Do Your Lay Committee Members Receive Ministry in Context ?  

Students, if you benefit from Ministry in Context, but no one on your lay intern committee seems to know what's hip and happenin' in the internship world, maybe it's because they haven't signed up for it yet!

You can help them keep up to date on all the latest CLI news by sharing this link with them: http://www.luthersem.edu/contextual_learning/internship/committee_info.asp. By signing up for Ministry in Context, they will receive all the latest updates and information from the CLI office. This is especially important because the newsletter often includes helpful links to the CLI web site, such as the lay committee handbook and the mid-year and final evaluation forms.

Help your lay committee help you. Keep them informed. Ask them to sign up today!

Even as I write these words I am planning the kind of thing near and dear to a Minnesotan's heart at this time of the year: a pilgrimage to Florida. This trip will include a new experience: Ash Wednesday Holy Communion in Florida. I am trying to get my mind around the idea of Lent in the Sun Belt. As one who has always lived in the north, I associate Lent with the end of winter, with cold, damp, gray days, with waiting for a spring that never seems to come. Lent is soup suppers and it is mud, mid-week worship cancelled because of snow, stubborn snow piles turned black and brown at the edges of the church parking lot, little girls in spring dresses and snow pants. It's easy to "do Lent" in the North. The climate makes you grumpy in the first place, and Lent gives you a good theological excuse for being grumpy.

How can they possibly have Lent in Florida, Arizona, Texas? Sounds impossible to me. But I am willing to try the beginning of it for this year. For sure enough, the old church program year has gone whizzing by and now we're headed down the home stretch. The Ash Wednesday flag drops and we push on through more worship services and some special musical events and then all of a sudden there we are, it's Easter morning.

Interns, a word of caution for this tender time: It's easy to get caught up in the doing of all that as described in the previous paragraph. It's easy to get wrapped up in the mid-week services, in Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, in visiting the shut-ins and making plans for the Easter breakfast, in getting all of it done and indeed being fascinated by the doing of it, self-conscious about your role in the doing of it.

And then wake up the day after Easter and wonder where it all went. Wake up and feel like you missed Lent.

Don't let it happen. Don't let it happen. But also: don't count on somebody else to take responsibility for your spiritual nurture. This isn't your supervisor's problem. It's your problem. You have to learn to take spiritual care of yourself. Your supervisor will understand. She/he is doing the same thing. If you want Lent to be a part of your spiritual life this year, not just part of your agenda, take time. Take time for prayer. Take time for Bible study. Take time for peace and quiet. Take time to read good books. Take time to listen to the liturgy, the sermons of your colleagues, maybe even your own sermons. Take time to think. Take time to listen to good music. Carve that time into your life. You'll be better for it.

One of the things you need to learn to do on internship is to tend your own spiritual life. You need to learn how to do that. Lent would be a good time to work on that. Hard.

And if you are spending Lent in the Sun Belt, where day after day it is 80 degrees and sunny...let the rest of us know how you do it!

Staff Profile: Kate Sterner, CLI Web and "Techie" Person   

• I like a little coffee with my cream and sugar.
• Favorite tea: Jasmine--no, wait--Earl Grey. Hot.
• My Myers-Briggs profile is INFP.
• I share a house with two sweet little cats named Cotton and Teya.
• I have a masters degree in linguistics.
• I'm fluent in Swedish. I lived in Sweden for about 3 years, where I taught English.
• I am a p.k. Growing up, I was the sweet kind, not the rebellious kind....yeh, right...but I can tell you stories....
• I belong to a wonderful church that is "Liturgical, Musical and Welcoming." My church has a strong tradition of lay leadership, and I am blessed with frequent opportunities to assist in leading worship. I'm also very active in our neighborhood ministries committee, and I happen to serve on the lay intern committee.
• I'm a fiddler. I play Danish and Swedish folk music. I also dally with guitar, banjo, bowed psaltery, Appalachian dulcimer, saw, penny whistle, piano, cello, harmonica and kalimba. And, Lord help my neighbors, I'm thinking of getting a drum kit or taking up the accordion.
• Lots of hobbies: knitting, sewing, crochet, embroidery, origami, applique, pysanky, polymer clay, lampwork beads, and a variety of other crafty things.
• Put me in a bookstore or a craft supplies store and I'll roam for hours, not realizing how much time has passed.
• Ever since college freshman English, my favorite author has been Ursula Leguin, followed closely by Jane Austin. I've never liked Hemmingway or Bellow.
• My favorite poets are Wordsworth, Whitman, Frost and Levertov. Here's one of my favorite poems. I memorized this one in 7th grade and quote it to myself every spring.
• This is my favorite bible story. I'm such a Peter.
• In the spring time I seek out labyrinths, and arboretums of lilacs.
• The hymns I want sung at my funeral are LBW #441, WOV #666 and LBW #189.
• Hi. My name is Kate, and I'm a sudoku-holic. Don't try sudoku yourself. You can become an addict even after doing just one puzzle. It's pathetic. Don't say I didn't warn you.
• Here are a few of my favorite blogs: Camassia, Real Live Preacher, AKMA, Lutheran Confessions, RevGalBlogPals, Fanatical Apathy and Today's Gospel Insights. I can waste more hours reading blogs than most people do watching TV.
• I'm fascinated by the Web, enjoy problem solving, and like to be useful to people. That means I really enjoy my job. So if you ever have any questions about our CLI Web site or our online forms, please contact me. I'm happy to help!
• Give me chocolate and I'll be your best friend.

