Dear Friends,

**Whoops! Our sincerest apologies, we jumped the gun a bit. The CLU board has not yet voted on the proposed merger between our two institutions. Both schools are still working together to work out some remaining details so please read this corrected June issue of Above the Fog and discard the previous version!

Greetings!  There is much good news to share with you this month!  On May 25th we celebrated the graduation of 43 new leaders for the church with Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson as our special guest preacher.  Several already have calls to serve, some in Spanish speaking congregations or new mission starts.  One of our gifted graduates, Sara Wilson, just joined the PLTS staff as Associate Director for Seminary Relations. 

As I travel to synod assemblies this time of year, it is profoundly gratifying to see so many of our very recent graduates taking leadership in worship, speaking on the assembly floor, getting elected to synod councils and making their distinctive contributions in so many ways.  Our graduates are doing amazing ministry in many challenging places - as many of you know first-hand. 

Photo: Montana Synod Assembly listening to Bishop Jessica Crist

Synod assemblies are a great occasion to share the good news about PLTS, to visit with friends and alumni, to hear what is going on in your ministries and to thank you for your generous prayers and contributions to PLTS. At some, we hosted joint receptions with California Lutheran University as we anticipate the next steps in the merger process. We expect action in the next few months from other bodies, whose approval is necessary for the merger to take place, including the ELCA Church Council, the CLU Convocation, and two separate accrediting bodies.  It's complicated!  It is also full of promise and is generating a lot of excitement.

Our partnership with the Graduate Theological Union keeps growing and changing.  We are excited to welcome a new professor of Ethics, Dr. Bradley Burroughs, very soon, whom we will share with Church Divinity School of the Pacific. 

Back on campus we welcomed a wonderful team of volunteers from Our Saviour's Lutheran, Lafayette, who helped paint part of the exterior of the chapel, clear overgrown trees, and do some work in Sawyer. 

It has been a blessed and busy spring! We have much to be thankful and excited about. 

June 30 marks the end of our fiscal year.  I invite you to act now to support this important work of preparing leaders who will shape the church and the world for many years to come.  Gifts from friends like you make up the largest share of our income, more than we receive from student tuition or from synod and churchwide grants.  Theological education of the next generation of leaders depends on you now. 

Be blessed, be faithful, and continue to be the light of God for others in the world.

Peace, Phyllis

PLTS Alum Robyn Provis (MTS '03), who was called to be the pastor of Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minn. last spring, was recently featured in an online article for her work in suicide prevention and marriage equality:

"When the news of the passage of the marriage equity bill by the Minnesota House of Representatives reached Rev. Dr. Robyn Provis, the first person she wanted to share it with was her wife of nearly eight years, Kathy Luebbe.

Provis and Luebbe were married in Toronto, Canada, and for years she says they have played a game on road trips of "Now we're legally married. Whoops, now we're not."

...

Q. What is the biggest challenge you've taken right now?

I love life and I love to push myself by taking on multiple simultaneous goals. Currently I am the pastor of a diverse church where I am devoted to caring for the congregation and neighborhood. I believe the good news of the gospel isn't good news until its good news for everyone. I have a deep belief in the centrality of the instruction to "love one another." I don't want to argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I'd rather talk about the joy they were feeling that gave way to the dance. My hope is that all faiths can stop fighting over who is in and who is out and get down to alleviating poverty, discrimination, and hopelessness. The two areas that inspire me the most are marriage equality and suicide prevention. Those may be disparate topics but they are important to me.

...

Find the original article here.

Read the omitted sections here� 

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Michael Larson (MTS '11), currently serving as music and arts ministry director at Lutheran Church of the Cross in West Fargo, was featured in an article about Project F-M, based in Fargo and Moorhead, Minn. "The Project," as they refer to it, seeks to "make space for 20/30-somethings to love God and neighbor by cultivating an open-minded, curious faith."

The article states:

    "Michael Larson, 26, grew up Lutheran in rural Minnesota. His faith was formed and kept solid through music, eventually leading him to Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif.

    "I came with many questions, and left with even more, but it was a way I was able to think about them finally in a more graceful way," Larson said.

...

    "I'm thankful for finding The Project," said Larson, currently music and arts ministry director at Lutheran Church of the Cross in West Fargo. "It's given me an outlet that allows me to be myself without fear of being rejected. As a gay man, I've found it difficult to be my entire self within some church institutions."

...