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Internship
Newsletter: May 2007
Ministry at Mount Olive
As part of our ongoing series on the fascinating congregations
that host CLI interns, this report comes to us from
Mount
Olive Lutheran Church, Minneapolis, where Jennifer Peters
McCurry is the intern and Bill Heisley the supervisor.
Bill and Jennifer dialogue about ministry at Mount Olive.
Bill:
Just
two hours ago, Jennifer and I were with the family of an 87-year old
man who had died less than an hour before. We prayed, cried, laughed
and sang around his bed, his body lying in stately repose.
 He was
the last of the old guard members who donated the stained glass
windows at Mount Olive; he had given the Transfiguration window as a
thank-offering when he returned safely from World War II. He led
Mount Olive out of the Missouri Synod, into the Association of
Evangelical Lutheran Churches and finally into the ELCA. He
challenged me to become a better preacher when I was called here 9
years ago. He worked with and supported every one of the 38 vicars
we've had since the 1950's. He stayed with the congregation through
our neighborhood's changes from middle class to lower class to
dangerous and now back to middle class and maybe even trendy. When I
gave him Holy Communion 48 hours ago he managed to make the sign of
the cross, though it was a struggle. He was shaped by our profoundly
rich liturgical life and he helped shape that life for others.
These things are about opening oneself to the power of the Holy
Spirit and to regular participation in the life of the Spirit-called
assembly.
Jennifer:
Right now, we are in the midst of a series of liturgical moments
that connect our past with the liturgy that is life in the present.
I started my internship on January 1. During my short time here, we
have seen the progressive installation of a columbarium into one
transept of our sanctuary. On Easter Sunday, the columbarium was
blessed as a part of our liturgy. A stunning icon of Christ’s
Ascension (from the Mount of Olives) has been written* especially
for Mount Olive and will be blessed and installed into the
columbarium on Ascension Day. Our patriarch who just died, who
served on the committee that planned the columbarium, will be the
first saint to be interred in it this week. How poetic!
Our liturgical life at Mount Olive is really the center of
everything. Worship with Eucharist, word and proclamation, song and
prayer, is expressed to its fullest with traditional ritual and
Christian symbols. Before I went to seminary, I served as a youth
minister in an Episcopal congregation where I grew to love what many
consider “high” styles of worship. It is a special treat for me to
be interning among people who value and employ the riches of our
liturgical tradition in such beautiful ways! Being here offers a
return to my past, though in a different role that looks forward to
the future of my ministry.
Bill:
We are deep in the Easter season and we are now planning a funeral
that will be a seminal moment in the life of this parish. The family
is kind and generous and as eager as I am to see that this funeral
is perfect. A noteworthy thing to learn in internship is that even
after multiple years of ministry (I just observed my 27th
anniversary of ordination) and hundreds of funerals I still become
stressed and stretched thin and hassled in times when things pile
up. When do I write the funeral sermon, Sunday’s sermon, the
presentation I must make between liturgies on Sunday? My mind is
full and a bit crazed. My right-brainedness is rampant!
 What
am I supposed to be writing about? Jennifer, how are you feeling
about how things are going, about Mount Olive, about preaching to a
congregation that includes 35 or so preachers every time you enter
the pulpit?
Jennifer:
Oddly enough, the 35 preachers in the congregation don’t intimidate
me. While I was a seminarian at Duke Divinity School, I attended a
congregation that included my theology professor and my preaching
professor, along with a New Testament scholar, a Reformation History
scholar, and a couple of retired ministers. I preached there a
couple times each year and my anxiety level went through the roof
every time! I think I burned through a lot of my pastor- and
professor-inspired preaching worries then. Even though its
membership includes 35 preachers, Mount Olive has been a really
great place to seek growth in preaching. Both ordained and lay
members here are impressively articulate about what works for them
in sermons and what does not. The infamous “Nice sermon, Vicar”
comments are rare in favor of far more substantial comments. I think
this congregation’s long history of forming future pastors also
helps them to be gracious with constructive criticism and generous
with praise that both affirms observed gifts and acknowledges
growth. I find a similarly helpful balance in my supervisor’s
guidance and feedback. He also has a strong sense of his ministry
priorities and a good sense of humor, which makes him a fun partner
in ministry. Bill, after nine years of supervising interns, what do
you enjoy about your participation in the internship process?
Bill:
I enjoy learning that I have “a strong sense of ministry.” Who knew?
I am one who easily becomes inured of daily tasks. I need to
experience and to do different things from time to time. Having a
new intern each year, working with a unique individual who is full
of surprises and challenges and gifts is a welcome antidote to
boredom. I also love the fact that I get to help shape the future of
the church. I am leading a congregation that is doing something
important and helpful and faithful. Further, it is a treat to know
that our style of liturgical life is shaping future clergy. Since I
am more and more convinced that we are emerging as a congregation
whose worship is valuable to young people (Gen X-ers and Y-ers???) I
am excited to teach students how we plan what we do, why we do what
we do, and how the church can shape the life of the community and
the world through the power of its assembly.
