Readers,
Persons in the faith-based community who have basic questions about Medicare and Medicaid can get them answered in a conference call Friday, April 29, at 11 a.m. Pacific time.
Guests include Dr. Donald Berwick, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid; Sharon Donovan of the Federal Coordinated Health Care Office; and David Gehm, CEO of Lutheran Homes of Michigan.
Call (800) 369-1709. The passcode is 3058216. Call in a few minutes early. If I were you, I'd ask them about the anticipated cuts coming from HR1 in Congress and also at the state level.
— Rachel Pritchett
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Discernment opportunity for clergy, church workers planned
Clergy and other rostered church workers have a valuable opportunity to assess where they’re going professionally and personally at seminar and workshop hosted by Consultation to Clergy of Seattle.
Titled “Crossroads: Redefining Your Vocational Vision,” the three-day learning session will provide a safe and open venue for participants to assess key vocational strengths; identify viable vocational options; and develop strategic plans for future chapters in life and ministry.
The facilitator will be the Rev. Philip Streufert, the director of Consultation to Clergy who also is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified pastoral counselor.
The seminar will take place first on May 2 to 4 at Concordia University of Portland, Ore. It will be repeated June 13 to 15 at the University of Washington Lutheran Center in Seattle.
The tuition is $325, which includes materials and career testing. Registrations postmarked three weeks before the events receives $25 off.
More information is at http://www.consultationtoclergy.org.
Titled “Crossroads: Redefining Your Vocational Vision,” the three-day learning session will provide a safe and open venue for participants to assess key vocational strengths; identify viable vocational options; and develop strategic plans for future chapters in life and ministry.
The facilitator will be the Rev. Philip Streufert, the director of Consultation to Clergy who also is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified pastoral counselor.
The seminar will take place first on May 2 to 4 at Concordia University of Portland, Ore. It will be repeated June 13 to 15 at the University of Washington Lutheran Center in Seattle.
The tuition is $325, which includes materials and career testing. Registrations postmarked three weeks before the events receives $25 off.
More information is at http://www.consultationtoclergy.org.
Lutheran churches lead South Kitsap cross walk
Reprinted with permission from Kitsap Sun
Members of Lutheran congregations joined with community members in South Kitsap on Friday for the annual tradition of the cross walk.
For 20 years, members of First Lutheran Community Church, Elim Lutheran Church and Spirit of Life Lutheran Church have invited their members and the community to walk with the cross through town, giving "feet and face to faith." Participants stopped at several points along the way to pray on Friday.
The walk began at First Lutheran Community Church on Mitchell Road SE in Port Orchard and concluded in Marina Park.
According to a press release for the event, the Reverend George Larson brought the tradition of this ongoing practice of faith and devotion from Puyallup, where a Presbyterian pastor introduced the practice to an ecumenical clergy group in 1985. When Pastor Larson moved to Port Orchard in 1991, he accepted a call to begin Spirit of Life, a mission congregation in the Olalla area. Pastor Larson, now retired from Spirit of Life, became a member of First Lutheran Community Church and continued leading the tradition of this annual pilgrimage. Larson passed on the mantle to the pastors and leaders of the ELCA congregations in Port Orchard.
Both First Lutheran and Spirit of Life have recently called new pastors to serve their congregations. Pastor Doug Nemitz was installed this month to serve as Senior Pastor at First Lutheran. First Lutheran is also served by Assistant Pastor Orv Jacobson. Spirit of Life called Pastor Sarah Roemer in December. Elim Lutheran is served by the Rev. Steve Ray, an interim pastor.
Spirit of Life Lutheran Church, First Lutheran Community Church and Elim Lutheran Church are part of the Southwestern Washington Synod of the ELCA. The ELCA has 10,300 member congregations across the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Easter Message from Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson
So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. - Matthew 28:8Mary Magdalene and Mary walked to Jesus’ grave, expecting to find death. It’s understandable. Images of violence filled their minds. Thoughts of their vulnerability and mortality deadened their spirits. Death had become the defining story of their lives.
Instead of death, the women met a resurrection messenger who said, “He is not here: for he has been raised, as he said.” As they hurried to tell others, the risen Jesus met them. They were changed. Now resurrection, not death, would define their lives.