Cross-Cultural Experiences: In the Words of Students  
from Alicia Vargas and Rod Maeker

In the January newsletter, we reported that there were over 120 students who did a Cross-Cultural Experience in at least fourteen different contexts--seven international and seven United States sites during the 2006 J-Term. How to best share some of the learning from these experiences? We struggled with this question, but decided that the best way would be to share comments in the words of the students who had the experience! These selected statements came from PLTS and Luther Seminary student reflection papers, evaluation forms, and debriefing sessions:

Insight

• Where I visited poverty is overwhelming. I can't believe I have been in such naive denial.
• Fear can be a dangerous excuse for injustice!
• I became very aware of American tendencies that I bring with me into other cultural contexts.
• Racism is alive and digging still deeper into the institutions and systems of America.
• I discovered that it is in seeing God within those who are different from ourselves that we see God and them more clearly.
• While at Pine Ridge I learned much about myself...I have never felt weariness before like this...My whole body ached. It ached for understanding, for justice, for a fix on a common ground, a bridge for a language that is understood, for barriers to somehow be broken down, for balance... I don't understand things there, but I have a new lens--one that sees differently now, one that has been opened to see those on the margins in our backyard.
• I am a person of privilege. I am part of the problem in my apathy.
• Love the people, preach the Gospel, and be patient.
• Even though it was quite disturbing, I needed to hear what they were saying! I wanted to fix it--not listen more carefully.
• I now know that I have a call to be a reconciling agent.
• In the StaR (Small Town and Rural) setting, wording one's theology in perfect discourse is not what is important. The importance lies in saying and showing that God is using the minister and the community of believers as a unitized instrument for the realization of God's mission in our world.

Learning

• I learned that I had a very limited view of the world! There are always at least two sides or more to every conflict and each side usually has some legitimacy.
• I have learned that racism still exists in this country, and that the institutions and forces that keep people oppressed are deeply rooted.
• I had unknown prejudices to deal with and overcome when dealing with illegal immigrants.
• Through this course I have come to better understand the power and privilege that I have grown up with as a white female in a middle-to-upper-middle class family in suburban America. Although there have been numerous times when I have been discriminated against because of my gender, I have been afforded a wealth of opportunities in this society that other people of color have not had the opportunity to enjoy as related to education, housing, government, and employment.
• I learned that to give people a voice you must work to empower them and not just give them charity which maintains their status as subjects.
• I learned ways to relate to people of other cultures on their level and not impose my own attitudes and beliefs before understanding where they're coming from.
• I have learned to listen and observe and not make quick judgments.
• I learned how to listen to other people without carrying on a side conversation.

Discoveries

• I now have a clearer lens with which to view the world.
• I have been very much affected by propaganda in the media and have not been discerning in my judgment of this information nor of the attitudes and beliefs generated by these sources.
• We cannot be afraid to acknowledge that God is already present with cultures outside of the Christian community...God is at work in places where we may never have imagined God working.
• I really began to see that for God to work there isn't a lower size limit. It is essential to convey and believe that a small population does not preclude God's presence and God's working.
• I am not just going to be angry at the rich Americans that exploit so much of Latin America. My experience showed me that I have the same privileged 'needs' that rest on the assumption of economic privilege and power.
• Faith on the prairie is like breathing. God's mission and activity are so much a way of life that God's activity can almost be hidden on the prairie. God is at work in a people who aren't 'hip' on verbal confession but tend to go about trusting God, doing God's work in the world, and yes, even evangelizing the world, as Luther would say, "under the sign of the opposite!"
• I am now plugged into a whole network of people who are working across the country to educate and encourage change in the areas of social and economic justice.
• The biggest change in my understanding of ministry is just how important culture is in determining how to ministry to people.
• The average American has no clue what is involved in growing and tending to their food prior to the grocery store. I would like to change that and educate the congregations I serve on the struggles of the farmer.
• The joy and hospitality of the people were inspiring. I will never forget this testimony of Christian fellowship.

