The Alex Street Band

Alex Street is a Worship Leader and Youth Minister based in Boise, ID. He has led music and worship for many events throughout the country over the last four years. He released his first recorded project, Made for More EP, in August of 2015 and has enjoyed the blessing of sharing those songs and stories with others. Alex and his band of mighty musicians are so excited to join the Idaho Discipleship Conference! For a listen, go to: www.alexstreetmusic.com.

Workshop: TAIZE PRAYER

Workshop: TAIZE PRAYER
Tony and Abby Rheault

TAIZÉ PRAYER is a combination of scripture, music, intercession and silence, joined together to create a communal contemplative prayer practice. Started in Taizé, France, this worship style has spread throughout the world and is utilized in many ways, such as seasonal devotions, group meditation and interdenominational services. We will consider each of the elements of this prayer form through discussion and example.

Tony and Abby Rheault, music ministers at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Boise, have lived in Idaho for 6 years. They both enjoyed careers in liturgy and church music for nearly 25 years. This included experience planning non-Eucharistic liturgies such as Taizé prayer. Tony is now a Software Developer and Abby is a Librarian.

WORKSHOPS

God’s Mission in Worship and the World
Susan Briehl & Marty Haugen
Our God is a missionary God, always moving in love toward the world, including when the Spirit gathers the Church around Word and Sacrament and sends us as a means of grace. How shall we plan liturgies in which we are welcomed into the Mission of God as we worship and as we live in the world God so loves?

Singing in the Reign 
Marty Haugen & Susan Briehl
For most Christians, music is an essential part of public worship. Lutherans in particular treasure the role of music, especially the assembly's song, in liturgy, even as they recognize that music is always at the service of the Word.

Amid rapid cultural and technological changes, those of us who prepare and lead worship need to ask ourselves anew why we sing, how best to sing, and what to sing, so that our music always is faithful to the Gospel while resonating with a living and prophetic voice.


Susan Briehl is a Lutheran pastor called by the Indiana-Kentucky Synod to serve the greater church as a teacher, writer, and liturgist. Previously she served with her husband Martin Wells as Executive Director of Holden Village, as campus pastor at Pacific Lutheran University, and as pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Bellingham, WA. She has taught preaching and parish worship at Wartburg Seminary.

Marty Haugen is a liturgical composer, workshop presenter, performing and recording artist & author from Eagan, Minnesota. For the past 30 years, Marty has presented workshops and concerts across North and Central America, Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim.  He has over 40 recordings and more than 400 separate printed editions available through GIA Publications. A number of his published songs, including "Shepherd Me, O God," "Gather Us In" and "All Are Welcome are well-known to many religious denominations. He has several published mass settings for Roman Catholic communities, including Mass of Creation, and several liturgical settings for Lutheran congregations, including Holden Evening Prayer, Unfailing Light (with Pastor Susan Briehl) and Now the Feast and Celebration, as well as a communion setting for the new Evangelical Worship Book (ELW-Augsburg Fortress).

Workshop: Stewardship

“Stewardship is what we do after we say we believe.” (Clarence C. Stoughton, 1949).   The beginning of stewardship is to realize that everything belongs to God.  In this workshop, you are invited to ponder what makes people and congregations ‘tick’ when it comes to generously sharing what God has entrusted to us.

Vicar Anne Palma is preparing for ordained ministry in the ELCA Lutheran Church. A student in Luther Seminary’s Distributed Learning Master of Divinity program, she is completing her pastoral internship at King of Glory Lutheran Church in Boise.  She also works as an Internal Medicine physician specializing in hospice and palliative care.

Keynoter: Mia Crosthwaite

Mia Crosthwaite has been speaking, writing and teaching about living a life modeled on Christ for almost twenty years.  She wrote, Go and Do Likewise, Catholic Social Teaching in Action, published by Twenty Third Publications and served many years in ministry in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise. She has spoken locally and nationally, including at the LA Religious Education Congress, National Catholic Catechetical Leaders conference, and the Diocese of Helena conference. She holds a Master in Pastoral Studies from Loyola University in New Orleans and is currently working on a Master of Divinity from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota.  She looks forward to entering candidacy this fall for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Mia makes her home in Boise, Idaho with her husband, Brian.  Together they live the adventure of parenting nine children ages 4 to 24, including a sibling group adopted from foster care, and running a baby dairy farm.   She shares Christian community with Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in Boise and directs the Idaho Discipleship Conference.