Jesus lives! Now resurrection, not death, defines our lives. Jesus continues to meet you in resurrection messengers, just as Jesus met me in Pastor Josephus Livenson Lauvanus, president of the Lutheran Church of Haiti. As we walked through the ruins and rubble that lie in the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake, Pastor Livenson Lauvanus proclaimed, “We will not be defined by rubble, but by restoration, for we are a people of the resurrection.”
Baptized into Jesus’ death and raised to newness of life we, too, are people of the resurrection. We, too, are resurrection messengers. We, too, are about God’s work of restoration.
The world aches to hear the message we have to tell. Sing with joy! Jesus lives! We are a people of the resurrection.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Good Friday procession will mark 20 years
By the Rev. Sarah Roemer,
Spirit of Life Lutheran Church of Olalla
PORT ORCHARD — The congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) in South Kitsap County are coming together to host a Good Friday procession as an alternative outdoor ecumenical worship that bids welcome to all.
First Lutheran Community Church, Elim Lutheran Church and Spirit of Life Lutheran Church are marking the anniversary of a 20-year-old tradition in the Port Orchard community by renewing their cooperative partnership-in-ministry and inviting their members and the community to walk with the cross through town, giving "feet and face to faith", seeing through the eyes of Christ, listening with a heart of compassion and praying through the people and places you see.
The Cross Walk will begin at 10 am on, April 22, 2011, from First Lutheran Community Church located at 2483 Mitchell Road SE in Port Orchard. It will conclude in Marina Park.
The tradition of the Good Friday Community Cross Walk began 20 years ago under the leadership of The Reverend George Larson who brought the tradition of this ongoing practice of faith and devotion from Puyallup, where a Presbyterian pastor introduced the practice to an ecumenical clergy group in 1985. When Pastor Larson moved to Port Orchard in 1991, he accepted a call to begin Spirit of Life, a mission congregation in the Olalla area. Pastor Larson, now retired from Spirit of Life, became a member of First Lutheran Community Church and continued leading the tradition of this annual pilgrimage; however, as this tradition is now in its 20th year, Pastor Larson is passing on its mantle by inviting the pastors and leaders of the ELCA congregations in Port Orchard to work together.
Pastor Larson, who made the cross that is carried from an unusable and unsalable piece of lumber, speaks to his initial vision for the tradition: “My hope is that people get the feel of what Jesus’ cross could have felt like. There is a special connection people make with a cross, the feel of the wood, its heft and size. The whole experience is that walking the cross out in public engages all our senses, reflections and recollections of what our faith means.”
Both First Lutheran and Spirit of Life have recently called new pastors to serve their congregations. Pastor Doug Nemitz was installed this month to serve as Senior Pastor at First Lutheran. First Lutheran is also served by Assistant Pastor Orv Jacobson. Spirit of Life called Pastor Sarah Roemer in December. Elim Lutheran is served by the Rev. Steve Ray, an interim pastor.
Spirit of Life Lutheran Church, First Lutheran Community Church and Elim Lutheran Church are part of the Southwestern Washington Synod of the ELCA. The ELCA has 10,300 member congregations across the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Spirit of Life Lutheran Church of Olalla
PORT ORCHARD — The congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) in South Kitsap County are coming together to host a Good Friday procession as an alternative outdoor ecumenical worship that bids welcome to all.
First Lutheran Community Church, Elim Lutheran Church and Spirit of Life Lutheran Church are marking the anniversary of a 20-year-old tradition in the Port Orchard community by renewing their cooperative partnership-in-ministry and inviting their members and the community to walk with the cross through town, giving "feet and face to faith", seeing through the eyes of Christ, listening with a heart of compassion and praying through the people and places you see.
The Cross Walk will begin at 10 am on, April 22, 2011, from First Lutheran Community Church located at 2483 Mitchell Road SE in Port Orchard. It will conclude in Marina Park.
