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Internship
Newsletter: June 2008
Greeting from Rick Foss
Dear friends,
 I
am the new kid on the block - or will be beginning on August 1st. I
am looking forward to joining the Contextual Leadership Initiative,
and will consider it a privilege to participate in the "launching"
of pastors and other Christian public leaders at PLTS and Luther.
Just a bit of biography: Nancy and I have 5 adult children and 3
grandchildren. We have lived and served congregations in
Minneapolis, Fargo-Moorhead, and Seattle. Most recently I've been
serving as bishop in Eastern North Dakota. Nancy taught French in
various schools, including 20 years at Concordia College. Along the
way, I had the privilege of supervising ten interns (in Minneapolis
and in Seattle), and being the pastor in a teaching parish in
Minneapolis. These experiences, along with my deep appreciation for
my own internship experience in Montana, give me a sense of
excitement about this work.
I will be doing a lot of listening and learning, and hope to get to
know those of you who are reading this newsletter - wherever you may
be. It is clear that I will have some wonderful colleagues, and I'll
try to get up to speed as quickly as possible.
Take care,
Rick Foss
After seventeen years, it has come time to retire. It's been a great
time!
I want to say thanks to Luther Seminary. I have grown and flourished
here. Many thanks for allowing me to do what I have enjoyed!
Thanks to my faculty colleagues, who have listened patiently and
supported me in this venture called cross-cultural education.
Deep thanks to my fellow members of the CLI staff. You have been
treasured colleagues in developing the Contextual Leadership
Initiative. Developing the Western Mission TEEM Program with Dr.
Edmond Yee of PLTS has been ever so rewarding.
Above all, special thanks to students. It has been a real joy to
plan and manage Cross-Cultural Experiences. The payoff has been in
hearing students share their experiences after returning from their
trips and hearing how it has transformed their world view and vision
for ministry.
The most asked question has been, "What are you going to do now?"
This is the first time that we, our children, spouses and
grandchildren have lived in the same area. No, we do not plan to
move back to Texas! Rather than retire, I hope to "refire" and do a
number of things. I plan to continue working with the Urban
Leadership Academy to identify and train high school youth and
ethnic specific youth for leadership. I hope to join my spouse Nancy
as a volunteer in working on A Minnesota Without Poverty. And, I
hope that I might be part of an effort to develop our family farm
into a larger wind farm that has the possibility of bring
redevelopment to my home rural community in Texas.
Thanks for being friends, students, learning partners, and
colleagues.
But above all, I give thanks to a gracious God who has provided the
opportunities and joys for my life with all of you!
--
Rod Maeker
SNO/KING Cluster Sabbatical Intern Program 
by Pr. Malcolm Brown, SNO/KING Cluster Internship
Supervisor
15 years ago Jill Brown became the 1st SNO/KING Cluster Intern.
This concept was conceived as the pastors gathered weekly for study
and wondered how they could support and help each other as
colleagues in the daily work of public ministry. These pastors met
with lay leadership from each congregation and began a conversation
about creating a way to both provide a unique multi-site experience
for an intern and give one of the pastors a six month paid
sabbatical each year. The SNO/KING Cluster Sabbatical Intern program
was birthed in 1992 with the cost of supporting the intern being
divided up amongst the 11 congregations of this cluster in the NW
Washington Synod. (The SNO/KING Cluster crosses the King County and
Snohomish County line, just north of the city of Seattle.)
The internship site was designed to allow the intern more than
one congregational experience. The intern would spend the first six
months of his/her internship at the site of his/her supervisor. The
second half of the internship would be served in the congregation of
the pastor going on sabbatical. But this, like many things in life,
doesn't always work out the way it is planned.
Take my internship for example.
I was the SNO/KING Cluster intern during the 2003/2004 internship
year. Pastor Mitch Jones from First Lutheran of Richmond Beach was
my supervisor and this would be the main site of my internship.
Pastor Marj Funk-Phil of that congregation was to take her
sabbatical from January 1st thru June 30th of 2004. My internship
began at Northlake Lutheran. I was there from August 31st to
December 31st at which time I moved to First Lutheran to finish out
my internship year.
 I am now privileged and blessed to be the supervisor of the SNO/KING
Cluster intern, Diana Bottin. This year the cluster does not have a
pastor who is due for sabbatical so Diana will be spending her
internship year based at Bethesda Lutheran Church in Mountlake
Terrace, WA. But that does not mean she loses the experience of
serving other congregations in the cluster. Although based at
Bethesda, Diana has already been involved with two congregations,
giving her multiple leadership experiences in a variety of
congregational settings. Diana has also been leading a weekly Brown
Bag Bible Study for the Cluster on Mondays and has met in a
different congregation of the cluster each month.
