary,…

  In class today I showed this youtube clip of Walter Bruggemann discussing the power of preaching. The class is on worship—the book we're reading focuses on the role of the arts in worship. The part we read for today is a presentation by Eugene…

This morning's guest blogger is James Vanden Bosch—English professor at Calvin College. It was an ordinary day in the world literature class this week; we had already read a handful of poems by Baudelaire from the anthology and other sources, and we were now working…

So have you heard of this app? Yik Yak? It's like an anonymous Twitter--post anything you want without anyone else knowing who you are. I came to know of this glorious innovation from a colleauge who showed me post after post of students upset about…

Just the other day I walked to work--about seven blocks in all--for the first time since early July. It's amazing how we take the simple things for granted. I used to push open the door, hurry down the front steps, and be on my way…