Twice per year in the fall and spring, all Internship supervisors and pastoral interns around the country are hosted by the nearest ELCA seminary for something called the “cluster meeting.” At the cluster meeting, supervisors and pastoral interns enjoy a chance to meet, talk, ask questions, provide feedback, and learn from other partners in the Internship experience. These are valuable sessions and they contribute greatly to the Internship in both semesters. (They are also a fun way to get to know Internship teams at the other seminaries!)

Here are the dates for the Spring cluster meetings organized by Luther Seminary:

All are hosted from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. for that day.

EDIT, 3/26/2015: Oregon and Washington clusters have now been added.

• Oregon: April 7 – 8, Menucha Retreat and Conference Center, Bend, OR
• Washington: April 21 – 22: Rainbow Lodge Retreat Center, North Bend, WA

These are two-day retreats. Contact Julie Josund (jjosund001@luthersem.edu) for details.

(Haven’t heard about your Spring cluster schedule? Your nearest ELCA Seminary will be in touch with details.)

Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, Minn. has openings for CPE Level I full-time summer 2015 internships. Please submit applications to: bonnie.forsman@parknicollet.com. For more information regarding the program click on this website link: http://www.parknicollet.com/For-Health-Professionals/Clinical-Pastoral-Education.

Good Samaritan Specialty Care Community, a long term care facility in Robbinsdale MN, still has openings for its full-time summer unit  (May  26 – Aug. 7) and for its extended unit which will begin in the Fall.  Please contact Cindi Brickson, Director of Chaplaincy, at 651.767.9408 or apply online using the standard application found at www.ACPE.edu.

UnityPoint Health in Fort Dodge, Iowa is now offering a distance-based accredited CPE unit for Fall 2015! This unit would be perfect for Distributed Learning students who do not live or work near another accredited CPE unit. Participants would complete their 300 hours of ministry time in their local contexts. Peer group would be completed at UnityPoint Health in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Supervision would be done by Rev. Dean Meeter, a Reformed Church in America pastor and accredited CPE supervisor since 1990. The entire unit would be accredited through Rev. Meeter’s CPE site, Bethesda Christian Counseling in Sioux Falls, SD. This CPE unit would begin in August 2015. The cost is $1000.00/unit. Applications and a $100.00 registration fee are due by April 1. This is a hard deadline. Please apply as soon as possible if this unit would be ideal for you! For more information, please contact Phil Somsen at UnityPoint Health-Fort Dodge via phil.somsen@unitypoint.org or (515) 574-6428.

Last but not least: Are you planning for CPE in Fall 2015? Try to submit your applications early and often. Applying by Easter to multiple locations is optimal for a Fall 2015 acceptance. If you are still looking for a site for Summer 2015, apply today, as positions do fill up quickly at CPE sites around the country. Once you have been accepted to a program, don’t forget to notify Contextual Learning!

One of the most fun and deeply meaningful things I’ve been part of at seminary is facilitating Contextual Learning’s “Pray and Break Bread” project. This series of urban multicultural trips seeks to bring the Luther Seminary community off-campus to meet and listen to our neighbors.

Why is this important? Most of us have many opportunities to connect with other members of the Lutheran tradition (especially people of our own race, socioeconomic status, or gender or sexual identity), but fewer opportunities to connect with our neighbors of other traditions or other cultural groups in this diverse city. What does it mean to seek justice and love kindness if we are not paying attention to what is happening in our community and our political and economic systems?

We can’t do this by ourselves. As a public Christian leader, I need to listen to my neighbors,and more than just the ones who seem to look or think like me.  I’ve come to believe that it is only by doing the hard work of listening and building relationships in community that I can learn what it means to seek justice.

In order to prepare our trips, I came up with an initial list of over 100 local faith-based communities, non-profits and arts groups deeply engaged in community-building and justice work. As I’ve reached out to each site on the list, religious leaders and activists have consistently responded with a little bit of astonishment and a lot of enthusiasm that seminary students would be interested in connecting and listening to their work. Our hosts have been generous and gracious in welcoming us, sharing stories and answering questions. I have learned so much about the history and ongoing life of the Twin Cities from these stories. Our two Pray and Break Bread trips in Fall 2014 brought us into relationship with diverse faith communities around the Twin Cities and illuminated the intersections between our faith lives and community struggles for racial, economic and housing justice.

This March, you’re invited to another Pray and Break Bread adventure with Contextual Learning. On Saturday March 28th, consider joining us for Twin Cities LGBTQIA Advocacy Day, a day of visiting and learning from key actors in the rich local history of faith-based LGBTQIA advocacy.

We chose the theme for March 28th because Luther Seminary is surrounded by a wealth of organizations with decades of experience in LGBTQIA advocacy, and this is one way many of our students are already engaged in local community justice work. We’d like to learn from those organizations and lift up our rich connections. We’ll visit three sites: ReconcilingWorks, OutFront, and All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church. It will be a great time to meet people, ask questions, learn polity and legislative advocacy methods, and reflect on our personal and community relationships. We’ll also spend time together, reflect, and pray and break bread together. It will be a good time and an important way to respond to the gospel in our context. I hope you can join us! Please register by finding Pray and Break Bread on Facebook or email kparent001ce@luthersem.edu.

