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The Class of 2011
Video of the Hein-Fry Lecture
Founders' Day
Luther Lecture
Updates
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Above the Fog
PLTS Newsletter

June 2011
Greetings!  

Summer greetings from PLTS! We hope your summer is off to a great start.

Congratulations to the Class of 2011 


class of 2011

 

Congratulations to the class of 2011! Our graduates are now on their way to ministries across the nation. We will miss them, and we wish them Godspeed.

  

Click here for a full listing of graduates.

 

Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, mission developer for House of All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado, gave the commencement address. Read it here

 

Dean Cheryl Heuer spoke this charge to the graduates:

 

Dear friends in Christ:You are impressive and remarkable human beings of whom we are extremely proud! We are profoundly grateful for the time you've spent with us. 

 

We are proud and grateful because you are people of:

 
Faith, in and through which you have lived and will continue to live in courage and commitment to being bearers of God's unconditional love for all the creation and its creatures.  As you live in this faithful commitment, the places you go will be healed and transformed;


Hope,
in and through which you exhibit creativity and determination in your work in order that God's will in Jesus Christ for the thriving of the creation and all its creatures will become more incarnate in the communities of which you will be a part;

 

Love, in and through which you embrace passion and dedication to being in relationships that are life-giving, inspirational, and open to the work of the Holy Spirit who guides our lives.

 

As our charge to you as you leave us, I would ask you to stand as you are able and re-affirm the promises you made yourself or were made on your behalf by others in your baptism.

 

The graduates then reaffirmed their baptismal promises:

 

To live among God's faithful people;

 

To hear the word of God and share in the Lord's supper;

 

To proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed;

 

To serve all people, following the example of Jesus;

 

and to strive to do justice and peace in all the earth.

 

Video of the 2011 Hein-Fry Lecture

  
Justo Gonzalez
  
  
  
  
  
  
A video of this year's lecture by Dr. Justo González is available on vimeo.com.

Save the Date: Founders' Day 2011


Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford will be the speaker at Founders' Day on September 21, 2011. Details forthcoming.
Luther Lecture 2011: November 4, 2011

Recovering the Biblical Narrative: The Hymnic Dialog of Proclamation and Response

 

Registration is now open for our annual Luther Lecture.

 

hawkinsDr. Robert D. Hawkins, Leonora G. McClurg Professor of Worship and Music at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, will give a keynote lecture on the content of hymnody as it presents the full biblical narrative and music that make this possible. If music is indeed, following Luther, the primary "handmaid" of the biblical text and theology, then questions regarding style remain secondary to the faithful setting forth of the narrative. That the narrative is presented is of primary importance; how that happens needs to emerge from the type of texts crafted.

 

For more information and to register, click here.

 

Updates


Charles Bang, MDiv 1980
, after serving in Buffalo, New York for nearly 29 years, recently accepted a call to serve as senior pastor and headmaster of a parish and school in Hampton, Virginia. He begins there in August of 2011.

 

Susan Briehl, MDiv 1981, was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity by Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina. The seminary awards the degree of Doctor of Divinity to individuals who have provided outstanding service to the seminary's mission to teach, form, and nurture women and men for the ministry of Christ's church. More here.

 

Dawn Gregg, MDiv 1991, serving 14 congregations in nearly 20 years in the Eastern Washington - Idaho and Oregon Synods as intentional interim pastor, received and accepted a call from Faith Lutheran Church in Albany, Oregon. She was installed on January 29, 2011.

 

Michael Johnson, MDiv 1994, is a half-time pastor of a UCC church. He teaches psychology and sociology at a local community college and continues mental health work in the area.

 

Mitch Jones, MDiv 1980, is currently serving as intentional interim pastor at Hope Lutheran in Bozeman, Montana. He has published in The Lutheran Journal of Ethics in October 2010 and in The Lutheran in December 2010.

 

Eric Luedtke, MDiv 2010, and Gloria Dei Lutheran Church were recently featured in an article in the Knoxville News Sentinel about the Easter Sunrise worship that has been a tradition in the congregation for more than 50 years. See the full article. Eric was nominated by the Bishop's Assistant of the Southeastern Synod to serve as a synod delegate to the Evangelical Lutheran Coalition of Ministries in Appalachia Assembly in May 2011.

 

Susan Lynch, MDiv 1996, is currently the Interim Pastor at St. John's Lutheran Church in Sumneytown, Pennsylvania.

 

Doug Nemitz, MDiv 1997, was installed recently at First Lutheran Community Church in Port Orchard, Washington.

 

Kari Reiten, MDiv 2007, has accepted a call to Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Renton, Washington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

   
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