The tradition of the Good Friday Community Cross Walk began 20 years ago under the leadership of The Reverend George Larson who brought the tradition of this ongoing practice of faith and devotion from Puyallup, where a Presbyterian pastor introduced the practice to an ecumenical clergy group in 1985. When Pastor Larson moved to Port Orchard in 1991, he accepted a call to begin Spirit of Life, a mission congregation in the Olalla area. Pastor Larson, now retired from Spirit of Life, became a member of First Lutheran Community Church and continued leading the tradition of this annual pilgrimage; however, as this tradition is now in its 20th year, Pastor Larson is passing on its mantle by inviting the pastors and leaders of the ELCA congregations in Port Orchard to work together.
Pastor Larson, who made the cross that is carried from an unusable and unsalable piece of lumber, speaks to his initial vision for the tradition: “My hope is that people get the feel of what Jesus’ cross could have felt like. There is a special connection people make with a cross, the feel of the wood, its heft and size. The whole experience is that walking the cross out in public engages all our senses, reflections and recollections of what our faith means.”
Both First Lutheran and Spirit of Life have recently called new pastors to serve their congregations. Pastor Doug Nemitz was installed this month to serve as Senior Pastor at First Lutheran. First Lutheran is also served by Assistant Pastor Orv Jacobson. Spirit of Life called Pastor Sarah Roemer in December. Elim Lutheran is served by the Rev. Steve Ray, an interim pastor.
Spirit of Life Lutheran Church, First Lutheran Community Church and Elim Lutheran Church are part of the Southwestern Washington Synod of the ELCA. The ELCA has 10,300 member congregations across the U.S., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
A different kind of synod assembly
By Allison Ramsey,office manager, Southwestern Washington Synod
The 2011 Synod Assembly will be Friday, May 13, and Saturday, May 14, at the Great Wolf Lodge in Chehalis. This fun, family-oriented hotel will be the backdrop for two days of learning, worship and business for our Synod’s rostered clergy and associates in ministry, and for congregational voting members and visitors. The theme is “God’s Work. Our Hands. Worship and Wellness.”
You can register for, and learn more about, the Synod Assembly at www.regonline.com/2011SynodAssembly. The cost is $180 per voting member before April 12, and $200 after that. The hotel is $145 per night. Reservations must be made directly with the Great Wolf Lodge, www.greatwolf.com, by April 12.
Speech topics and leaders include:
“When God Speaks” — the Rev. Dr. Craig Satterlee will give keynote addresses on Friday and Saturday entitled “When God Speaks,” plus he’ll preach at Friday evening’s worship service. Satterlee is the director of the ministry program and chair of homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. He is the author of seven books centered on preaching that include “When God Speaks Through You” and “Preaching in Times of Congregational Transition.”
Himself legally blind, Satterlee has a passion for ministry with persons with disabilities.
“Personal Wellness and Exercise” — Our ELCA representative will be the Rev. Mary Frances, the ELCA’s assistant director for the development of new congregations. She will provide an update on new congregations in the ELCA, as well insights on wellness and exercise. She will lead an early-morning yoga session Saturday.
“Personal Wellness and Spiritual Renewal” — Dr. Alan Shelton, medical director and family practitioner at the Puyallup Tribal Health Authority, will speak on wellness and spiritual renewal.
Other highlights include a presentation by a nutritionist, and Saturday-afternoon workshops focusing on everything from financial to spiritual wellness. One workshop will explain how to apply for ELCA Domestic Hunger Grants, and participants should bring their latest versions to review with members of the Synod’s Hunger Committee.
Friday evening’s worship service will include the ordination of the Rev. Hang Mo Son of Light of Grace Korean Lutheran Church in Federal Way. Following worship will be a banquet that will include the Bishop’s Award given to a very deserving person and some fun health-related activities.
The water park at the Great Wolf Lodge is available to registered guests of the hotel and is included in the price. There are lots of other activities and restaurants in the hotel, so bring your family if you’d like.
Overcoming loneliness in ministry
This from the Rev. Dr. Barbara J. Blodgett, director of supervised ministries at Yale Divinity School, via the Alban Institute, in support of pastors' colleague groups, of which there are 10 in the Southwestern Washington Synod.
