In This Issue Passing the Baton TEEM Receives $225,000 Thrivent Grant When is Internship Over? Attention Returning Seniors Of Bob and Thomas? Do the DonnAlicia Switcheroo! Debriefing/Reflection Sessions for Returning Seniors Helpful Links Internship Handbook Lay Committee Handbook Internship Forms Evaluation Questions Subscribe to Ministry in Context! Luther Seminary's student newspaper, The Concord 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: August 2008

Passing the Baton

Dear Friends,

Since I started on July 1, 2007, we have been on a powerful and inspiring journey together. We continue to be blessed by Randy Nelson's years of steady, faithful, compassionate leadership of CLI. As I talk to pastors and leaders from around the church, they have thankful stories of Randy's impact in their lives and ministries over the past 30 plus years. In the same breath, we look forward to the new era of CLI with former Bishop Rick Foss as the new Director of CLI of the Western Mission Cluster. The future leaders of the church are in very capable hands with Rick.

Not only are you blessed with powerful leadership, but also with a creative, dedicated staff, at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Luther Seminary, and deployed, as well as the Western Mission Cluster Board. Both seminary presidents, Phyllis Anderson and Richard Bliese, have been seminal leaders for our combined ministry with internships and the ongoing development of the Western Mission Cluster. Thank you to all of you.

May I be so bold as to say that my deepest inspiration has come from the students. God has brought a breadth of students into both seminaries who will in turn change congregations, communities, the church, and the world. God is up to good things through our students!

It has been a very good year!
Thanks be to God!

Dr. Gary Wilkerson
Interim Director, CLI

Following the end of his service in the CLI office, Dr. Wilkerson will return to teaching Congregational Care at Luther Seminary. Rick Foss begins his service as CLI Director August 1.

TEEM Receives $225,000 Grant   

Celebration was in the air as faculty, staff, and board members gathered during lunch at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) to receive a check for $225,000 from the Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundations. Greg Jahnke, Senior Financial Consultant with Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, and Judith Dancer, Financial Associate, were on hand to present the grant. The grant is part of the foundation's Lutheran grant program and will support the growth and development of the Theological Education for Emerging Ministries (TEEM) program, providing funding for additional training of mentors; website development and online program support. Semi-annual Learning Clusters will also be held to engage students, mentors, faculty, site supervisors, and synodical leadership to coordinate the educational effort.

The TEEM program of the Western Mission Cluster is jointly administered by PLTS and Luther Seminary. More than 50 candidates for ministry are enrolled in the Western Mission Cluster TEEM program, making it the largest program of TEEM in any ELCA seminary.

The Rev. Dr. Moses Penumaka, TEEM Program Director, expressed his deep gratitude to Thrivent Financial for this program-sustaining gift. He also recognized his predecessors, the Rev. Dr. Ed Yee of PLTS, and the Rev. Rod Maeker, Associate Director of TEEM at Luther Seminary, for submitting the proposal just before they retired from their positions. PLTS President Phyllis Anderson remarked, "We are grateful for this amazing partnership with Thrivent Financial, and for gifts like this that help critical programs thrive at PLTS."

TEEM is an educational program that prepares women and men for ordained ministry in the ELCA. Since its inception, the TEEM program has graduated some 91 persons from across the country. Graduates have become pastors, chaplains, mission developers, outreach specialists, and members of Synodical and Churchwide staffs. In the Fall of 2007 the PLTS and Luther Seminary TEEM programs officially became a joint Western Mission Cluster program.

The Thrivent Financial for Lutherans foundation is a private foundation funded by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. As a 501(c)(3) organization with its own board of trustees, the foundation is organized and operated exclusively for charitable, religious, scientific, literary and educational purposes and makes grants and gifts to 501(c)(3) exempt organizations. Last year, the grant program distributed approximately $5 million through 100 separate grants.
 

When is Internship Over?   

You in the back row...when is internship over?

When you give your last sermon in the internship congregation.

