Riverside Innovation Hub

Riverside Innovation Hub The Riverside Innovation Hub is an incubator for people and communities exploring the public church in the neighborhood. New life is created at the riverside.

These congregations learn a process for discerning how God is inviting them to become more engaged in their neighborhoods. The Riverside Innovation Hub launched in 2017 thanks to a grant from the Lilly Endowment. Our first learning community of local congregations was centered around innovating new ways to make meaningful connections with young adults at the intersections of their faith and their

public lives. A second learning community of congregations launches in 2021 and is centered around the call to be public church. CCV is building capacity through our RIH congregational partnerships to help the center foster meaningful community based learning opportunities with students and faculty. This will include new iterations of congregational partnerships in the future, in collaboration with the classroom and the curiosities of our students. RIVERSIDE…
The riverside is a place of transformation. Jacob wrestled with God at the riverside and was blessed. Joshua built a memorial of 12 stones at the riverside to remind the Israelites how God brought them through the Jordan River from the wilderness into the promised land. Jesus came to the riverside to be baptized by John. The Riverside Innovation Hub is a place of newness and blessing. It is a place to wrestle with God and with our call. It is a place to hear God call us beloved. It is a place to be built up for the work at hand. It is where we explore the new ways we are called into ministry with God’s world. It is at the riverside where we become aware of challenges we face, opportunities that lie ahead, and new ways to move forward. INNOVATION…
Innovation is gritty. It is not flashy. Innovation happens when we become aware of and responsive to our vocation – God’s call to be a fully engaged neighbor in a certain place and at a certain time with certain people. It emerges from the movement of God’s Spirit, the freedom we receive in Christ, and demands placed upon us by our neighbor. When we are opened to these streams of call and respond out of our gifts and passions and power, our ministry becomes innovative. To become innovative, we must learn to listen deeply to God’s call and our neighbors’ desires. HUB…
Transformation and innovation cannot happen alone. We are called into this work together. The Riverside Innovation Hub does not have all the answers but we do have the power to convene faithful people. Together we will learn about our young adults. Together we will learn how to engage, accompany, and empower these young adults. Together we will learn to listen to God’s Spirit. Together we will learn how to become innovative congregations for the sake of our world. Our Hub will be a place to share ideas and resources and a place to find new ideas and resources. This endeavor will happen together as leaders and as institutions.

Registration for the Ecosystem Mapping Retreat closes soon. October 9–11 at Camp Friendship. Space is limited and fillin...
08/14/2026

Registration for the Ecosystem Mapping Retreat closes soon. October 9–11 at Camp Friendship. Space is limited and filling fast. Get your registration in by August 18th.

If you've been reading our posts this summer and something has been stirring, perhaps this is the moment to act on it.

This is not another conference. This is not a workshop where you take notes and go home.

This is where you map your neighborhood. See your ecosystem. Meet other congregation leaders who are asking the same questions you are. And leave with something more valuable than a plan; a new way of seeing your community and your congregation's place in it.
"None of this happens overnight. It's a slow shift. It's intentional. Feels like nothing is moving… and yet it was working." -Rhonda, Easter Lutheran

The work starts at the retreat. And it doesn't stop.

Register now, visit augsburg.edu/riversidehub/community/

08/12/2026

Check out this podcast from Reframing Our Stories, where Kara Haug and Kristina Fruge chat about the process to write our book!

Here's what we've learned after seven years of this work:You can't do it alone. And you're not supposed to.The congregat...
08/06/2026

Here's what we've learned after seven years of this work:
You can't do it alone. And you're not supposed to.

The congregations that have made the deepest impact in their neighborhoods didn't do it by working harder. They did it by finding each other… by realizing they were part of a web of relationships that was already there, waiting to be tended.

"We aren't meant to do it alone. We were created for relationship. Partnership is the only way to go." - Marty, Roseville Lutheran

The Community Partner Cohort is for congregations ready to move from isolated effort to networked impact. Together, you'll map your ecosystem, find your partners, and build the kind of collaborative relationships that make neighborhoods actually change.

244 congregational leaders across 38 communities have walked this path with us. What they built didn't disappear when the cohort ended — it became part of how their neighborhoods work. Ready to find your partners?
Learn more: https://www.augsburg.edu/riversidehub/community-partner-cohort/

Something new is happening at Riverside Innovation Hub.For congregations that have already begun building relationships ...
07/31/2026

Something new is happening at Riverside Innovation Hub.

For congregations that have already begun building relationships in their neighborhoods, and are ready to go deeper, we're launching the Community Partner Cohort.

Here's what that looks like:

Your congregation works alongside a community partner organization you already know and trust. Together with RIH's support you co-design a two-year internship for an Augsburg University student who comes alongside your partnership and helps advance the mending work you've been called to do.

RIH walks with you every step of the way… building trust, discerning direction, and equipping your leaders with the coaching and problem-solving skills to make it work.

But here's what makes this different from any invitation we’ve been able to extend before:

This is an ecosystem. Neighbors, students, and congregations - each bringing gifts to benefit each other. Each filling the gaps others can't fill alone. Churches offer rootedness and relationship. Students bring energy, commitment, and fresh perspective. Neighbors bring the truth of what's actually needed. Together, they create something none of them could build on their own… a partnership of life and abundance that feeds all three communities at once.

