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Week of Renewal
Partner Parishes
Staff Changes
Founders' Day
TEEM
Reformation Hymn Fest
Luther Lecture
Bishop's Award
Updates
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Above the Fog
PLTS Newsletter

July 2011
Greetings!  

You Did It!
  
Thanks to your generous support, we exceeded our goal of $800,000 for the Seminary Fund this past fiscal year, which ended on June 30. What a great achievement! We could never have done it without you.
  
The Seminary Fund accounts for 25% of the seminary's annual budget, and makes it possible for PLTS to recruit and equip great leaders for our church. Thanks to all who supported PLTS this past fiscal year!

Week of Renewal 2011


week of renewal
  
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.

Partner Parishes


Beasom floorsA 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.
 

Staff Changes


Elba
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.

Founders' Day 2011


Dr. Bedford
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.

TEEM and the Future of Theological Education

CurrentsWe invite you to read the June 2011 edition of CURRENTS in Theology and Mission. It contains very good essays about Theological Education for Emerging Ministry (TEEM), by our own Moses Penumaka, Michael B. Aune, Steed Davidson, and Phyllis Anderson, and by Mark Swanson and Mark Holmerud.

CURRENTS is published by the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, in cooperation with PLTS and Wartburg Theological Seminary.

To request a copy, or to subscribe to this excellent publication, contact the Circulation Office at 773-256-0751 or email [email protected] 

Also, click here for a photo essay by current TEEM students.
Reformation Day Hymn Festival

NunesSave the Date!

 

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.

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.

 

Graduate Receives Bishop's Award from SW WA Synod

Mary DavisonMary 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!" 

Updates

 

Carolyn Lesmeister, MDiv 2008 and MA 2010, serves in the Indiana-Kentucky Synod as the Assistant to the Bishop for Young Adult Ministry and Christian Practices, and as pastor at First Lutheran Church in Attica, Indiana.

 

Luke Lundmark, MDiv 2006, is a 6th-7th grade Ancient and World History teacher in San Diego, CA. He was voted teacher of the year for the school year 2010-2011 for his school site by his colleagues. He and his wife Kalee are expecting their first child in August of 2011.

 

Sheila Pohl, TEEM 2011, will be ordained on Saturday, July 30th at St. Joseph Lutheran Church in Rosholt, South Dakota.
 
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