Southwest California Synod

MA, 2000, Fuller Seminary

MDiv, 2002, Logos Evangelical Seminary

 

 

 

 

 

 

Betty Tsung Yueh Chen

PLTS is proud to be the recipient of a $5,000 grant from the Gethsemane Foundation to fund faculty participation in cross-cultural experiences.

 

PLTS requires students in the second year of our MDiv program to do a "cross-cultural experience" or immersion in January, and this year students traveled to sites like the Lutheran Center in Mexico City, Chicago, and New City Parish in Los Angeles.

 

Now, we want faculty to accompany them on their cross-cultural immersions, so as to embody better this value in the work we do. Faculty will function both as participants along with the students and as facilitators for daily theological reflection.  In this way, we believe that we can better embody this value in our teaching and learning environment.

Student Christa Compton with board member Judy Larsen and keynote speaker

 Mary Gundelach

When Paul tells us to be transformed and renewed he is carrying out his long-cherished plan to visit the church at Rome. He lays open the continuities and the differences between the Gospel and Judaism, out of which he had come, and Paul, being profoundly Jewish and Christian, could not deal with the issues confronting him without involving his own religious identity. There is no sharp separation possible between Paul's theology and his ethics. He uses it to inform, to instruct and to guide. In his transformation he had become a mix, and as he traveled about, it helps me to think of him as a "migrant." (I realize this carries particular implications these days, but as I thought about this word, "migrant," I felt the implications would be good for my thought, and I hope the same is true for yours.)

How can we live a transformed life? How do we make the decisions that show God's way into our lives? And for today's focus, how do we take action to remember the future for this seminary?

 

 

Dr. Marty Stortz

Jana Deiss (MDiv 2002) writes, "In January of this year, I received a call to Mission Development and on February 21, was installed as Pastor Developer of Table of Grace Lutheran Church in Bethel, Alaska. Bethel is the largest city in southwest Alaska with a population of about 6000, and serves as a regional hub for more than 50 Native villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. We are off the road system here: the only way in or out is by plane or boat when the Kuskokwim River ice breaks up. This year, that happened on May 17. Adrian, the kids and I are loving life here and I am feeling really blessed to be doing the work I do, and putting my best gifts for ministry to good use." For more info, see this article. Jana will be on furlough and available for pulpit supply and/or adult forum presentations the first four Sundays in July in Oregon, SW Washington and northern California congregations.

 

Fred (Ernst F.) Tonsing (BD 1966), Professor Emeritus of Religion and Greek at California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, California, published his history of the university for its 50th anniversary in October, and a companion volume of recollections of early professors and alumni/ae. He also published the 50th anniversary history of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church of Thousand Oaks on April 10th.