Desire to Learn More

• Now I know that I am part of the problem, I want to be part of the solution.
• I want to learn more Spanish!
• I want to learn how to lead in a way that empowers others rather than showing them charity or micro-managing.
• I want to develop a clear connection between the Gospel and social justice that cannot be ignored.
• With poverty and homeless people so abundant, how do we middle class people live in solidarity with the poor?
• I want to learn more solutions, not just the problems!

For the Lay Committee: About Evaluations    
by Randy A. Nelson

I sometimes like to describe internship as preparing to do ministry by engaging in ministry under supervision. In other words, we learn how to be a pastor by taking on the role of pastor and performing the tasks of ministry in a framework of guidance and support. As an example, think about preaching. We can learn about preaching through studying the methods, goals, and techniques of preaching and by listening to good preachers, etc., but most, if not all, of us will finally become preachers only by preaching. The importance of gaining experience in what it is that we want to do well is something that all of us can affirm.

What sometimes can get ignored or lost, however, is the fact that experience, in and of itself if not reflected upon, does not finally teach anything. We all know persons of whom it can be said--"s/he didn't learn anything from that experience." For such persons, experience is just one thing after another and that leads to making the same mistake time after time after time. It is not the experience that is lacking; it is the commitment to reflect on that experience, to assess it, to probe for its meaning, to discover what about it "worked" and what didn't, and to make decisions about future behavior having learned from that experience.

The internship mid-year evaluation process is simply a way to be involved in the process of reflecting on experience in an intentional way. It is paying attention to the rubric "under supervision" which distinguishes internship from a job. Mid-year evaluations are not about definitive judgments, character determination, or career decisions. Their goal is more modest but no less important.

Mid-year evaluations simply acknowledge the fact that a lot has happened up to this point, that a whole lot has been experienced, and that now is a good time to step back, bring that experience to conscious awareness, and see what can be or has been learned in the variety of areas in which the intern has been engaged. That reflective process needs the input of parsons from the variety of perspectives: members of the internship committee who have observed the intern in various contexts and been present with the intern in various dimensions of the ministry, a supervisor whose own pastoral identity is a resource for offering support and feedback, and the intern who knows from the inside what the experience has been like.

When the reflective process is done well it both affirms and gives direction. It marks growth while encouraging new effort. It gives meaning to the past but opens up the future. Above all, it acknowledges that experience, when assessed and reflected upon, truly is the best teacher in learning the art and crafts of ministry.

In search of an outrigger    
by Sarah Scherschligt, Intern at Luther Place Memorial Church, Washington DC

"What inexhaustible riches must invariably open up for those who by God's will are privileged to live in daily community life with other Christians!"   - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.

I recently saw the movie, The Perfect Storm. (If you haven't seen it and plan to, stop reading, because I'm about to reveal the end.) In The Perfect Storm, a handful of daring fishermen take to the open seas in the worst storm of the season. Eventually, all hell breaks loose and they lose their fish, their ship, and their lives.

The movie works dramatically because there are many moments when you think they may sail their way out of the storm. As you watch, you are certainly pulling for them. The realization that they are not going to make it dawns slowly. For me, their bleak fate became clear in one crucial plot point: when the stabilizer on their outrigger snapped free.

The outrigger is an attachment to a canoe, sailboat, or small craft that helps offset the ebbs and flows of the unpredictable waters. On many fishing boats, a stabilizer adds counter-weight to the outrigger, keeping the whole operation from capsizing. In The Perfect Storm, when one of the stabilizers breaks and takes the outrigger with it, the boat looses critical balance and the rest is history.

On internship, I have become increasingly aware that I need outriggers--attachments to my life that are outside but parallel and attached to my life of ministry--to keep me balanced, upright, and weathering the storms.