 Beyond
these things, it’s fun to have a vicar who can laugh at me as I
laugh at him or her.
Jennifer:
All in all, this is a great congregation and internship site! I am
abundantly blessed here, and I look forward to several more months
of God working through these people. Thanks be to God!
* Editor’s Note: While it might look strange to your eyes, “written”
is the correct verb here. Icons are “written”!
Thinking Outside the Box: Diaconal
Ministry Internship 
By Emily Myallis, Diaconal Intern
This year is definitely outside the box for what most people
think of as a seminarian’s internship year. I’m a seminary intern,
but I’m not going to be a pastor. As a Diaconal Ministry candidate,
I assumed I would complete my 700 hours of Field Experience while my
husband, who is on the ordained track, completed his full-year
internship. However, as he and I were discerning internship
possibilities last spring, it happened that
First Lutheran
Church & School of Torrance, California, an internship site
through the Contextual Leadership Initiative, was interested in
providing internships for both of us at their church, each for
full-year internships. This 1000 member congregation, which also
operates elementary school ministries from age 6 weeks through Grade
8, felt that they could offer challenging and distinctive intern
experiences for both ordination and diaconate track candidates in
the same year. Now that was outside the box!
Why should it be such a crazy notion? Diaconal Ministers need
internship experiences too. As a Diaconal Ministry Intern I’ve
jumped into what it means to live out a call to Word and Service
within a congregation. “Deacon Emily,” as they call me, has become a
title with so much for me to unpack during my time here. Studying
and discussing ancient traditions of the Diaconate up to its present
expression in the ELCA has helped me shape truly my own sense of
call to the ministry of towel and basin. Learning very practically
how Diaconal Ministers work alongside Pastors and Laity, how
Diaconal Ministers connect the church to the needs of the world and
vice versa, and how Diaconal Ministers equip the Baptized for their
mission outside the church walls has allowed me to better understand
and articulate the necessity as well as the creativity of this
public ministry.
As Pastor Bill Hurst, First Lutheran’s senior pastor and mission
director laughingly told me once, “Ever since the Book of Acts
deacons have sometimes been troublemakers,” and I realize more what
he means by that as I seek to be the voice of the Least of These for
this community of faith.
 What
is unique about this internship site is not only that they wanted a
Diaconal Ministry intern, but also that, through their church and
school ministry, they are an ideal setting for the form of Diaconal
Ministry that I feel particularly called to – teaching English as a
Learned Language (ELL). Torrance is a highly diverse city of
150,000, with more than a third of residents of Asian ethnicity.
Many residents do not speak English as a first language. My Diaconal
Ministry project has been to create an ELL program here. What a
blessing it has been! Offering instruction in English, equipping
congregation members to tutor English, and providing fellowship time
for the students has developed into an awesome multi-cultural
ministry that expands into our community. We use the Small Catechism as a teaching tool not only for faith, but also for English! We
learn about special days in the church year, share prayer requests,
and walk with each other through the achievements and challenges of
learning to speak English.
These classes have been the most significant experience for me
during this Diaconal internship to see how the call to bridge the
church into the world and the world into the church is lived out in
very practical, real ways. ELL isn’t the only way I’m receiving this
necessary experience for ministry. Other projects are keeping my
year full, including working on establishment of a new non-profit
organization as an extension of the church, leading in worship,
equipping assisting ministers, coordinating chapels for 100
preschoolers, and participating in as many mission and outreach
services as possible. Pastor Hurst often quips that a church school
is an ideal setting for experiencing servant ministry on the
frontier of multicultural and missional outreach. “What the ELCA has
dreamed of for 30 years,” he’s been heard to say, “becoming a church
responsive to and inclusive of the diverse cultures and backgrounds
of urban America – that’s the everyday world of a Lutheran church
and school!” He has suggested that the learnings my spouse and I are
experiencing this year are essential training for doing effective
ministry in this current mission moment.
I also feel privileged to be modeling the diaconal ministry roster
for the members of this congregation. Working with a non-ordination
seminarian is an “out of the box” experience for them too, and they
have been very open to the basin and towel dimension of diaconal
work. From visitation ministries, to prayer and healing experiences,
even to the specifically diaconal character of Maundy Thursday foot
washing – I think church members have been broadened in their
appreciation of the wonderful variety of ministerial vocations
opening up in our church as we seek to be faithful to Christian
tradition and open to our missionary calling in the world.
In their own way Diaconal Ministry interns and internships fit in
the box too! What a blessing to be a Diaconal Ministry intern this
year, to have a full-year experience that allows me to walk with a
congregation as a leader in witnessing to the servant Christ, and to
grow as a servant-leader and equipper of the saints in the name of
the Servant Christ!