By the Rev. Dr. Barbara J. Blodgett
While there may be something to the idea that as ministers we should always feel like we are “in over our head” (or else we may not be taking our calling seriously enough), there is no point in drowning! Joining with our peers to figure out what makes ministry so hard can help us keep our heads above water.
While loneliness is traditionally one of the hardest parts of professional ministry, we do see signs today that pastors are changing this. There are many members of the clergy who are not struggling and who want to join peer groups because they relish the chance to reflect on work they enjoy (even if they find it challenging) and desire to improve. Peer groups are, in short, for those who are keeping their heads above water and want to stay there.
Pastors need to get a collective grasp, first of all, on what contributes to the loneliness they experience. I am not pointing out anything new by saying that the ministry is considered a lonely pursuit. Nearly every conference I attend or piece I read on the formation of ministers stresses our need somehow to change the culture of loneliness for clergy and other religious leaders.
At some point, someone invariably brings up the metaphor of the Lone Ranger, implying that ministry may be compared to traveling all alone across a vast landscape. Indeed, loneliness in their work is frequently given as a primary reason why ministers seek out their colleagues. Many acknowledge that ministers are hungry for the companionship of others. Simply belonging to a group of peers that gathers regularly, whether it be for fellowship, spiritual formation, or continuing education, can go a long way toward meeting clergy’s felt need to break out of their isolation.
And yet the experience of isolation, as hard as it can be, does not by itself explain the loneliness of ministry. Ministers do not simply experience a lack of company. The Lone Ranger metaphor is not really apt, for ministers do not really spend all that much time alone. (Indeed they often complain about just the opposite: the clamoring of other people after their attention; the endless rounds of meetings, appointments, and events crowding their calendar; and the constant ring of the phone and ping of the e-mail server.) If anything, ministers tend instead to report that they long for more solitary, quiet moments in their days. They do not necessarily desire the presence of more people. Therefore I don’t think peer groups are simply meeting a need for companionship. They meet a need for the companionship of peers who do the same thing they do. The nature of their work often keeps them from rubbing shoulders with peers in the everyday exercise of their calling, something many other kinds of professionals more readily enjoy.
Having a peer group provides them at least some time in their ministry where they can be among those who occupy the same role as they do and who share similar, if not the same, experiences. Ministers yearn for the company of others who get what they are going through.
When ministers step into a pulpit or youth group gathering or vestry meeting, they can feel much more isolated than they do in their studies, surrounded there as they are by the commentaries, study guides, and blogs authored by their own colleagues in the religious enterprise. These forms of communication essentially create communities of exchange, even if invisible ones, connecting individual ministers. It is in times of ministry “out there” in the church community that the minister can sometimes feel stranded. She is typically the only one bearing her particular understanding of and relationship to the ministry. Her role in it is not easily shared or replaced because her identity is special.
Loneliness is a reality many ministers must face. Even those with a low theology of ordination who affirm the ministry of all believers still know that their status and role cause them to be viewed differently within the church. Ministers are put on pedestals not of their own making or are held to different standards or simply have expectations cast on them by virtue of their being ministers. They have also been shaped by years of formation and immersion in kinds of theological discourse that others in their communities simply have not experienced. Again, ironically, ministers search for conversation partners not only in the more scholarly activities of ministry but also when they are challenged, say, by disgruntled parishioners or dysfunctional committees or frustrating denominational structures. Everyday moments like these challenge a minister’s sense of self and even theology. They can render it hard for us to make sense of what is happening to us. We can turn to parishioners in such times, of course, but our colleagues often more readily get it.
I would guess that many ministers fresh out of seminary do not envision this kind of loneliness. It is difficult to imagine not having peers around when one is a student in school (although part-time and commuting students can more easily imagine this, and a lot of seminarians can remember feelings of being stranded when they were adjusting to seminary at the start). Most of the students I work with anticipate that time management will be their biggest challenge in ministry, followed closely by the need for self-care. Their concern is to strike the right balance between the long hours they know they will have to spend alone preparing sermons and the equally long hours needed for visitation, committees, administration, and so on. If anything, they imagine isolation as simply one mode in which time gets spent, contrasted with the mode of frenetic busyness. What many of my students don’t yet realize is that you can be busy and lonely at the same time. When you are the only one there like yourself, you can be surrounded by the company of others and be lonely. This is the loneliness of role, not surroundings. As a congregant who is also an ordained minister, for example, I have found that sometimes the pastors of the churches to which I belong have turned to me to share anecdotes or offer observations about the congregation, knowing that in me they have an understanding audience.
