Chances are, if you’ve attended a retreat at Camp Arcadia, you’ve been enriched in spirit and mind by the Dean & Lecturer’s Program. One of the delights of the Camp Arcadia experience is being drawn close to our Savior by insightful teachings of our Deans and Lecturers.
If you’re looking for a way to connect with some of these thoughtful theologians, writers, and scholars, here are some new (or recent!) opportunities to engage with the work of several of our Deans and Lecturers this spring.
New Resources
The Big Relief by David Zahl
Releasing April 29, 2025 - Preorders Available
We could all use a little–or a lot–of relief from the pressures of life. And there is no bigger relief than the grace of God.
Think of grace as one-way love. A gift with no strings attached. Favor when you least expect or deserve it. Knowing that you don’t have to do anything to earn God’s approval.
In The Big Relief, popular author David Zahl spotlights grace as the most important, urgent, and radical contribution Christianity has to offer the world. Zahl helps readers understand the beauty and depth of grace, outlining how it provides relief from the guilt, status anxiety, and accelerating demand that characterize so much of modern life. Drawing on the witness of Scripture and a panoply of contemporary examples, he unpacks the theology of grace in fresh and exciting terms, exploring its many fruits–such as freedom, play, surrender, humility, rest, surprise, and joy–in the process.
Zahl invites us to embrace Christianity as a refuge rather than as a project, a beacon of hope instead of a vehicle of shame, and a harbor of refreshment in a worn-out world. Ultimately, he welcomes everyone to receive the gift of relief we so desperately need.
All the Things I Say to God by Tanner Olson
Releasing April 29, 2025 - Preorders Available
By poet, writer, and speaker Tanner Olson, All the Things I Say to God explores the profound world of prayer and shows children that heartfelt conversations with God can occur anywhere, anytime, and about anything in his new children’s book.
Abby has been praying with her parents for as long as she can remember. They pray together before meals and before bed, on good days and tough days. Then one day Abby asks a simple question: “Mom, can I pray to God all by myself?”
Follow Abby on her journey of faith as she discovers how to express her gratitude, ask questions, pray for others, and use silence to communicate with God. Led by her own curiosity, she finds out that you can pray for anything and everything—God’s love knows no bounds.
Seeing the Word Through the Eyes of Women: A Four-Week Online Bible Study by Sarah Salzberg
Course Begins May 7, 2025 - Registration Open
Join us for an engaging discussion with inspiring speaker/teacher, Sarah Salzberg, as she guides us through a study of God’s Word as seen through the lens of women. Through her warm, relatable teaching, Sarah will share how God works through women in Scripture, offering new insights for our own faith journeys and daily lives.
Come connect, grow, and be encouraged as we explore how Jesus has set women free to be who God created them to be! While this study focuses on women, it will also explore how God weaves together people from a variety of ethic and cultural backgrounds to shape our view of God and His character.
This is for ANYONE and EVERYONE who is interested in digging into scripture and freely discussing challenging topics.
Recent Resources
"A Risen Christ and a Clean Room" by Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler
The risen Christ has folded Death up and put it in its place. Now Christ invites you to trust in Him and find place and purpose in His new creation. Tune in to listen to Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler’s most recent Lutheran Hour sermon.
Captivating Conversations by Brian K. Davies
Are you a good listener? Many people believe that they are but, when asked if they believe others are a good listener, the answer is usually no. Perhaps we all can learn to be better listeners. And there’s no better model than Jesus Christ Himself.
Join Brian Davies on a journey of sitting back, opening your heart, and learning how to truly hear what others are saying. Follow Christ’s numerous examples to see how asking questions can broaden your perspectives and deepen the conversations you’re having with others. Each chapter includes reflection questions to help you internalize the teachings and apply them to your own life. Start new habits this year and come to conversations with a new posture of listening before speaking with Captivating Conversations.
