The Rapture Exposed:
The Message of Hope in Revelation
with Barbara Rossing
and Bread for the Journey

September 24-26, 2006

Sinsinawa Mound Center - Sinsinawa, Wisconsin

Register online for this year's Professional Leaders Conference.

Presenter

Barbara R. Rossing is Professor of New Testament at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where she has taught since 1994. She holds a doctorate in New Testament from Harvard Divinity School, and an M. Div. from Yale Divinity School. Her research focuses on the biblical book of Revelation.

She is the author of The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation (Westview Press, 2004), featured on CBS’s “Sixty Minutes” as a critique of fundamentalist “Left Behind” theology. Her previous works include The Choice Between Two Cities: Whore, Bride and Empire in the Apocalypse (Trinity Press, 1999) as well as articles and book chapters on Revelation and ecology, and “Prophets, Prophetic Movements and the Voices of Women” in A People’s History of Christianity (Fortress Press, 2005).

Previously Rossing served as chaplain to Harvard Divinity School, pastor and teacher at the Holden Village retreat center, and pastor at Bethany Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.  She serves on the executive committee and council of the Lutheran World Federation, where she also chairs the Lutheran World Federation’s theology and studies committee.

Musicians
Bread for the Journey

Mary Preus is a singer, song leader, and choir director. Her experience ranges from church choirs (directing and singing) to jazz ensembles. She focuses her current music research on diverse singing styles and on the worship and singing life of justice-centered communities of faith around the world. Mary is music director at Our Savior’s Lutheran in Minneapolis, MN and can sometimes be found hosting lunch at St. Martin’s Table bookstore and restaurant. Besides Bread for the Journey’s recordings, Mary’s voice can be heard on recordings by liturgical composers Ray Makeever and Marty Haugen. In 1995 she released her own compact disc, Yonder Come Day. Mary is a member of the ecumenical Community of St. Martin in Minneapolis, MN.

Tom Witt has been keyboardist, worship leader, and songleader for a wide variety of Lutheran church events. He has a depth of resources in worship planning and leads workshops on music, liturgy, and contemporary society. During 1998-99, Tom served as musician-in-residence at the Lutheran retreat center Holden Village, in Washington state. In addition to his current work with Bread for the Journey, Tom serves as worship coordinator for the ecumenical Community of St. Martin in Minneapolis, MN. He has released a CD recording of his own instrumental improvisations on hymns in the Lutheran Book of Worship, entitled Dusting Off the Green Book.