Mary Bosell gained a new perspective after she graduated from Luther Seminary. While she now serves as associate pastor at Burlington Lutheran Church in Burlington, Wash., parish ministry wasn\u2019t always her top priority. \u201cGlobal mission was my first love,\u201d she explains. \u201cTaking a position in a parish in America required some mental and emotional gymnastics\u2014I\u2019m still doing some of those.\u201dIn 1989, Bosell went with her husband to China to teach English. They ended up living there for eight years. Both converted to Lutheranism while working for a Norwegian Lutheran mission in Hong Kong. \u201cI fell in love with Lutheran theology,\u201d Bosell says, \u201cand that\u2019s why I came to Luther Seminary.\u201dBosell understands mission is still at the heart of her call. \u201cI serve in a hundred-year-old parish that is struggling to reshape its missional identity in a changing world. To see that coming alive is very exciting.\u201dFor Bosell, growing into the needs and demands of parish ministry has been a process of discovery. \u201cI never signed on to do youth ministry,\u201d she says, \u201cyet I have become willing to do that. This is now my mission field. I\u2019ve decided that I will learn to speak a new dialect\u2014youth\u2014in order to communicate the gospel to young people in this context.\u201dBosell\u2019s new life has brought new relationships that have been a source of joy. \u201cWhile visiting Tierra Nueva, a local Hispanic mission, I met a man named Gonzalo and invited him to our Lenten suppers,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen he first peeked into our church basement and saw a roomful of white people speaking English, he couldn\u2019t bring himself to come in. Now he comes to church here nearly every Sunday.\u201d\u201cIt\u2019s very good for us to be in contact with people different from ourselves. People in churches like to be the ones to give, not realizing that we are also the ones who need to receive. All of us are God\u2019s mission field. Likewise, all of us are called to participate in each other\u2019s stories of redemption.\u201dBosell seeks to bring her passion for mission to her work with youth. \u201cMy dream is to take our youth on a trip to Central America and have it led by local Hispanic Christians. How could we not be transformed by an experience like that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mary Bosell, Master of Divinity, 2003<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3677,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"issue-fourth-quarter-2003","8":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n