Gretchen Ronnevik's Blog
Gretchen is a farmwife, mother and teacher to six hilarious children, writer, tutor, knitting designer and mentor – AND one of Camp Arcadia 2025 Women’s Retreat speakers. She loves rich theology rooted in real life. She created Gospel Mentoring, a training program for intergenerational discipleship, and is the co-host of Freely Given, a podcast on living free in Christ.
She has articles published at 1517, Christianity Today, Mere Orthodoxy, and regularly speaks at events. Catch up with her latest writing by visiting her website, linked below.
Junk Drawer Jesus by Matt Popovits
Each of us is the owner of a seemingly random collection of theologies, doctrines, and superstitions—a junk drawer of religious ideas and influences.
- It’s the witticisms your grandmother tossed around with ease that sounded like they came from a religious text.
- It’s an insight about God from a half-heard sermon at a friend’s church.
- It’s the mental screenshot of a meme shared on social media.
- It’s the empowering idea you underlined in a book and wrote on a Post-it Note now forever affixed to your laptop.
These are the things stuffed in our spiritual junk drawers. And as with that stash of old clothes in the closet or that stew of phone chargers, pens, and half-used batteries sitting in your kitchen drawer, something in us says, “This might be useful.” And so we hold on.
But should we? For many, this junk drawer spirituality has become burdensome. We are worn down by the religious experience it creates and frustrated by a collection of traditions, “truths,” and unfulfilled promises that continue to grow. In Junk Drawer Jesus, the spiritually exhausted are invited to examine our religious clutter and compare it to the person and the promises of Jesus Christ.
We’ll discover what—if anything—of our spiritual collection should be kept. In the process, we rediscover the soul-satisfying simplicity of a God who refuses to fill our lives with junk but instead offers grace upon grace.
Dr. Chad Foster's Teachings
Hop onto Immanuel Macomb’s website to engage with the teachings of Rev. Dr. Chad Foster, where you can join an active class or access recordings of previous teachings! As you learn to look at scripture through within its first-century Hebraic context, you’ll find there’s much more than meets the eye.
Rev. Dr. Chad Yeshayahu Foster is both an ordained LCMS pastor and an ordained rabbi. He has studied at Christian seminaries and Jewish yeshivas in England, France, and Israel. Currently, he serves as the Senior Pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Macomb, MI.
Churches and their leaders have innovation fever. Innovation seems exciting–a way to enliven tired institutions, embrace creativity, and be proactive–and is a superstar of the business world. But this focus on innovation may be caused by an obsession with contemporary relevance, creativity, and entrepreneurship that inflates the self, lacks theological depth, and promises burnout.
In this follow-up to Churches and the Crisis of Decline, leading practical theologian Andrew Root delves into the problems of innovation. He explores where innovation and entrepreneurship came from, shows how they break into church circles, and counters the “new imaginations” like neoliberalism and technology that hold the church captive to modernity. Root reveals the moral visions of the self that innovation and entrepreneurship deliver–they are dependent on workers (and consumers) being obsessed with their selves, which leads to significant faith-formation issues. This focus on innovation also causes us to think we need to be singularly unique instead of made alive in Christ. Root offers a return to mysticism and the poetry of Meister Eckhart as a healthier spiritual alternative.
This is the fifth book in Root’s Ministry in a Secular Age series.
Hitchhiking with Prophets by Chad Bird
The Bible is not some dusty textbook, but a veritable circus of humanity, with high-soaring saints, back-talking donkeys, left-handed kingslayers, and all the glory and gore you can fit inside the big top of this biblical tent.
And everywhere in this story is God who, in his wild and passionate love for humanity, is shepherding history toward the birth and ministry of Jesus the Messiah.
Do you already have a good grasp of the Old Testament? Wonderful. This book will be an enjoyable review. Do you not know the difference between the Bible and The Hobbit? Also fine. This book will be a helpful map into unknown territory.
By the time we’re done, you won’t know all the ins and outs of the story, but you will have a strong grasp of the major movers and shakers. We will sit shotgun with patriarchs and prophets. Each one will take us a little farther down the Old Testament road until we get to the goal: to Jesus, the one in whom the whole story finds fulfillment and meaning.
