In This Issue A Center of Biblical Hospitality For the Lay Committee: On Listening to Sermons Editor's Column: A Pastor for Luke On Being a Financial Leader CLI Cluster Meeting Other Cluster Events Fair Trade? Interns and CLI Contacts Helpful Links Internship Handbook Lay Committee Handbook Internship Forms Contact Us The Contextual Leadership Initiative staff is here to support you! Contact us with your concerns or suggestions. Previous Newsletters Want to re-read an article from a previous issue? Review previous newsletters.

Internship Newsletter: October 2006

A Center of Biblical Hospitality

Editor’s Note: Contextual Leadership Initiative interns serve in a wide variety of internship settings throughout the church. This year we will highlight some of those to show the richness of opportunity and the beautiful multiplicity of the church.

You watch the news on television, the correspondents standing outside the White House, and Washington looks neat, clean, glamorous, and prosperous. Five blocks away it is a different world. That’s where you will find Luther Place Memorial Church, Pastor Bob Holum and Intern Jon Haug.

Luther Place has a long and noble history dating back to 1873, when it was the first English speaking Lutheran church in the city. After the church building was devastated by fire in 1904, the reconstructed building was dedicated in 1905 with President Theodore Roosevelt as the main speaker.

But Luther Place was never content to be “historic” and sophisticated. Pastor Holum puts it like this:

“Our mission for the past 30 years has revolved around homeless ministries. After the riots/insurrection in 1968, when our neighborhood was decimated by fire, the immediate neighborhood lost most of its middle class residents and businesses and became a haven for the ‘informal economy’ of drugs and prostitution. The church opened its door to displaced people in 1968 and continued doing so, serving as an incubator for a whole continuum of ministries accompanying women who’ve been homeless back into mainstream life. We see ourselves as a center of Biblical hospitality, seeking to welcome and provide for the Christ who comes to us in the guise of the stranger and becomes our Friend and Host.”

With its historic heart for the homeless and hurting, Luther Place mothered the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, which is still headquartered out of the church. Today Luther Place provides transitional housing on the third floor of the church for 30 women per night. What used to be the church parking lot across the street is now occupied by group homes with supportive health and vocational services and 54 units of permanent low income housing. The neighborhood around the church is changing again, turning into housing for young professionals and the expanding DC gay community.

“We are building a ministry that spans the socio-economic divide and includes persons from a wide mix of racial and ethnic backgrounds” says Pastor Holum. That means more children than in recent years, which has led to the rebirth of the Sunday School. Intern Haug is deeply involved in work with single young adults and young parents and their children, and is working on an Advent Pageant pulling together kids and parents in presenting the hope for liberation.

He is also central to the diverse worship life at Luther Place. There is a seeker/contemporary/gospel service at 9 a.m. each Sunday, followed by a sophisticated liturgical service at 11 am. Monthly Saturday evening services lift up special themes and musical styles. Last May it was a U2 service. In October it will be an Earth Liturgy, and in November a rock band is coming from Pennsylvania for the service.

Intern and supervisor come from diverse backgrounds but are united in their call to ministry at Luther Place. Bob Holum, with roots in South Dakota, moved to the DC area as a teenager and has been fascinated by it ever since. He has been a pastor for 34 years, most of it in or near the inner city. Jon Haug is a native of Connecticut who worked for a production company there and taught English for three years before going to seminary at PLTS. Jon says that “God came crashing down to earth and remained in the blood, sweat and tears of humanity” for him following a short-term missions trip to Cap-Haitien, Haiti during his college years. Just before beginning internship, he was married to seminary classmate Kara Benson.

Luther Place Memorial Church has chosen a life and mission for itself far different from the lives and missions of many of our congregations. It’s all about Biblical hospitality. And CLI is there!

For the Lay Committee: On Listening to Sermons   
by Dr. Michael Rogness

Members of lay internship committees often find it hard to evaluate interns in many areas. This is the first of what we hope to be a series of articles designed to help committee members with that task. Dr. Michael Rogness, homiletics (preaching!) professor at Luther Seminary, offers this advice:

A member of a congregation whose pastors are usually first-call new seminary graduates said, “I suppose our main ministry is helping new preachers learn how to preach.” What a gift to new preachers that was! Pastors learn to preach by preaching, and congregations can help a lot.

In seminary classes we discuss every student’s sermons. One of the things we always talk about is “Give one suggestion for improvement,” and students appreciate the feedback from classmates.

Our students go on internship hoping to improve their preaching, and they look forward to suggestions from you, the members of their congregations. How can you do this? First, listen carefully to their sermons, with the following questions in mind:

1. What insights did I gain from the biblical text?
2. How did the message from the Bible relate to my life?
3. Are there ways the intern could improve his or her speaking style?

These are just starters. You can add to the list.

Second, set up occasions to discuss the intern’s preaching and ministry. It might be with the whole committee or one-on-one, at a meeting or over coffee after church. Ask interns what comments about their preaching they would be most interested in hearing about.