And here's something worth sitting with: the student intern who comes alongside your congregation isn't just filling a role. They're a young adult, often first-generation, justice-minded, relationally committed, who could be with you for two full years. This is an investment in the next generation of community leaders. And an invitation for them to invest in yours.

See the comment below for a link to the Community Partner Cohort handout.

She grew up in the church. Was baptized there. Confirmed there. Eventually interned there.And for years, she couldn't br...
07/22/2026

She grew up in the church. Was baptized there. Confirmed there. Eventually interned there.
And for years, she couldn't bring her whole self through the door.
That's the kind of quiet harm that lives inside communities that mean well. Not malice. Just a narrowness. An unspoken limit on who gets to be fully seen.
Through the RIH process, this congregation's team spent two years building relationships with each other. Really listening. Getting curious. Creating space for honest conversation. And slowly… something opened.
She found one safe person. And then she found a whole community of safe people. And that community did something remarkable-they didn't keep it to themselves. They carried what they had learned to their pastors and church leaders and said:
"No one in this community should feel like they can't be their whole self."

That's what mending looks like. Not a program. Not a policy. A community that learned to listen, and then refused to stay quiet.
This is what we exist for: To help congregations become communities where everyone gets to come home.
Who was the one safe person who first helped you believe you could belong—and have you ever been that person for someone else?
What would it take for your community to not just open the door, but go looking for the people who don't yet believe they can come home?

This week RIH facilitated a panel conversation at the Vocation of Lutheran Higher Education Conference that explored the...
07/17/2026

This week RIH facilitated a panel conversation at the Vocation of Lutheran Higher Education Conference that explored the opportunities and challenges of being a place-based institution navigating the intersections of institutional identity, local faith traditions, and a commitment to an inclusive common good. Panelists included faculty, staff and local faith leaders from the Twin Cities -- as they reflected on the conference theme in the wake of a winter of widespread threats to our communities and neighbors.

Thank you to our panel participants Dr. Kathleen Clark, Executive Director of the Augsburg Health Commons, Director of the Sabo Center for Citizenship and Democracy at Augsburg University and Professor in Augsburg’s Department of Nursing Programs Nursing; Kristina Fruge, Director of the Riverside Innovation Hub at Augsburg University; Pastor Jane Buckley-Farlee, Senior Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, Minneapolis; and Chris Stedman, Writer, Activist and Professor in Augsburg's Department of Religion and Philosophy.

The panel was followed by a workshop facilitated by Brenna Zeimet, Program Manager for the Riverside Innovation Hub and Community Organizer and Jenean Gilmer, Public Historian, Educator and Community Organizer. They explored how colleges and universities can weave neighborhood-centered networks with everyday practices that build trust and shift imaginations around community relationships.

Registration is open for a new season of partnership with Riverside Innovation Hub!This October, Riverside Innovation Hu...
07/09/2026

Registration is open for a new season of partnership with Riverside Innovation Hub!

This October, Riverside Innovation Hub is gathering congregation leaders for a retreat at Camp Friendship on October 9-11. To register visit augsburg.edu/riversidehub/new-community-of-practice/

We'll map your ecosystem together. You'll see your neighborhood in a way you've never seen it before. And you'll leave with something more valuable than a plan - a new orientation.

No checklist. No program to implement. Just your team. Your neighborhood. And the question: who are we actually connected to, and who have we been walking past? What relationships is God inviting us into with our neighbors?

It sounds simple. But it changes everything.One congregation team came into our cohort asking the usual questions - what...
07/07/2026

It sounds simple. But it changes everything.

One congregation team came into our cohort asking the usual questions - what program should we run, what event should we plan, how do we get more people through our doors?

Then something shifted. A team member said four words that stopped the room:

“Relationships are the project." -Participant, Roseville Lutheran

Those words became a mantra - not just for their team, but for everyone in the cohort. The whole orientation changed. Less task. More presence. Less programming. More people.

This is what we do at Riverside Innovation Hub. We help congregations remember that the neighborhood isn't a problem to solve. It's people to belong to.
If that's the kind of shift your congregation is ready for… we want to talk. augsburg.edu/riversidehub/new-community-of-practice/

What would it look like if your congregation treated relationships as the work itself, not the means to something else?

06/26/2026

"Last week, Grace Harrison and I spent three days at Mt. Olivet Retreat Center with partners in organizations from around the country doing impactful neighborhood and place-based ministry. The Thriving Neighborhoods Network, as we call ourselves, is an affinity group of folks whose projects are funded by the Lilly Endowments Thriving Congregations Initiative. We’ve been meeting for a couple of years informally, and last year were able to receive some grant funding from Duke University to deepen our relationships, learn about one another’s work, and identify opportunities for resource sharing and support."

Read the rest of Nick's Blog ➡️https://mpls-synod.org/2026/06/anticipating-joy/

06/26/2026

Last week, Michon from Interfaith and Gretchen from Riverside Innovation Hub attended Campus Compact's Changemakers Retreat at the StarTUp at the Armory at Towson University. We met amazing leaders from across the country working on community engagement, learned from Towson staff and community, and spent time imaging how we could use what we learned at Augsburg University. Thank you Campus Compact and TU for your hospitality and inspiring programming!

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