I have stood in their shoes.
I like the image of ministry as community property. It has the potential to revolutionize the church, and peer groups are one way to make ministry community property. They are intentionally created spaces for sharing thoughts and feelings about what is going on in the ministries of individual ministers. Beyond that, they are venues for “writing up” ideas, trading best practices, exploring new developments. In them members find a supportive venue for talking about what it means to occupy the role of minister (in a world where that role sometimes feels like it is changing all the time). A peer group is one place where your ministry is rendered less isolating because it is shared, examined, and owned, at least for the moment, by a group of your sympathetic colleagues. These groups should incorporate some process that lets members bring their experiences before the group for serious reflection. Ministers no longer need to suffer alone in silence—and if peer groups become standard and universal practice in the ministry, there will no longer be any excuse, either.
By the Rev. Dr. Barbara J. Blodgett
While there may be something to the idea that as ministers we should always feel like we are “in over our head” (or else we may not be taking our calling seriously enough), there is no point in drowning! Joining with our peers to figure out what makes ministry so hard can help us keep our heads above water.
While loneliness is traditionally one of the hardest parts of professional ministry, we do see signs today that pastors are changing this. There are many members of the clergy who are not struggling and who want to join peer groups because they relish the chance to reflect on work they enjoy (even if they find it challenging) and desire to improve. Peer groups are, in short, for those who are keeping their heads above water and want to stay there.
Pastors need to get a collective grasp, first of all, on what contributes to the loneliness they experience. I am not pointing out anything new by saying that the ministry is considered a lonely pursuit. Nearly every conference I attend or piece I read on the formation of ministers stresses our need somehow to change the culture of loneliness for clergy and other religious leaders.
At some point, someone invariably brings up the metaphor of the Lone Ranger, implying that ministry may be compared to traveling all alone across a vast landscape. Indeed, loneliness in their work is frequently given as a primary reason why ministers seek out their colleagues. Many acknowledge that ministers are hungry for the companionship of others. Simply belonging to a group of peers that gathers regularly, whether it be for fellowship, spiritual formation, or continuing education, can go a long way toward meeting clergy’s felt need to break out of their isolation.
And yet the experience of isolation, as hard as it can be, does not by itself explain the loneliness of ministry. Ministers do not simply experience a lack of company. The Lone Ranger metaphor is not really apt, for ministers do not really spend all that much time alone. (Indeed they often complain about just the opposite: the clamoring of other people after their attention; the endless rounds of meetings, appointments, and events crowding their calendar; and the constant ring of the phone and ping of the e-mail server.) If anything, ministers tend instead to report that they long for more solitary, quiet moments in their days. They do not necessarily desire the presence of more people. Therefore I don’t think peer groups are simply meeting a need for companionship. They meet a need for the companionship of peers who do the same thing they do. The nature of their work often keeps them from rubbing shoulders with peers in the everyday exercise of their calling, something many other kinds of professionals more readily enjoy.
Having a peer group provides them at least some time in their ministry where they can be among those who occupy the same role as they do and who share similar, if not the same, experiences. Ministers yearn for the company of others who get what they are going through.
When ministers step into a pulpit or youth group gathering or vestry meeting, they can feel much more isolated than they do in their studies, surrounded there as they are by the commentaries, study guides, and blogs authored by their own colleagues in the religious enterprise. These forms of communication essentially create communities of exchange, even if invisible ones, connecting individual ministers. It is in times of ministry “out there” in the church community that the minister can sometimes feel stranded. She is typically the only one bearing her particular understanding of and relationship to the ministry. Her role in it is not easily shared or replaced because her identity is special.
