In This Issue Foss Nominated to be CLI Director Farewell from Laure Spring Team Building Sessions Nine Month Report Time! Learning from Luke Spring Cluster Meetings 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: May 2008

Foss Nominated to be CLI Director

Rick Foss, retiring bishop of the Eastern North Dakota Synod, has been nominated to become the new Director of the Contextual Learning Initiative, pending the approval of the Luther Seminary Board and the Board of Directors of the Western Mission Cluster. He has already been endorsed by the Search Committee and the Luther Seminary faculty.

Foss has served as bishop of the Eastern North Dakota Synod since 1992. A graduate of St. Olaf College and Luther Seminary, he served as a parish pastor in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Moorhead before becoming bishop. He has been a member of the Luther Seminary Board of Directors.

The search process lasted over a year and involved candidates from all over the country. Along the way the job description was significantly modified. Previously the CLI was responsible for internship, CPE, cross cultural education, and teaching parish. As revision has taken place, internship and CPE will continue to be CLI responsibilities, while cross cultural and teaching parish will be the responsibility of the individual seminaries, with a high degree of cooperation still expected, in particular in the cross cultural area.

Farewell from Laure   

Dear interns, supervisors, and lay leaders,

I write you all, with blessing and fullness of heart, to let you know that I have resigned my position at Luther Seminary. April 30th was my last day. I will finish my degree at the College of St. Catherine in the Masters of Theology and Spiritual Direction certificate. Then I will see where God takes me next. I have been honored and blessed by your lives as you have allowed me in on a piece of your journeys. The internship year can be transformative and your openness to God's stirrings will continue to be life-giving; challenging too, but truly life-giving.

Blessings to you all,
Laure Schwartz

Laure Schwartz served at Luther Seminary for fifteen years in contextual education, ending as assistant director of the Contextual Leadership Initiative.

Spring Team Building Sessions   

Two team building sessions for 2008-9 internship teams will be held in the month of May. On May 19-20 teams will gather at the Four Season Sheraton in St. Paul, and on May 28-29 teams will gather at the San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville, Calif. CLI staff will be responsible for leading both events.

Can You Believe it? Nine Month Report 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 so more since last 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 on all your learning and service among God's people.

Learning from Luke   
By Steve McKinley

I'm doing some serious learning these days under the tutelage of Dr. Luke.

Sorry, New Testament scholars. I wasn't referring to that Dr. Luke. The one I have in mind is Dr. Luke Isaac McKinley, our 21 month-old grandson. (He has an honorary doctorate in trucks, the topic he is most passionate about.) Right now Pat and I are his day care. One day a week Pat goes off to work and it is just us guys together. Being two guys together we smoke cigars and drink beer and watch ball games and we walk to the park and Luke teaches me. Here's what he taught me in just one walk to the park.

1. There's fun out there if you take the time to play with the toys. The park in question is one block - one block - from our house. I've lived here for fourteen years. I'm a faithful outdoor walker. In those fourteen years I have walked through the park literally thousands of times. But until I started walking with Luke I had never explored the playground, never looked at the slide or sat on the swings or played with the digger. Luke latched on to the toys and I came along behind and they are wonderful. It had been years since I last sat on a swing and felt the wind in my face. And these other new toys...they are quite wonderful. I know they've been there for years, but I never noticed them.

I wonder about my ministry, about how often I walked past opportunities for meaningful mission and ministry that were right in front of my nose without ever noticing them. I remember visiting with leaders in a congregation once who were lamenting that there were no new people moving into their neighborhood, no opportunities for outreach, in spite of the fact that a new senior citizens housing project was being built next door to the church. What playgrounds do you walk past every day?

2. You don't always have to get there in the traditional way. Now and then we walk across the park to another playground. There is a fine sidewalk that winds through the park to that playground. When I go that way, I assume walking on the sidewalk. But Luke is not a sidewalk fan. Once he catches sight of the playground, it is off across the grass until he gets there. It doesn't occur to me to get off the sidewalk...but his way is faster and, frankly, a lot more fun.

I wonder about my ministry, about being too tied to the sidewalks and not ready to abandon the tried and true defined routes for something easier and quicker and more direct. When might you dare to leave the sidewalk and run across the grass?

3. Things don't always happen according to the clock. I don't wear my wristwatch when Luke and I go to the park. We're not going for fifteen minutes or thirty minutes or an hour. These are not meaningful concepts for Luke. We're going until we've had enough, whenever that might be. Some days it is twenty minutes, other days it is ninety minutes. This is not easy for me, since I have always been a nut about living my life according to the clock. But it does work and I am learning to enjoy it. While Luke does not speak this language yet, I think of us going to the park on kairos time, not chronos time.

In most churches, including the ones I served, the operative concept is that Sunday worship can last for sixty minutes, but no more, and you can have bonus points if you can hold it to fifty. One congregation in for worship, one hour, get them out so the next group can come in. On Communion Sundays you have to shorten the sermon to allow for communion time. When most Sundays became communion Sundays, all the sermons got shorter. Worship was on chronos time. A few weeks ago I had the joy of preaching in a congregation that worships on kairos time. The service lasted about ninety minutes. Nobody panicked. Nobody left. Nobody complained. That was how long it took. It was all right. It felt wonderful.

On the other hand, there were times as a pastor when I held on to old ways and old practices for too long. The people and the mission were finished before I was.

Are there times when you could dare to forget the clock?

Dr. Luke is the best professor I've had in a number of years!

P.S.: A note to supervisors. I was in a meeting with some supervisors the other day when someone raised the theoretical question "What makes a good supervisor?" One wise person in the group shared the observation that a good supervisor will always learn something from the intern. What have you learned from your intern recently?

Spring Cluster Meetings   

• Northern California Cluster - May 6-7, San Damiano Retreat Center, Danville, Calif. (Sherwood Glover)

• South & West TC Metro Cluster - May 8, Christ Church Lutheran, Minneapolis, Minn. (Steve McKinley)

• Denver Cluster - May 13, Our Savior's Lutheran, Greeley, Col. (Sherwood Glover)

• Arizona Cluster - June 3, Community Lutheran, Las Vegas, Nev. (Sherwood Glover)