Internship Newsletter: September 2009

From the Director
By Rick Foss

Most of you are aware of the structural changes that PLTS and Luther have negotiated for internship in the future. In a nutshell, the Contextual Leadership Initiative (CLI) has come to a conclusion. The two schools will cooperate as sister seminaries, moving forward with individual internship programs.

This structural change will not impact the 2009-2010 internships, except that Donna Duensing will be the deployed contact person for all PLTS interns. The contact person for Luther interns will be either Steve McKinley (Twin Cites area and southern MN/SD), Julie Josund (internships outside of Region 3), or Rick Foss (Northern MN and ND). Intern cluster gatherings will be led in Region 2 by Donna Duensing, in Region 1 by Julie Josund, in Region 3 by Steve McKinley or Rick Foss, and, as before, clusters elsewhere will be led by representatives from other ELCA seminaries, by geographical designation.

This change came after extended conversations between the two seminaries, especially between the academic deans and the presidents, and was ratified by the Western Mission Cluster Board. I will be working with our Contextual Learning staff at Luther and with Alicia Vargas and the PLTS Contextual Education staff, to work out details in the months ahead. We realize that it may be difficult for some congregations to decide whether PLTS or Luther will be their "internship seminary" for 2010-2011 and beyond, but we plan to work together to serve as "primary back-up" for each other's sites and hope that will help ease the transition. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.

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Throughout this newsletter, you will read reflections on the start of internship. It will be a holy mix of trepidation and excitement, as it is every year. It may feel like a first date. Or that first "mixer" as a college freshman. Or the first time you held a baby. Or that moment of awe at Bible camp, when you reiterated a "yes" to God but weren't sure what it meant. Or the first time you put "pastor" and your own name together in your head and heart. I don't know what echoes will reverberate through you as you begin internship, but I do know this: God will be with you in that holy mix of trepidation and excitement.

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This year there may be an added dimension in the mix, as the ELCA Churchwide Assembly has just concluded. It may be too soon to know if decisions made there will impact your particular setting. However, we already know that in some cases, it will be a significant factor. If this is the case for you, please get in touch with us to we can walk with you in the days ahead.

Getting Started as a Team  
by Kathryn Ostlie-Olson

In recent years my family has had a lot of transition. We've moved to, then from, and then back to Luther Seminary for school and internship. There was a year of overseas travel, during which we experienced new cultures and contexts every few months as we moved in and around Tanzania and Israel/Palestine. I used to think of these moves more practically, believing that I could get along wherever I was as long as I had my passport, some money and a method of transportation. I've come to realize, however, that while these tools are important, it's equally critical to bring a tone to each transition. As you begin this internship year, I offer that the same thing is true. Tools and skills are important. Passports and currency have their place. But the tone and other less tangible elements you bring to this endeavor are essential. Hospitality, humor and grace invariably soften landings. These relational qualities will help this year to be filled with learning and exploration of your gifts for ministry.

Beginning your working relationship with a sense of hospitality means you are willing to be open to the stranger. Both of you, intern and supervisor, are strangers to one another. Welcome each other into the relationship by getting to know each other. For some this comes easily; for others it takes time. It always takes intentionality. Plan to spend some of your early time together talking about who you are and what you hope for the year ahead both personally and professionally. As a supervisor, plan to introduce the intern not only to people and places in the church and community but also to the patterns and some of the unspoken expectations that come with serving as pastor in your context.

Be prepared to laugh at yourself and with each other. Where possible, find the joy and humor that are inherent to ministry. Humor can bring perspective and balance when you find that you're taking yourself too seriously. There will be times when you wonder where and how to laugh. If you're having trouble finding the humor in life, read a book, watch a movie or be in touch with a friend that you know can make you laugh at life and yourself.

Finally, live as people and as leaders who receive grace in and through the promises of God in Jesus Christ. Ministry is deeply and fully incarnational. There will most certainly be times of tension or perhaps conflict in your relationship with one another or members of the church. Pray for yourself, your colleagues and your community. Know that it is in and through God's gift of grace in Jesus that we are called to witness to this grace and serve the community. God's grace is sufficient.

In his book, To Bless the Space Between Us,* John O'Donohue has written a blessing for a new position. I commend a portion of it to you as you begin your year of ministry together:

Remember to be kind
To those who work (with) you
Endeavor to remain aware
Of the quiet world
That lives behind each face.
Be fair in your expectations,
Compassionate in your criticism.
May your have the grace of encouragement
To awaken the gift in the other's heart,
Building in them the confidence
To follow the call of the gift.

*Doubleday Press, New York, 2008

The Contextual Learning staff is here to support you with some of the specific tools and information to help with your transition into the internship team. We're also here to help you embrace the gifts of hospitality, humor and grace by which God sustains the church and its people.

It's C.I.P. Time!

Within the first two weeks of arrival at your internship site, we'd like to hear from you, and the Confirmation of Internship Placement (CIP) is an important touch point for this time. We'd like to know that you've found out who your Lay Committee chair is, and that you have discussed with your supervisor and church council what your remuneration package will be. Please fill out your CIP as soon as you can. And if any of the circumstances mentioned on the CIP change throughout your internship, please use the CIP to let us know.