If you are like me, you have heard countless times how important it is for interns and pastors to have close relationships outside of the parish in order to be effective within the parish. As a church, we are deeply aware of the pitfalls when a pastor's whole relational life is located within her congregation. Healthy pastors need outriggers. Ideally, these outriggers can become part of your boat, traveling with you wherever you go.

God is our main outrigger. Prayer, Bible study, worship, song, and serious time spent listening to God's stabilizing voice are critical to our ministry. This is the primary relationship that we carry with us and without that, we have no chance of surviving the storm. I am sincere when I say that the loneliness I've experienced on internship has given me a depth of relationship with God that feels at times like pure gift. But human relationships are nice too.

The model for stabilizing relationships in the ELCA, as in this mobile U.S. society, is the marriage. Spouse and children--that's why you can restrict your first call. When you move from your seminary to internship back to seminary out to a first call then to a second call (whew) your partner and children generally move with you. This creates an upheaval of its own; I do not want to diminish the special challenges that these relationships bring to pastoral identity.

But for so many people, both clergy and laypeople, these stabilizing relationships have been impermanent, elusive; or, for gay and lesbian folks, impossible within the ELCA's standards. For those of us who have never had spouses or committed life partners, or for those who are divorced or widowed, the lonely sea ahead looks that much rockier.

I am a terminal intern (love that phrase!). That means if all goes well I go up for assignment at the end of the internship. Perhaps these issues feel more pressing for me than for those of you headed back to seminary, but they are surely in back of the minds of all the un-partnered clergy out there. We joke about ending up in the boonies, never meeting a mate, and stewing in loneliness.

We do ourselves a disservice, and set marriage up as an idol, if we think that finding a mate will solve our problems. The real issue is how we find loving relationships outside of the parish. These can take many forms. I have lived in community houses where we shared cars, brewed communal pots of tea, and took each other to the movies. I lived six months in a convent where the nuns spent each evening lazily recounting the day, bickering, and laughing hard. I long for these kinds of honest communities and deep human relationships apart from marriage. I have a hunch that this longing is not limited to those of us without life partners; I know plenty of coupled people who also yearn for a rich communal life. But it is hard to find.

For many congregants, churches are the place where these kinds of relationships can be fostered. This is one of the blessings of the church for a world of lonely people. But for clergy, aware of good boundaries and the need for relational anchors outside of the parish, the parish can't be the sole source of these relationships.

In the ELCA call process, there is an underlying assumption that those who are unmarried and do not have children, should be mobile and free for call anywhere. I wish this were so. I wish I were an aircraft carrier, stable and solid through the best storms and able to carry an entire city on my back. But I am much more like the capricious sailboat, in need of outside balancing forces to stay afloat.

I feel grateful that I have such forces. As I'm sure is true for many of you, a wide network of friends and family have been my outriggers throughout this process. The challenge is how to integrate these relationships into our lives as pastors, especially when theoretically we could end up very far away from the people that give our lives meaning.

In thinking about the process ahead, I am realizing that I cannot expect the ELCA to take all this into account when discerning my call. I need to learn to identify and articulate my relational needs on my own. Internship gives us a chance to test the waters of pastoral identity as it intersects with our personal relationships. It is a good place to think creatively about how to foster deep relationships in a way that can allow us to best serve the church and be balanced, integrated people. I've found it helpful to spend time in prayer, conversations with experienced clergy, and in spiritual direction. I'm also simply trying to pay attention to when I am genuinely laughing. Certainly the Holy Spirit is moving there!

What I've realized is that just as we cannot expect the church to be responsible for our relational needs, we cannot hold it responsible for our loneliness. It is up to us to figure out how we are going to stay afloat. Practically speaking, I am not sure what this will mean for me. I doubt that I will join a convent, though I am not joking when I say it has some appeal. It feels important to be within one days' drive of someone I love. I have imagined joining a community house instead of living alone in a parsonage. I will probably get a dog.

Most importantly, I plan to weigh my first call carefully and prayerfully and if it does not seem like a place I could find an outrigger or two, I just might take a pass. See, I love the church, this work, family, friends and myself, too much to let my boat sail without a sense of balance and commitment to others. As the men of The Perfect Storm demonstrated, it's just not worth it.

Spring Cluster Meetings

CLI Family Photos  

Riker is Dan Dornfeld's new boxer puppy

Trooper and Hope watch over Laure Schwartz's family

Cotton and Teya powernap at  Kate Sterner's house.