Jeremy Myers: Pathways in Public Theology The Augsburg Podcast

Jeremy Myers: How do we help our young people think about God as moving in our world, working in our world? How do we teach our young people to be in our world, partnering with God in the redeeming work that God's doing in our world? So how do we teach them how to listen, engage, seek out places of brokenness courageously, hopefully be in those places to hear those stories, to be changed by their neighbors stories and then learn how to enter into God's story while they're carrying their neighbor's story with them? And by carrying their neighbor's story with them into God's story, it's going to change the way they hear God's story. Just like God's story will change the way they hear their neighbor's story.
Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the president of Augsburg University, and it's my great privilege to present the Augsburg podcast, one way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.
Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of the Augsburg podcast. We're speaking today with Jeremy Myers, associate professor of religion, and director of the theology and public leadership program, among other roles he plays at Augsburg. Welcome Jeremy.
Jeremy Myers: Thank you, it's good to be here.
Catherine Day: I want to explore several aspects of your work and your passions and I wondered if you'd be willing to start with where you grew up and what you wanted to be.
Jeremy Myers: I grew up in the Chicago area. I was born out in Maryland. We moved to Chicago when I was three. My father was a Lutheran pastor, and my mother stayed home and raised myself and my sister. And it was a great place to grow up and be a kid. There were abandoned railroad tracks behind our house, which offered lots of places to disappear from your parents, and build forts, and explore, and be imaginative.
Catherine Day: So when you say Chicago, you weren't really right in the city?
Jeremy Myers: Not in the city, no. We were about 45 minutes out south of Chicago in a town called Madison, Illinois. And I have vivid memories of loving ... As I said my father was a pastor, and I loved being around the church. I would be given special jobs during certain services. On Good Friday my job was to dial the lights back as the service progressed so the sanctuary got gradually darker, and darker, and darker. And I loved the mystery of that. I remember being a little boy and just loving going to church at nighttime. So there was a mystery about what we did as a religious community that was appealing to me. There was a mystery about that space and the way it smelled, and the way it felt, and the way it looked. And it was a supportive community for me growing up. So the earliest thing I can remember wanting to be was a pastor, and I remember planning little services for my family and setting up an alter, and planning an order of worship, and writing a sermon, and having the family come together and do these little worship services together. And these were not ...
I also spent a lot of time pretending I was Han Solo and that was play. And when I was doing these services with my family it felt quite different. It wasn't play. I wasn't pretending to fly the millennium falcon, I was actually leading worship for them. It felt very different for me. And so early on I think,