Loneliness is a reality many ministers must face. Even those with a low theology of ordination who affirm the ministry of all believers still know that their status and role cause them to be viewed differently within the church. Ministers are put on pedestals not of their own making or are held to different standards or simply have expectations cast on them by virtue of their being ministers. They have also been shaped by years of formation and immersion in kinds of theological discourse that others in their communities simply have not experienced. Again, ironically, ministers search for conversation partners not only in the more scholarly activities of ministry but also when they are challenged, say, by disgruntled parishioners or dysfunctional committees or frustrating denominational structures. Everyday moments like these challenge a minister’s sense of self and even theology. They can render it hard for us to make sense of what is happening to us. We can turn to parishioners in such times, of course, but our colleagues often more readily get it.
I would guess that many ministers fresh out of seminary do not envision this kind of loneliness. It is difficult to imagine not having peers around when one is a student in school (although part-time and commuting students can more easily imagine this, and a lot of seminarians can remember feelings of being stranded when they were adjusting to seminary at the start). Most of the students I work with anticipate that time management will be their biggest challenge in ministry, followed closely by the need for self-care. Their concern is to strike the right balance between the long hours they know they will have to spend alone preparing sermons and the equally long hours needed for visitation, committees, administration, and so on. If anything, they imagine isolation as simply one mode in which time gets spent, contrasted with the mode of frenetic busyness. What many of my students don’t yet realize is that you can be busy and lonely at the same time. When you are the only one there like yourself, you can be surrounded by the company of others and be lonely. This is the loneliness of role, not surroundings. As a congregant who is also an ordained minister, for example, I have found that sometimes the pastors of the churches to which I belong have turned to me to share anecdotes or offer observations about the congregation, knowing that in me they have an understanding audience.
I have stood in their shoes.
I like the image of ministry as community property. It has the potential to revolutionize the church, and peer groups are one way to make ministry community property. They are intentionally created spaces for sharing thoughts and feelings about what is going on in the ministries of individual ministers. Beyond that, they are venues for “writing up” ideas, trading best practices, exploring new developments. In them members find a supportive venue for talking about what it means to occupy the role of minister (in a world where that role sometimes feels like it is changing all the time). A peer group is one place where your ministry is rendered less isolating because it is shared, examined, and owned, at least for the moment, by a group of your sympathetic colleagues. These groups should incorporate some process that lets members bring their experiences before the group for serious reflection. Ministers no longer need to suffer alone in silence—and if peer groups become standard and universal practice in the ministry, there will no longer be any excuse, either.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Visiting with Light of Grace, Federal Way
FEDERAL WAY
The Rev. Hang Mo Son will be ordained as a Lutheran pastor by Bishop Robert D. Hofstad at the assembly of the Southwestern Washington Synod on May 13 and 14 in Chehalis.
For the past seven years, he has served as pastor of Light of Grace Church in Federal Way, conducting services totally in Korean.
I prayed today with the congregation that is now among this synod's new worshiping communities. I found worshipers to be full of the Holy Spirit, and they welcomed me in every way you can imagine. They gave me cuts in the communion line, and even sent me on my way with a plate of sushi and tea.
The church has been through tough times, having lost more than half its worshipers after the sexuality vote.
Today, it's divided into two parts. The first generation of mainly older people speak little English. The second generation, as Pastor Hang Mo Son calls them, are the younger people who meet for worship and activities Friday evenings.
It is on this second generation that Hang Mo Son is planning the future of the church, expanding it to embrace other ethnic groups beyond Koreans.
Hang Mo Son was born and raised in Seoul and knew from the time he was a junior in high school he was going to be a pastor. Pictured is Hang Mo Son this morning, and my bulletin.
— RP
Law examines opportunities for Christians through social media
By Rachel Pritchett, communicatorEVERETT — The Rev. Dr. Erik H.F. Law, executive director of the Kaleidoscope Institute, said at an April 8-9 conference on Christianity and social media that Christians must network globally but connect locally.
"In a few years, there will be a hunger for human touch," he said.
He challenged listeners at Trinity Lutheran College to find ways to translate the vast amount of information being flung at them through social media to building real relationship, unplugged. It might be as simple as taking YouTube video and discussing Christian interpretations in a group.
"There is so much you can do with what is there," he said. "The invitation is for you to see where you are in this."
Law has a new blog, "The Sustainist," at http://ehflaw.typepad.com/blog/. It's really interesting.