Today there are nine congregations in the SNO/KING Cluster, and
the internship program is still being supported. There have been
many changes in the past several years with a number of pastoral
changes in many of the congregations. Even with these changes the
sabbatical intern program is still functioning, and in August we
will be welcoming our 16th intern into the SNO/KING Cluster
Sabbatical internship program.
Transition Time at PLTS
|
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 |
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Both Donna and Alicia will be looking forward to see those of
you who would be returning to campus for your last year! Those
of you who won't be returning, make sure to let us know how
you're doing next year. We will miss you! |
Getting Cynical about Cynicism
By Steve McKinley
I got a unique piece of mail the other day. (Actually it was
addressed to "resident", but I was the resident opening the mail
that day.) It was a regular window envelope, business size, with
lots of printing on the outside. On the front it said this:
This very old church loans this to you, to
bless someone
connected with this home. Then, it must go to
another family that
desires God's blessings. See letter in-side
YOUR HOME FIRST. We
want to give you this free piece of jewelry,
a Cross, Blessed for
you.
On the back it said:
God is doing great things in answer
to prayer. Log onto
www.AboutSaintMatthewsChurches.com and
www.BiblicalPrayer.com to
read testimonies of
answered prayers.
This was followed by a prayer:
Dear Jesus, we pray that you will bless someone in this
home
spiritually, physically and financially. And please Dear Lord
bless the one who's hands open this letter. Make good changes
in
this one's life and give them the desires of their heart.
We pray
over and bless this letter in your holy name. Amen.
All of this was on the outside of the envelope. This is an
accurate representation of the use of bold face type,
capitalization, underlining (except that the underlining was done in
red and some of it was double underlining), and the possessive form
of "who." It got even better on the inside. There was a lot in there
about the power of prayer and the de-sire of these good people to
send me a cross. There was...I'm not making this up, I'm not that
clever...a
 Faith Church Prayer Rug which I was only supposed to hold
onto for 24 hours, placing it under my bed when I went to bed that
night and then mailing it back the next day. Another page promised
that "Something good is about to happen" but en-treated me "please
do not open these prophecies until after you have placed your prayer
page and the prayer rug back in the mail before sunset
tomorrow or
the next day. God will help
you do this." Needless to say, I opened
the prophecies immediately, and still have not mailed back the
prayer rug or the prayer page. (They did provide a postage paid
envelope for this purpose.) There was a lot of information about
answered prayer, pertaining in particular to God's faithfulness in
answering the prayers of those who asked for money.
I am an educated, cultured, sophisticated 21st century dude who
picks up lunch money by working for a couple seminaries. I get this
kind of thing and my inherent cynicism bristles. Their theology of
prayer has more holes in it than the average slice of Swiss cheese.
Their messages are, for the most part, printed in upper case, the
print equivalent of yelling, and when you print in upper case and
bold face type and underline, that's like screaming in somebody's
face, and I don't cotton to being screamed at. And the whole
business about putting this little paper rug with its schmaltzy
picture of Jesus under my bed; well, as Steve Martin used to say, "Excuuuuuuuuse
me!" At first glance this seems like the kind of Christianity that
gives us all a bad name. And indeed, a little Web research into these
folks filled me in on some legal allegations made about them
and their fondness for fund-raising.
On the other hand:
- They didn't ask me for a cent, and even put the postage on the
envelope to mail the prayer rug back.
- I checked out their website. OK, there was some weirdness here
and there, the kind of weirdness that comes when faithful and
devout Christians get hung up on one or two verses from scripture.
I'm not ready to join one of their churches, but they seem to be
doing some good things in serving their communities. Of course, anybody
can make themselves look good out there in cyberspace. (Although,
if you flip through their Web site to the end–72 slides later–it gets really weird.)
- They make it clear that their ministers do not accept
gratuities for pastoral acts, and that you will never see them on
television.
OK, I can laugh at these folks and poke fun at them (as I have),
but they might just be earnest Christians who put me to
shame in many respects.
When I was in seminary, we poked fun at those simple Christians
who loved to listen to and sing what we considered to be
theologically flawed hymns like "In The Garden." Once I got out of
seminary and into parish ministry, I discovered that, while some of
those folks had a taste in music that lacked sophistication, there
was little lacking in their Christian living and compassion. I still
don't love those hymns, but I've got the uneasy feeling that God's
taste in music might be more generous than mine.
I can still do the requisite 21st century cynicism at the drop of
a hat or the arrival of a weird envelope, but when that happens I
often wind up wondering if I am the one who is missing the boat, if
my cynicism and sophistication isn't a barrier in my life. It is not a
charitable Christian enterprise for me to be judging them simply because
their piety or theology do not match mine.
When I go out later this afternoon, I am mailing the prayer rug
back.
One More
Spring Cluster Meeting
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