Wrong. Over by the windows, what do you think?

When the congregation has its farewell party.

Sorry. You in the front, sticking your hand up and jumping up and down.

When you move back to campus.

Wrong. Anybody else want to try?

I didn't think so. Here is the correct answer: Internship is over when all of your evaluation forms have been returned to the CLI office with the appropriate signature pages. Until that happens, your internship is not considered complete. That means that the CLI office cannot tell the faculty that you have successfully completed internship, and therefore the faculty cannot take action to recommend you for ordination and you cannot receive your diploma.

You don't want that to happen, do you?

Of Bob and Thomas?   
by Steve McKinley

As I think I have written in this space before, my wife and I are in an interesting period of life right now. While our son and his wife (Kirk and Angie) complete the process of relocating to the Twin Cities, finding a new home, etc., we are providing full-time day care for our two-year-old grandson Luke. A high percentage of the time this is great fun. We won't talk about the rest of the time, thank you very much.

We share Kirk and Angie's commitment to not making the TV set a baby-sitter. Luke needs more engagement than anyone gets staring at a screen. Nonetheless, small daily doses of TV do wonders for his morale and correspondingly for ours. We have invested in three DVDs guaranteed to bring him endless joy, and thus it is that I have become acquainted with two iconic TV characters of the present day, Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine. Approximately daily Luke cuddles up on the loveseat with Papa and the two of us watch a Bob story or a Thomas story. Or two.

The Bob the Builder stories are about teamwork. Bob and his partner Wendy (it's unclear to me what the exact relationship between Bob and Wendy is) along with the other members of the team like Lofty and Flex and Muck (all pieces of building equipment) take on all kinds of project with confidence. In every chapter the classic question is asked, "Can we build it?" and Luke and I reply with the rest of the gang, "Yes we can!" Turns out that each member of the team brings some particular gift to the project at hand, and it is by working together, making the use of each team member's gifts, that the project gets built. There is trouble only when, to put it in language that is no doubt familiar to you, some member of the team tries to work outside his or her area of giftedness.

Thomas and his fellow engines Percy and Rusty and Oliver and the rest operate under the supervision of Sir Topham Hatt on the imaginary island of Sodor. The original stories date back to 1917, and are very British. Thomas and the rest get into all kinds of scrapes, but in the end, to my great relief, things always work out and the engines get the highest accolade available to them, the pronouncement that they are "very useful."

These things are never as clean and neat as we make them seem on paper, but about now most of the interns out in the field are completing their internships and preparing to head back to campus for another year of study. On behalf of the whole CLI staff, I hope it has been a good year for you. And I hope you have learned both the Bob the Builder lesson and the Thomas the Tank Engine lesson:

• The Bob the Builder lesson; that production is not a matter of dominating individuals but a matter of teamwork. When we work together, a congregation united, clergy and intern and laity together, miracles happen. Can we build it? Yes we can!"
• The Thomas the Tank Engine lesson; that there is great joy and satisfaction in being useful. Interns, if your supervisor and your lay committee have labeled you useful, it has been a good year.

Luke's afternoon nap is about over. Bob and Thomas time! See you back on campus.

Do the DonnAlicia Switcheroo!   

Donna Duensing

Starting on August 1, Rev. Donna Duensing will return again to the CLI office at PLTS for the Fall '08 semester.

Alicia Vargas will again be on sabbatical for the Fall (she will finally be caught up with her sabbaticals after this second one).

Alicia Vargas

Debriefing/Reflection Sessions for Returning Seniors   

PLTS

For interns returning to PLTS, reflection sessions will take place during the Public Ministry II class in September.

Luther

Students returning from internship are requested to sign up for a reflection session with a small group of their peers and a staff member from the Contextual Leadership Initiative Office. This will be an important time for reflection and conversation regarding your internship experience. There are numerous time slots available for September 24 and 25. When you return to campus, sign-up to reserve a spot using the Sessions RSVP tool.