Jacqueline Bussie
Jacqueline Bussie is an author, professor, theologian, public speaker, and student of life in all its messy beauty. An active servant-leader in the E.L.C.A, Jacqueline teaches religion and theology classes at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where she also serves as the Director of the Forum on Faith and Life. Every day Jacqueline is amazed and grateful that she actually gets paid to do the three things she loves most: 1) interact with incredible students, 2) write, and 3) try to make the world a more compassionate place.
In her free time, Jacqueline loves to: read books, ride in the front car of roller coasters, take ballroom dance classes with her husband, and travel to any place she has never been before. Though Jacqueline hails from Florida, she now lives in Fargo, North Dakota—which is all the proof she needs that God’s sense of humor is alive and well.
Outlaw Christian: Learning to Tell Our Real Stories and Compost our Pain
Have you ever been angry at God? Scared to tell your real story? Exhausted by Christian clichés like “Everything happens for a reason” and “It’s all part of God’s plan?” If so, attend this session to discover how to break the rules and claim the authentic, deeper faith of an outlaw Christian. In this audience-engaging interactive workshop, award-winning author and theologian Dr. Jacqueline Bussie shares wisdom from her new book “Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the Rules” (see www.outlawchristianbook.com). Using rich storytelling and radical honesty, Bussie myth-busts harmful pious platitudes about anger at God, grief, doubt, and hope. Instead of living lives of secrecy and shame imposed by unquestioned ‘faith-laws,’ Bussie proposes a rebellious, life-giving, authentic alternative: outlaw Christianity. Bussie provides audience members with concrete practical strategies to help tell their real stories, cultivate hope, practice accompaniment, compost their pain, and re-discover the spiritual practice of lament.