LBS Class of 2019
BEN BRESLIN After serving for three years as a Cavalry Scout in the United States Army, Ben earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration in 2002. He spent over fifteen years as a technical business analyst in the healthcare industry. Ben’s life...
Turn Down the Heat
Ryan Nilsen led me to rethink. His presentation to the recent CLB Central Region convention challenged our notions about how we welcome new people into our churches.In my church, we have engaged in self-evaluation. Among our strengths, we see a warm...
Leap for Joy
A few years ago, I was approached by a couple considering an abortion. They wanted a pastor’s opinion, so I gave them one. I told them that God values life—so much so that he sent his one and only Son to be crucified for the sins of the world. The young...
His Mercy is Great
I was standing outside the abortion clinic in the fall of the year. It was Wednesday, abortion day, which meant about twenty women would enter the clinic and end the lives of their unborn children. We were a group of fifteen people, standing in protest...
Living with Abortion
I had an abortion nine years ago. It still haunts me to this day. The abortion providers convinced me that abortion would fix my situation. They convinced me that it would open up doors to great opportunities. But really, it tore me apart to my core.Before...
Help and Healing
It was called Whatever Happened to the Human Race. Back in 1980, it changed my life. Bethesda Lutheran Brethren Church in Eau Claire, Wisconsin showed this five-part film series that brought to light crucial issues of human dignity and what happens to a...
Walking Home
"I’m sorry, your daughter has no brain or skull. She is not compatible with life outside the womb. She will likely pass in utero, during birth, or minutes to hours after she is born.”Time stopped. My body went numb and I struggled to take a breath with...
Resurrection
"Christians believe in reincarnation… they confess it whenever they say their creeds.” As my World Religions professor spoke these words to our university class almost 20 years ago, I was a bit dumbfounded. My first reaction was to think, “No, we don’t!...
Abortion is a Symptom
Outrage! Anger! Murder! We may struggle with these and many other thoughts as we see the reports of the laws that have been proposed, and even passed, by state legislatures allowing the killing of babies up to and even after the moment of birth! The...
Changes Proposed in Women’s Ministries
Change is good! Change is exciting! Or, change is hard… and bad! Realistically, change is inevitable—it’s our attitudes or responses that make it bad. Life is change! It’s growth, maturing, learning, adapting. Yet we need stability, and we treasure the...
NAM Restructure
One sure trait of living things is the desire to live; it envelops a host of urges consciously pursued and subconsciously automatic—from eating to working to breathing. At its most poignant expression this desire to live, particularly when threatened,...
Cultivate New England
Centuries ago, European settlers arrived on the shores of the Northeast United States with the hope of finding religious freedom and liberty rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ. As settlers left their homes abroad and settled in North America, this...
Life Moves You
Recognizing physical life as a wonderful gift is a moving and mobilizing experience:A young mother saw a documentary film series about where modern culture was heading in its devaluing of human life. She was moved to help organize a crisis pregnancy...
Prodigal Son
It was when the prodigal son came to himself that he saw that he had sinned. Before this, he had had no conviction of it.There are many who say that they have no real conviction of sin. They look at their life and are unable to discover any crimson...
Lost Sheep
One evening, before I knew Jesus Christ as my Savior, I was working a trade show in Atlanta, Georgia. At the end of the day I went for a walk. Unfamiliar with the city, I soon found myself alone in a rough part of town. Realizing I was out of my element, I...