When I was a parish pastor, shaking hands with people at the end of the service, one of my members would often drift back to the end of the line. Whenever I saw him back there, I knew he was waiting for everybody to get through, because he wanted to talk about the sermon. Over the years he gave me more suggestions for preaching than anybody else in the congregation. When I saw him at the end of the line, I knew we would have a good talk, and I appreciated him enormously.

Every year we notice how students have improved in their preaching during internship. That’s because they have preached frequently, and you have helped them. Internship is a learning year, and our students look forward to learning about their preaching.

Know one thing for sure: they want your suggestions!

A Pastor for Luke   
by Steve McKinley

One of the most important people in my life these days is a young man named Luke whom I didn’t even know three months ago. Now I think about him all the time.

There is a good reason I didn’t know Luke three months ago. He hadn’t been born yet. Luke Isaac McKinley was born on July 29, 2006. He is our first grandchild. He is, of course, very intelligent, highly gifted and exceedingly handsome. Comes from his grandmother’s side of the family.

In a few weeks I will have the privilege of being part of Luke’s baptism. (That is assuming I don’t get so choked up that my voice shuts down completely.) His parents are very active in their church, and a fine church it is. Luke’s parents and godparents and the rest of the family will see to it that he is brought up to know himself as a baptized and loved child of God. The promises made in baptism will be kept. No doubt in my mind about that.

I figure that right now we might be training the pastor who will teach Luke in confirmation, who will preside over the rite by which he affirms his baptism. A current CLI student may well be Luke’s pastor when he is a young adult, may even officiate at his marriage and baptize Luke’s children.

This is giving me new energy and new dedication for the work we do together in this program. From the beginning I have wanted the church of the future to have good pastors. Now I want Luke to have a good pastor. This time it’s personal.

I want Luke to have a pastor:

• Who understands, appreciates and embraces the Lutheran slant on the Christian faith.
• Who is more interested in discipleship than membership.
• Who is more interested in being the leader of a community in mission than in being a chaplain to a religious club.
• Who is always willing to risk something big for something good.
• Who has put aside the historic preoccupation with ethnicity that has characterized too many Lutheran churches for too long.
• Who is not hung up on maintaining tradition.
• Who takes the mission of the church and the ministry in general very seriously, but themselves not so seriously.

That’s why I’m hanging around this pop stand these days. I want Luke to have a great pastor. When I talk to the CLI interns of today, when I look into their faces and hear their voices, I am encouraged that there are those great pastors out there. I want to do my part to help them be even greater!

On Being a Financial Leader   

Greetings to interns and supervisors from the Financial Leadership Team at Luther Seminary. As you gear up and engage in the stewardship season and perhaps even give a stewardship sermon, we felt that it would be helpful if we offered some resource help.

The Luther Seminary and ELCA web-pages contain many wonderful resources from books, lessons by Luther faculty, articles, and even the ELCA churchwide ministry staff including specific ministry leaders assigned to specific areas. We encourage you to take some time and look at all of the resources available on these two sites. In addition, we would also like to encourage you to read the book Ask, Thank, Tell by Charles R. Lane. We believe this book can be valuable in understanding and thinking about stewardship as more than just Sunday giving but about living a faithful life. It would be beneficial to read this book together, as intern and supervisor, and discuss what you learn, what excites you, and what challenges you.

CLI Fall Cluster Meetings   

We’re getting the first round of cluster meetings scheduled. Interns and supervisors should plan to attend these meetings, with the congregation covering the costs. More cluster meetings remain to be scheduled. Here’s what’s on the books so far.

Note: Since Sherwood Glover is just getting started in his work with the CLI, his cluster meetings have not yet been set. There will be more news about Sherwood's clusters in the next newsletter.

Other Internship Cluster Events   

Clusters give opportunity for fellowship, the enhancement of personal and professional growth, and the strengthening of supervisory relationships. It is expected that intern teams attend the cluster events.

The Contextual Leadership Initiative staff lead cluster events for intern teams in the Western Mission Cluster area. These groups do include interns from other ELCA seminaries who are placed in this region. As intern and supervisor teams in the WMC, you can expect one cluster event in the fall and one in the spring. If you are an intern team located in another part of the country, e.g. outside the WMC, your cluster events will be led by the seminary assigned to serve your region. The CLI office hears from some of the other ELCA seminaries with their cluster information. The cluster information we have collected thus far is listed below:

If you have not heard from the seminary covering the area for your cluster, please call the CLI office on Luther’s campus at 651/641-3266.

Costs related to the cluster events are the responsibility of the congregation for both the supervisor and intern. If travel and retreat expenses prohibit a team from attending, please be in touch with your CLI contact person.

Fair Trade?

Derek Fossey (left) presents Josh Graber with some shaved ice as Graber symbolically passes the internship torch to Fossey at St. John’s Lutheran in Kailua, Hawaii. Graber commented that it was not really a fair trade, but the shaved ice was delicious!

Interns and CLI Contacts   

Here’s the list of CLI interns and contact persons for this year. If you are, in fact, a CLI intern and your name does not appear on this list, please contact the CLI office at your school.