Lutheran Witness: June/July 2025

The June/July issue of The Lutheran Witness, “Christian Endurance,” focuses on the theme of the 2025 LCMS Youth Gathering, which is drawn from Hebrews 12:1–3.

From the President: Suffering Produces Endurance

Life in the Church Year Series: Two Saints of Summer: J.S. Bach Kugelhopf

Features:

Endurance in Jesus: ‘Do not lose heart’ — Bryan Wolfmueller

Endurance as a People: ‘Build one another up’ — Bryan Wolfmueller

Endurance to the End: ‘Be faithful unto death’ — Bryan Wolfmueller

‘Let Us Not Grow Weary’: Good works in the Christian life — Alfonso Espinosa

‘So Great a Cloud of Witnesses’: Enduring with the saints — Molly Lackey

A Letter to the Youth of the Church: Enduring in Jesus to the end — Mark Kiessling

Departments:

Snippets: News from around the LCMS and the world

Worship: On the closing Divine Service at the LCMS Youth Gathering

Formula of Concord Reading Plan: June — The Third Use of the Law; July — The Lord’s Supper

Searching Scripture: Opening the Old Testament: The Promised Spirit

From the editor:

Every age has its troubles. Jesus warned His disciples that it would be so (John 16:33; Mark 14:7).

Today, we live in an age of incredible material prosperity. We enjoy peace, security and wealth. We also live in a time of unprecedented isolation, made possible by our digital, screen-based economy and social structure, furthered dramatically by the training we all had in isolation during the pandemic. We have so much at our fingertips, and we need so little from each other.

No generation has been more affected by these shifts than today’s children and teenagers. You have probably seen the dire statistics: academic setbacks due to months or years of remote learning, screen time hours approaching the number of waking hours, time spent in person with friends plummeting, loneliness and anxiety on the rise. Christian youth looking to live faithful lives may feel the isolation particularly keenly — a recent study from Pew Research found that only 45% of Generation Z identifies as Christian, compared, for example, with 72% of those ages 50–64.

Every age has its troubles. Young people today are facing very different troubles than their grandparents did — as well as many of the same ones.

This summer’s LCMS Youth Gathering planners selected the theme “ENDURE,” based on Hebrews 12:1–3, with all this in mind.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

“Consider Him who endured.” The troubles of each generation may be vastly different, but the answer to them is the same: Look to Jesus.

From July 19–23, thousands of youth will gather in New Orleans for learning, Bible study, service projects and fellowship, all organized around this theme of Christian endurance. With this issue of LW, we wanted to broaden this conversation, sharing articles around the theme of Christian endurance with our regular readers. We are also providing a copy of this issue to every youth at the Gathering.

Older Lutherans, we invite you to encourage a young person in your midst as they look ahead to the long race set before them. Young Lutherans, we encourage you to talk to an older person at church about the challenges they have faced. Perhaps your challenges are different, but the source of your endurance is the same: Christ and the community of His church.

Looking to Christ,

Stacey Eising

Managing Editor, The Lutheran Witness