In this issue Jean Larson Mid-year Evaluations Cluster Meetings Bloggers Contact us The CLI staff is here to support you! Contact us with your concerns or suggestions. Previous newsletters August 2004 November 2004 January 2005

CLI Newsletter: Spring 2005

Jean Larson joins the CLI team

Greetings from the blustery part of Region 1. My name is Jean Larson and I’m a newly-deployed part-time faculty member with the Contextual Leadership Initiative of the Western Mission Cluster for Region One. That’s a mouthful, but the work to which I am called is simple: provide oversight for interns and their supervisors on behalf of Luther and PLTS. At least, I think it’s simple.

One reason for this new way of doing things is to give context its due in contextual education. Living and working out of Missoula, Montana, I know the ground in which our churches out here are planted. We breathe the same air. (We "conspire," as Heidi Neumark teaches in Breathing Space, which I commend to you all.) With fewer miles between me and internship teams, I hope to share the air as often as possible.

Here’s my background: For a decade until last August I was the Lutheran campus pastor at the University of Montana in Missoula. Working with student peer ministers (like Molly Sasser-Goehner, LS ’05 and Sarah Meckler, PLTS ’07) was a fine part of that ministry, and I’m happy to be with students again. Before that I studied at Luther, digging into Brother Martin’s takes on vocation and how that might be a useful way of thinking about a particularly Lutheran spirituality. Thanks especially to Marc Kolden and Bill Smith, I received an M.Th. in 1995. And before that I was a parish pastor in Billings, Montana, for most of 12 years. The rest of my education has been a moveable feast: BA from Pacific Lutheran University (1975), M.Div. from Yale Divinity School (1980), (with my Lutheranization time required of ELCA students at ecumenical seminaries well-spent at Trinity) and a sabbatical semester at Harvard Divinity School as a Merrill Fellow (spring, 2001).

My family is complex and wonderful. I am married to Daniel Kemmis, who directs the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana and is active in politics. Two sweet sons are in college and Daniel’s four mostly grown children have welcomed me warmly into the clan. One grandchild, too! I like to read, bike, play piano and tennis, do crossword puzzles, and hope to keep working on a writing project on creation, chaos, and wildfire. And I am very pleased to be working with Randy Nelson and the CLI staff.

Mid-year Evaluations  

If you are in a standard September-to-August internship, you should have completed the mid-year evaluation process by now. If not, please get to it right away! There should be three evaluations submitted: the student's self evaluation, the supervising pastor's and the lay internship committee chair's. Students also will need to respond to their supervisor's and chair's evaluations online, print out signature pages, gather signatures and mail the completed pages to the CLI office.

Spring Cluster Meetings

Here's the list upcoming spring cluster meetings for interns and their supervisors: