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Internship
Newsletter: June 2007
CLI Leadership Changes
Leadership changes are underway in the Contextual Leadership
Initiative:
With the retirement of Randy Nelson at the end of June,
an interim director for CLI is being sought to serve for the next
year. We hope to have an announcement to make in the near future.
 Julie Josund will be joining the staff as deployed associate
for Region I. She serves as Director of the Institute for Clergy
and Congregational Renewal at Pacific Lutheran University in
Tacoma, WA.
 Donna Duensing will be filling in for Alicia Vargas at
PLTS as Alicia goes on sabbatical. She has formerly worked with
contextual education at PLTS and at San Francisco Theological
Seminary.
The whole CLI staff, including Julie, Donna, Randy, and perhaps
the interim director, will be meeting in St. Paul June 12-14.
From CLI Supervisor to Bishop 
 Pastor
Dave Brauer-Rieke, who has been internship supervisor for Travis
Larsen at Atonement Lutheran Church in Newport, Ore., was elected
bishop of the Oregon Synod at its assembly May 18-20.
Congratulations to Dave!
An Internship Baby
 Intern
Jodi Houge and her husband Nate had a baby girl, Elsa Tupelo
Bjornstad Houge on April 24, at 1:00 pm. at Innovis Hospital in Fargo,
N.D.
Jodi's supervisor Jim Gronbeck reports that Elsa is beautiful and healthy
in every way! She was 9 lbs. 7.7 oz., has light brown hair and truly
looks just like her sister! Jodi and Pastor Jim serve at Zion
Lutheran Church of Amor, Battle Lake, Minn.
 With
this issue of Ministry in Context, we pay
tribute to Randy Nelson, who retires at the end of June as Director
of the Contextual Leadership Initiative and faculty member at Luther
Seminary. What follows are some of the good words about Randy that have come
to us and to the
online memory book in his honor. There's lots more
where this came from, folks, and if you'd like to read more about
what people have to say about and to Randy, take some time to delve
into the
online memory book on the Luther Seminary web site.
We who have worked with Randy over the years can speak to his
collaborative spirit, his comforting wisdom, his ability to keep
track of detail as well as to see the big picture, his dogged hard
work, and his devotion to the calling to raise up new leaders for
the church. Still others will vouch for Randy's humility,
graciousness, unflappability and that certain twinkle in his eye.
From your grateful colleagues, Randy, Thank you!
I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you,
because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world.
- Romans 1:8
I’ve introduced Randy Nelson at events as “Mr. Contextual Ed.,”
and he is. Randy has been the wise patriarch of the ELCA Contextual
Education Directors group. He himself says that he has a story for
every possible situation that can happen in the field of contextual
education. I have been privileged to learn from his vast experience
of thirty-two years. He has listened to interns, to supervisors, to
committees, to the church. I have listened to the wisdom he’s
gathered from all his listening.
I am thankful for having been able
to learn from him as he led the launching of CLI. He leaves a solid
structure and a collegial relationship between Luther and PLTS,
which will continue benefiting the two seminaries and the mission of
our ELCA. I am glad to have worked with him for all of the above
reasons, but most especially because he has been an excellent
colleague whose sense of integrity in his vocation and his prophetic
vision of the Reign of God have been a source of inspiration.
Alicia Vargas, PLTS
Dear Randy,
This note comes to express my deep gratitude for your wonderful
leadership, your personal support as a colleague, and all that you
have contributed to the church, Luther Seminary, and the CLI over
the past 32 years. It has, indeed, been a joy to work, travel, and
go to baseball games with you!
While you have demonstrated many gifts and skills, I would like
to comment on four that I have particularly appreciated:
Leadership: You have not only provided leadership for this
office, but more importantly, you have developed this ministry of
contextual theological education into the kind of learning that most
students rate as the most significant segment of their education at
seminary. You are undeniably seen and appreciated as the foremost
“guru” of internship and contextual theological education in the ELCA!
Administration: Your ministry of developing and fashioning an
effective network of internship supervisors, parish pastors, faculty
colleagues, student interns, and support persons (even when the
number was diminished), is dramatic evidence that you are not only a
master at managing endless details, but an amazing juggler who can
balance relationships, conflicts, and programs at two different
seminaries and keep it all up in the air at one time! While dealing
with the cultures and values of two separate institutions, you have
led in the development of the Contextual Leadership Initiative in
such a skillful way that we have all felt that we are, in fact, a
collegial team.
Non-Anxious Presence: Your functioning has been a prime model of
what Friedman identifies as one of the most needed skills in
ministry and leadership, namely, “non-anxious presence.” Your
practice has been a classic example for us all, and I have deeply
appreciated this gift.
Advice and Counsel: I have always known and felt that I could
come to you as a friend and colleague and not only encounter an
attentive and sensitive ear, but receive advice and counsel that
respected who I was, and at the same time, took into account the
good of students, the seminaries, and the mission of educating
leaders for Christian communities.
Yes, you will be sorely missed – that is for sure. But I want to
wish you the best of God’s blessings as you continue with other
things. As they say in the ELCA seminars when you get to be this
age, don’t talk or think about retirement, but plan your “Refirement.”
Knowing you, I am confident that you will, indeed, “Refire” and
exercise many of your wonderful gifts in just another context!
With deep gratitude and appreciation,
Rod Maeker
Randy Nelson is an unusual leader. Maybe he can be honorably
compared to a good baseball coach who gets the team together, makes
sure they have the bats and balls they need, shapes a creative and
respectful work environment, and then steps back. The Joe Torre of
Luther. (Sorry, Randy! I know you’re a Twins fan.) That’s how my
early work with the Contextual Leadership Initiative felt to me. I
appreciated Randy’s way of encouraging each staff member’s
particular gifts, and his ability to direct a bunch of professionals
with a light touch. Thanks, Randy. All the best to you as time opens
up. Blessings always.
Jean Larson
Missoula, Montana
I have served as a Contextual Leadership supervisor as well as a
member of the Minneapolis Area Synod Candidacy Committee with Randy
for over 10 years. He is a true "partner in ministry." I am grateful
for his compassion, wisdom and commitment to developing the kind of
leaders the church needs.
Pastor Becky von Fischer
Calvary Lutheran Church in South Minneapolis
Your retirement, Randy, will leave a gigantic hole in the life
and mission of Luther Seminary, the Western Mission Network, the
hundreds of congregations and supervisors who are engaged with our
interns, and the next generation of students won't even know what
they have missed.
Of course, that's the good news. God will raise up new leadership
to take over the immense work you have done for these many years. It
is only right and faithful to mark this moment with thanksgiving for
your vision, creativity, and solid performance. The whole ELCA
network of contextual education joins Luther, making every effort to
sing this song of praise bravely, but all of our voices shake a
little as we wonder, "How will we ever make it without Randy?"
You have done well when things are going well, and you have made
a lot of things work well. But some of us have also seen you when
things were a mess in an intern's performance, in a supervisor's
life, in a congregation, or in a faculty crisis, and in the midst of
such difficulties we were regularly blessed by your poise, durable
faith, sense for justice, and irrepressible hope.
May your health be strong and your years be joyful in this third
age of your life. Well done, Randy!
A friend and former colleague,
David Tiede
Emeritus Faculty
Randy, I am still in service as a chaplain in the Army. I know we
haven't talked much over the years, but I enjoyed touching base with
you at the Conventions, and I think of you often. You had us read an
article when we first arrived in our Formulation of Faith group, and
it contained the quote, "A minister clowns, and a clown ministers."
I never forgot it and it has been a touchstone between theology and
practice in my ministry.
As you know chaplaincy combines the
prophetic and the pastoral at some very difficult intersections. You
have had a profound impact on my ministry which has included
assignments from Ground Zero in NYC, the DMZ in Korea, the Balkans,
Somalia, and Iraq. I include this to make the point that your
ministry has had world-wide impact in so many ways that will go
unnoticed except in the lives of people.
Our Formulation of Faith group prepared us for many different roads
-- a Bishop, an Infantry Chaplain, parish pastors, and teachers.
Thank you for your Mentoring and Pastoral Service that made this
ministry possible.
I wish you the best in your future. May Christ's Peace Be With You,
Jeffrey L. Zust
ELCA Army Chaplain -- East Baghdad
Dear Randy,
We have known each other since Chicago days and all the way through
to today. I have deeply appreciated your creativity, theological
insight, care for students in the process of preparing for ministry
and the many ways you have had oversight over the many versions of
contextual education/leadership. In particular I appreciated your
partnership during the years that I headed up the candidacy process
in our metro Synods.
I am also thankful for the way you have kept
your feet grounded in the parish at Holy Trinity in Minneapolis. You
have always known what the issues are in parish ministry because you
have been involved in them as a pastor and teacher. Thanks, as well,
for your passion for justice in the church as an expression of the
Gospel. This has been especially apparent in your care for resolving
the issue of racism as it still manifests itself in church and
society. As one who has just retired, I wish you, Joy and your
family many blessings as you head off in some different directions.
Pastor Paul Tidemann
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Randy,
I was thinking back to 1976 or 1977, when Luther and Northwestern
Seminaries were not yet merged and were trying to put together a
common curriculum. It was being done from the top down, with the
senior faculty controlling most of what was happening. Each proposal
was processed in the departments and here, too, the senior faculty
would dominate things. So we got a bunch of younger faculty and a
few older allies together, led by you, Darrell Jodock, and me, and
managed to surprise them with some votes in the faculty meeting that
changed some of the ways that things were going. Of course, shortly
after that, only you were still here and Darrell and I had left, but
still it was fun and worth it.
Thanks for your many years of good and faithful and innovative work.
It will take almost as many people to fill your spot as we needed
when Alma Roisum retired! And you did it with grace and often under
difficult circumstances.
Whenever I am at a Twins game or listening on the radio, I will
assume you are at the game--unless you are in Mexico still helping
to equip pastors and others for new and better ways of doing
ministry.
Best wishes in retirement,
Marc Kolden
Luther Seminary
faculty colleague
The Gift of Calm
by Steve McKinley
A former ministry partner of mine was a second career pastor. His
first career had been as a combat helicopter pilot in Viet Nam. One
of the gifts he brought to ministry was an extraordinary sense of
calm. Having flown a helicopter under fire, nothing that happened in
parish ministry could ever rattle him.
When I think of the many gifts Randy Nelson has brought to the
Contextual Leadership Initiative in its infancy and to contextual
education at Luther Seminary for over 32 years, his calmness is the
one that stands out above all others. When moments of conflict and
difficulty came along, Randy was a rock for the rest of us, as he
has been a rock for hundreds and thousands of students, faculty,
staff and supervisors for so long.
His calm was born, first of all, out of years of experience in
contextual education. You got the sense that you could never bring
Randy a problem he hadn’t seen before, probably many times.
Furthermore, because of those years of experience, Randy knew
everybody in the whole church and beyond. He incarnated an
unbelievable network. The man always knew what he was doing and who
he was doing it with.
Second, his calm came out of confidence in students, supervisors,
and “the system.” Randy always believed that when students and
supervisors came together in the church, when they shared the life
adventure of internship settings, when they talked openly of hopes
and dreams and fears and frustrations, good things would happen,
even if they were not pleasant things.
Third—though really it should be first on the list—Randy’s calm came
from an abiding belief in the way our God works in the world,
surrounding us with grace and carrying us along through every time
of conflict. Randy never forgot that this church really isn’t about
us: it’s about God. When others forgot that, Randy remembered. And
was calm.
Randy’s calm then had the effect of calming the rest of us. I came
to CLI two years ago after 38 years as a parish pastor. I never
wanted to kid myself. Years in the parish aside, I was a newbie.
Situations came along that rattled me. What did I do first when
rattled? Call Randy! After we talked I was always more calm, not
because Randy stepped in to solve the problem for me, but because he
made it clear that he had confidence in my ability to solve the
problem myself.
I’m going to miss many things about Randy. I’m going to miss talking
baseball and grandchildren and church life in general. I’m going to
miss his encyclopedic knowledge of the whole church. I’m going to
miss his keen insight into theological education in the ELCA,
especially in its contextual expression. I’m going to miss his
unwavering commitment to CLI as a mutual undertaking of PLTS and
Luther. I’m going to miss that characteristic gravelly voice. But
most of all I’m going to miss his calm.
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