Randy Nelson, executive director of the Contextual Leadership
Initiative since its creation and a moving force in contextual
education at Luther Seminary and in the ELCA for over 30 years, will
retire at the end of June. In our June newsletter we will present
our own tribute to Randy. If you have thoughts, memories, vignettes
about Randy you would like to share with the world, please submit
them by May 25 for inclusion in the June issue. Your contributions
should be sent to editor Steve McKinley at
smckinley001@luthersem.edu. (Luther Seminary has also created an online
memory book where you can leave personal well-wishes for Randy's
retirement.)
From the Editor: On Teaching a Fisherman to
be a Shepherd
by Steve McKinley
It’s an old adage, but usually old adages have gotten to be old
adages because they contain a kernel of truth. This old adage: you
can come back to the Bible over and over again and keep discovering
new things.
So I sat in church on a recent Sunday listening to the gospel
lesson from John 21 being read. The text in which Jesus is having a
conversation with Peter following a post-resurrection shore-side
breakfast. Jesus keeps pushing Peter—“Do you love me?” and when
Peter asserts as strongly as possible that he does, Jesus tells him
“feed my sheep.” Happens three times. I’ve preached on that text
many, many times. But never until that morning did it dawn on me
that sheep-feeding was not Peter’s thing. He wasn’t a feeder of
sheep. Shepherding was not his line of work. Fishing was Peter’s
gig. In giving Peter this command, Jesus was calling on him to do
something new and probably uncomfortable. In up-to-date lingo, we
would say that Jesus was challenging Peter to get out of his comfort
zone.
 Good
internship supervisors push interns to get out of their comfort
zones, to try new things, even things they would rather not do!
Every now and then in a conversation or a report I hear of this.
Sometimes I hear it from an intern who has tried something new,
something they didn’t think they would like, and discovered that
they really could do it. Sometimes I hear of it from an intern who
doesn’t like this kind of pressure, or a supervisor discouraged by
the intern’s reluctance to push their own limits.
Getting out of the comfort zone is a constant challenge for
anyone in ministry. You always find yourself having to do things you
would rather not do, but you have to do them anyway. They are
outside your area of giftedness or outside the borders of your
normal personality. You would rather not do them. Makes no
difference. They still need to be done.
An example: I am, by nature, a very strong introvert. The
Meyers-Briggs Inventory scores me as being about as introverted as a
person can get. Sunday morning, between services. I would like to go
sit in my office and refresh my spirit. But I always knew that my
place between services was at coffee hour, greeting people, making
small talk, getting caught up on what was happening in people’s
lives, being available to members and alert to visitors. Now I am
not a total grouch, but this was not something I ever enjoyed doing;
at the same time, I knew it needed to be done, so I always pushed
myself to do it. I had to leave my comfort zone for the sake of the
ministry.
So if you are an intern and your supervisor is pushing you to do
cold calling or preach without notes or visit inactive members or
chant the liturgy, go with it. Dare to leave your comfort zone. You
may find once you are out there that you can do things you never
knew you could do and you enjoy doing them. Of course, you may also
find that there are some things you cannot do. (Singing/chanting the
liturgy was impossible for me. I am essentially tone deaf.) If you
are going to be a healthy pastor, maybe even if you are going to be
a healthy person, you will spend many years pushing the limits and
getting out of your comfort zone. Old Peter may not have loved
feeding sheep, but I am sure that he tried!
Can You Believe it? Nine-month time!
Nine month reports from supervisors and interns are almost due now!
That means almost three fourths of the internship year has already
gone by. Are you still thriving? Have you thrived more since the
last evaluation time? Are there some catch-up areas on which to
focus the remaining time?
After this briefer nine month report there will only be the “final”
evaluations. There should be no surprises then. Nobody wants
surprises at the end. So this nine month report is another
opportunity to take the pulse and talk about it.
Internship committees do not need to fill out evaluations this time,
but, of course, we recommend that intern and committee check again
how things are going and look ahead to the short road ahead to the
last fourth! So many relationships, experiences, projects to bring
to fruition, to celebrate, to plan for continuity, and yes, even
closure! May God continue blessing all your learning and service
among God’s people.
Spring Cluster Meetings
South Metro: May 1 at St. Mary Magdalene, Savage (Steve
McKinley)
Arizona: May 3-4 (Sherwood Glover)
Northern California: May 7-8 (Sherwood Glover)
North Dakota: May 7-8, Camp of the Cross, Garrison (Steve
McKinley)
Southern Minnesota-South Dakota: May 10, Shalom Hill Farm
(Steve McKinley)
Denver Area: May 10, Abiding Hope Lutheran Church,
Littleton, CO (Sherwood Glover)
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