Another speaker, the Rev. Douglas Jones, who teaches writing and literature through Veritas Press Scholars Academy, said Christianity in America tends toward three traits — individualism, sentimentalism and Gnosticism, the doctrine of salvation through knowledge.
He urged Christians, when discovering ways to use social media for Christians, to avoid those paths, to use social media to discover Christian communities elsewhere in the world who have.
Trinity Lutheran College moves into the future ...
I was up at Trinity Lutheran College in Everett this weekend, where I ran into Barbara Andrews, formerly with the ELCA communications office in Chicago and now with her own consulting business, Marketing Matters, in Elgin, Ill. It was great to get caught up with her; she's just done a remake of Lutheran Women Today, so look for some very big changes coming this fall. It will be more ecumenical, but remains Lutheran under the hood, she said.
Barbara also is on the Trinity Lutheran College board, and took time this weekend to give me a private tour of the college, in a former Bon Marché smack in the middle of downtown. It had been awhile since I'd been in Everett. There's been a lot of downtown revitalization and bears little likeness to the place I remember in my youth.
The college is remarkably modern inside. The library sits on an upper floor and is almost all glass. The chapel is at the top, overlooking a good length of the Cascades. Classroom have all the latest digital stuff, and there's a cyberlab on the main floor where students can hook into class from the comfort of their student apartments about a block away.
Under new president John Reed, the college is expanding its sports offering to include golf and cross-country this fall. Budget cuts mean instructors sometimes have to wear administrative hats, too. Reed is the athletic director, for instance.
There's a new campus pastor, the Rev. Erik Samuelson, and everyone's pretty excited about a rooftop garden they've got going under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Dave Ellingson, who teachers youth and family studies.
The college now is equipped with a new strategic plan, and an aggressive student-recruitment team is in place. Enrollment took a big hit when the college moved from the Issaquah Plaueau three years ago, and fell down somewhere in the 80's. It's now at around 160 and the facility has room for twice that number.
Here are some photos I shot during my tour.
Rachel Pritchett
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Don't miss Eric Law on Friday and Saturday ...
.... talking about the ethics behind sharing the Gospel in cyberspace. Registration was still open as of April 6, and you can go either day if you can't make both days. Start time Friday is1 p.m. and Saturday it's at 9 a.m. Here's the blurb:
The Rev. Eric H.F. Law is the featured presenter at “Grace in Cyberspace: Sharing the Gospel in a Post-Digital Age,” to take place April 8 and 9 at Trinity Lutheran College in Everett. Combining hands-on experience and ethical reflection on the impact of computer technologies, this series of lectures and workshops will provide insight for living in a diverse and digitally expanded world. The presentation is free. For more information or to register online, visit www.tlc.edu/lavik, or call Tracy Weber at (425) 249-4765. The college is at 2802 Wetmore Ave.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Spring tea and fashion show coming
The women of the Southwestern Washington Synod invite all to a "Fun and Fashion Spring Tea" to support Goodwill Industries from 1 to 3 p.m. April 16 at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Lacey.
The entertaining afternoon will feature the Golden Oldies, a group of ladies who know all about vintage fashion shows spanning the last century. Lots of goodies will be on hand, all for $10. All are invited; come with your church groups, friends and neighbors.
The church is at 2109 College Street SE.
Call Adriana Chandler at (253) 833-4550 or Dorothy Reed at (360) 438-1352 with the number of women and girls coming and you can pay at the door. Or send a check to Adriana Chandler at 218 Hi Crest Drive, Auburn, WA 98001 and she will put your name on the list of attendees.
The entertaining afternoon will feature the Golden Oldies, a group of ladies who know all about vintage fashion shows spanning the last century. Lots of goodies will be on hand, all for $10. All are invited; come with your church groups, friends and neighbors.
The church is at 2109 College Street SE.
Call Adriana Chandler at (253) 833-4550 or Dorothy Reed at (360) 438-1352 with the number of women and girls coming and you can pay at the door. Or send a check to Adriana Chandler at 218 Hi Crest Drive, Auburn, WA 98001 and she will put your name on the list of attendees.
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