Our second annual Week of Renewal was a great success. This is a week of continuing education primarily for pastors, with time built in for relaxation, worship, and socializing. We had 24 participants in three classes taught by PLTS professors David Balch and Jane Strohl and by Luther Seminary professor (and PLTS/GTU graduate) Chris Scharen. Thanks to Herbert Anderson for managing the event and to Deborah Georges, who assisted him. Save the dates for next year: June 25-29.

A group of  skilled workers from Our Savior's, Lafayette, laid new flooring in the first floor dorm rooms. The materials were a gift from Augustana Lutheran Church, Portland. The confirmation class from Our Redeemer, Hood River, Oregon, came and did deep cleaning in the dorm. Painters from St. Luke, Portland, will come in August to work in Giesy Hall. Thank you to all of you! You make PLTS a better place.

Elba Selby and colleagues

Recently we held a going-away lunch for two staff members who are leaving the PLTS community. Elba Selby retired at the end of June after eleven years on staff, first as facilities manager and more recently as an assistant in the Contextual Education Office. Arielle Driscoll, Assistant Director of Admissions, will be leaving for a new job on the east coast, teaching at the high school level. We are grateful for their time with us and wish them God's richest blessings.

Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Bedford will be the speaker at Founders' Day on September 21, 2011.

  

"My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women in my city" (Lamentations 3:51, NRSV). Violence against women in Latin America and against Latinas in the United States is on the rise. How do our ideas about God and human beings change when we try to confront such violence? How might a theology informed by the experience of migrants and migration help the church respond creatively to resist violence? Such questions put theology "on edge."

 

The lecture will explore some answers from the perspective of a theology on edge which is also a theology in migration: able to take the reality of migration seriously, and also able to change and grow in the face of new realities.

 

Click here for more information and to register.

 

Sunday evening, October 30, 2011

7 pm

PLTS Chapel of the Cross

 

Come and celebrate the Reformation with us, and meet the Rev. John Nunes, President and CEO of Lutheran World Relief (LWR)

 

Rev. Nunes joined LWR in 2007. With a passion for service and deep commitment to LWR's core values, John leads staff in seventeen countries in working to end poverty, injustice, and human suffering.

 

Prior to joining LWR, Rev. Nunes served on the faculty of Concordia University, Chicago, as a professor of theology, and as pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Chicago. He has also served as an urban parish pastor and community organizer in Dallas and Detroit. A gifted public speaker, he is also a frequent keynote presenter.

 

Registration is now open for our annual Luther Lecture.

 

Dr. 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.

 

Mary Davison, MDiv 1989, was presented the Bishop's Award by the Southwestern Washington Synod for mentoring PLTS TEEM graduate the Rev. Hang Mo Son of Light of Grace Lutheran Fellowship, Federal Way, Washington, during his seven years in the TEEM program. Davison said of Hang Mo, "This man has dedication and personal piety and faith that I am absolutely blown away with."

 

When asked what Mary meant to him, Hang Mo Son said, "Everything!"