Are you interested in a Spanish-language Hispanic Ministry intensive this summer at Lutheran Seminary Program of the Southwest in Austin, TX? Please contact Contextual Learning for more information; we can forward you that course information also.

“A Gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a Word of God doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what Gospel is that?” – Oscar Romero

The end of December 2014 brought a congratulatory word from the President of Luther Seminary. She informed me that she had recommended my name to the Board (which they voted on and approved), and that my journey as Director of Contextual Learning would begin on January 1 2015.

As I settle into this call, I am grateful for many things: great faculty and staff at Luther, competent and joyful colleagues in the Contextual Learning office, CPE supervisors, pastors and workplace mentors that guide our students, and countless congregations and faith-based non-profits who know that they are shaping future leaders of the church! The blessings are many and it is already easy to see the deep joy that comes from this collaborative work on behalf of the church. I am beginning to feel “settled.”

“A Gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a Word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a Word of God doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what Gospel is that?” – Oscar RomeroBut as I ventured outside of my office on a mid-January day, I was reminded of something else. As important as it is to get settled into one’s new routine, we belong to a wider company that believes that we (as individuals and as a community) are called to be unsettled.

Sure, in the Contextual Learning office, we may feel settled once everyone finds their contextual placements and assignments, but the fact of the matter is: once you enter a Christian community, the real work, the unsettling work, is just beginning.

Martin Luther King Day was a special time on the Luther Seminary campus this year. It came with a wonderful day-long event marked by prophetic speeches, songs, worship and workshops and a community meal. We are grateful for the challenging words shared by Christena Cleveland, Alika Galloway, David Preus and Peter Rogness.

“The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.Cleveland shared many insights. Among them came a call to revisit why, as Dr. King once said, Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week in America. She reminded us of the resounding refrain of the Apostle Paul’s and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s teaching, imploring people to turn away from their own self-interest in order to see and to serve the other.

Cleveland also opened our eyes to Greg Boyle’s refreshing paraphrase of the Beatitudes:

“Rather than say, ‘Blessed are,’ replace the word ‘blessed’ with, ‘You’re in the right place.’ As in: ‘You’re in the right place if you’re with the poor in spirit. You’re in the right place if you’re with those who mourn.'”

The imagination and imagery was rich and compelling on this day. Sermon and song brought forth the powers of grace and gravity. And yet, as this company of friends and strangers gathered together to remember Martin Luther King’s legacy and to make a joyful noise, I believe that as we went our separate ways, we would leave with words that would still linger, words that were truly unsettling.

Among these thought-provoking words were a series of Dr. King’s quotes in the closing litany for the day:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

“The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.”

In closing, as I venture into a new call in the Contextual Learning office, and as we (the seminary, the students and faculty and wider church partners) venture into our own unique callings, may we find the call and the courage to be unsettled.

Venturing outside of our offices and buildings will often bring us beyond the comforts of routine and that which appears to be settled in our lives.

Venturing out: Let this practice be a part of your routine, as I will seek to make it mine. For, it is in being unsettled, that we often find the stirring and generative work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Go with great faith and great courage as we join in the unsettling work of God with us!

Shalom,

Tim

For January, I would like to share a short prayer in memory of transgender teen, Leelah Alcorn. This prayer was developed by Luther alumnus, Asher O’Callaghan, as part of the liturgy at House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, CO.

Leelah Alcorn was born in 1997 and given the name “Joshua.” Throughout her adolescence, Leelah Alcorn felt that her female gender identity was not welcomed by her parents or faith community. In her last post to her Tumblr, Leelah wrote:

“When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people, don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self [sic]. That’s exactly what it did to me.”

Shortly after publishing that post, Leelah committed suicide on December 28, 2014.

Leelah’s final post included instructions that her possessions and money should be donated to an advocacy organization for transgender people, and that gender issues should be taught in schools.

After her death, Luther alumnus Asher O’Callaghan developed a special prayer in Leelah’s memory. This prayer was included in the liturgy at Asher’s home church, House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. We are honored to post it here in full.

God of unbounded love,

Our sexualities and our gender identities are a blessing and a gift. The desire You give us to express them is a blessing and a gift.

But for some of us it feels more like a curse and a burden.

Today we remember and grieve the loss Leelah Alcorn. Grant her all the peace and love she wasn’t getting to experience here. Surround and comfort all who loved her. Give strength, power, and help to all who are living on the brink of despair.

Fix our society. Fix parents whose hearts cannot muster up unconditional love for their children. Fix Your Church so that we freely give ourselves away with the same love that You gave Yourself away with. Bring healing to all those who can scarcely believe in Your outrageous love because it so alien, so far off from their own life experiences.

Transform us according to Your love which shall not fail. 

Amen.

We offer our thanks to Asher for his permission to include this prayer in our newsletter today. We also offer our thanks to Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber for her inclusion of this prayer in her public memorial of Leelah’s life. Last but not least, we credit the Tumblr artist Queer-Terror for their portrait of Leelah above (reproduced by permission).