The Crucial Lay Committee    
by Julie Josund

Thank you, Internship Committee, and welcome to your new role.

The Contextual Leadership staff at Luther Seminary extends a hearty thank you! to the members of the lay internship committees who will be joining us in ministry to our interns across the country this year. It is really important work that you are providing for the intern assigned to your congregation.

The beginning of the year is a crucial time for getting the experience off to a good start. The student's year of hands-on, day-to-day life in a full-time ministry setting is a major change from the previous two years of academic work of our students' typical schedule. It is both thrilling and daunting to shift to this new style of learning. And this is where the Internship Committee can uniquely be a help and support to your intern.

Welcome them, and their spouse and family. It is the Internship Committee's specific task to find a variety of ways to help the intern begin to integrate into your congregation as well as into the new role of intern pastor. Our hope is that you will "show them the ropes" of your community, as well as the congregation. Introduce them to key people or places they should know. Invite them to lunch, dinner or coffee. Relationships are key to successful ministry practices. You can model that for your intern by building a relationship with her/him.

Much of your role is to be support and encouragement. Your intern will be trying new things this year. A goal of internship is to experience as many aspects of parish (or other setting) ministry as possible. The Committee is the support base, a safe place to come back to debrief how things are going, to talk openly about the highs and lows of this new opportunity in their lives. The Committee is a place to receive encouragement and feedback so that the intern will continue to learn about their gifts and passion for serving God.

Lay Committees have a new and excellent tool this year - the newly produced DVD, Preparing a Pastor: The Role of the Lay Internship Committee in a Sacred Journey, has been sent to each internship site. (If you need a copy of the DVD, contact Kate Sterner at ksterner@luthersem.edu or 651-641-3474.) I hope that you have or will watch this DVD together and set some goals for how you would like to enhance your intern's amazing year with you. The internship year is a quarter of a student's seminary experience; many students report that internship was the fundamental and foundational year of their preparation for pastoral ministry. We're on Holy Ground here ...

The Contextual Leadership Web site  has many resources for the Internship Committee. Explore this site, there is much to learn and to draw from. You are not in this venture alone. That is one of the key things we also want our students to know! Thank you for accompanying your intern on this significant journey.

Recalculating! Recalculating!   
by Steve McKinley

My only experience with GPS guidance in a vehicle came about a year ago. I was piloting a 15-passenger van for a group of us who had come together near Baltimore for a reunion, and we decided to go off for the better part of a day to see the sights in Washington, DC. One of the women in the group had a GPS in her car, which she then moved over to the van. We told it where we wanted to go, and headed off boldly.

When we got close to Washington, though, the nice lady in the GPS had one idea of the best way to get there, and our host had another. Since our host seemed like a more tangible reality than a voice without a body, we went his way. This seemed to irritate the voice. She kept saying "recalculating ... recalculating." If she could have sworn, I think she would have. Finally, just to spare her the pain and ourselves the annoyance, we turned her off.

So you start out your year of internship or a fresh program year in a familiar congregation. You have plans and dreams for this year, things you want to achieve and learn. What's more, you can see how you are going to get there. The plan is in place. You put your head down and move in that direction.

As you move, listen for that voice that says, "recalculating." Leadership in ministry is about recalculating. There is good biblical precedent for this. Check, for example, Acts 16:6-10. Recalculating! Plans always need adjusting as you go along. You are, after all, working with people, notoriously fickle critters. Not to mention the fact that you are one of those fickle critters yourself.

The woman you had counted on to head up the major funds appeal suffers a heart attack. That young couple who were going to advise the youth get transferred to another city. The musicians who were going to lead the contemporary service turn out to be better at being a garage band than a praise band. Nobody in the congregation is really interested in that Bible study on Obadiah you had planned. Recalculating!

I hope you have plans for this year. (I look forward to reading some of those plans in the form of Learning Service Agreements and Project Proposals.) Pursue that plan! But as you pursue it, be alert to what is happening around you, and be ready to adjust the plan as conditions require. Ministry (and life), like driving, require regular recalculating!

Fall Cluster Meetings   

Northern Minnesota: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Hope, Walker, Minn. (Rick Foss)

Twin Cities West Metro: Tuesday, Oct. 6, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Calvary, Golden Valley, Minn.. (Steve McKinley)

North Dakota Cluster: T: Thursday, Oct. 8, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Cooperstown, No.Dak. (Rick Foss)

Twin Cities East Metro: Thursday, Oct. 8, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., St. Paul, Stillwater, Minn. (Steve McKinley)

Northwest Washington: Wednesday, Oct.14, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., St. Matthew, Renton, Wash. (Julie Josund)

Oregon/Vancouver: Tuesday-Wednesday, Oct. 20-21, 7 p.m. Tuesday - lunch Wednesday, Menucha Retreat Center, Corbett, Ore. (Julie Josund)

Southeastern Minnesota: Thursday, Oct. 22, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Trinity, Owatonna, Minn. (Steve McKinley)

Southwestern Minnesota/South Dakota: Tuesday, Oct. 27, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Shalom Hill Farm, Jeffers, Minn. (Steve McKinley)