From the President

Joy In All Things

Dear CSP alumni and friends,

Summer greetings from Concordia University, St. Paul, where we experience joy as Jesus Christ restores us in mind, body, and spirit (Psalm 23:3).

The concept of joy brings about a wide variety of images, experiences, and emotions, depending on who you ask. For many, joy is synonymous with happiness, a sense of good feelings. For others, joy is a deep, abiding contentment that persists despite circumstances both good and bad.

At Concordia, we experience joy in many ways and for many reasons. And that has been true for nearly 130 academic years.

We share joy when we help students from around the world access an excellent, innovative, Christ-centered, Lutheran education that gives them the knowledge and wisdom to pursue their unique callings for life.

We find joy as we bless generations of students through a transformative academic experience that empowers them to lead and serve in the Church, their workplaces, communities, congregations, and across the world.

We experience joy as we live, learn, and serve together in community, dedicated to loving one another as Christ loves us.

We live in joy that we get to be a university, even as we strain to serve a growing number of students in an increasingly challenging marketplace with emerging social, political, and demographic challenges. In short, joy is part and parcel of the CSP experience.

God’s Word reveals that joy comes in knowing Jesus, because He loves the world (John 3:16) and is the one who holds all things together (Colossians 1:17), even in the midst of institutional and cultural challenges, even during a pandemic, or even in the midst of war.

CSP is a university that embodies joy because Jesus Christ is here and the Holy Spirit is at work in our midst. May the stories in this issue give you joy as you celebrate with us the many ways our faculty, staff, students, and alumni share and experience joy.

Thank you for being a part of our joyful community.

Much joy,

Brian L. Friedrich | President