Advancing the campaign to reimagine, reinvent, reaffirm, and renew LSTC By Alisha Green When Sandra Nelson started her role as Vice President for Advancement at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in 2020, it was a time of immense change. She was the first person hired at LSTC during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the […]
LSTC Advancement Diaries: The Road Show At LSTC, our Advancement team has taken their show on the road, literally, to share the exciting updates and new developments happening at LSTC to members of our community around the country. This is the first in a series of behind-the-scenes accounts of how our Advancement team breaks barriers […]
How Peter Iversen cultivates a community of support for LSTC For Peter Iversen, there is a unifying theme across his experience in higher education, nonprofit philanthropy, and public service: It is all about people and relationships. “My focus has been for a long time on serving others, and that’s a really important viewpoint for philanthropic […]
From an Impossibility to Reality: Distance Learning and Scholarship Support Transforms Trenton Ormsbee-Hale’s Future MDiv student Trenton Ormsbee-Hale remembers clearly when he got into seminary the first time around, before he joined the Lutheran church and before he knew anything about LSTC. He had applied widely, with much success. “I remember just getting the first […]
An Overflow of Abundance: Barbara Rossing and Lauren Johnson If you talk to Barbara Rossing about her call to theological education, you’ll hear a word often repeated: abundance. Rossing grew up in Northfield, Minn., with a current population of nearly 21,000. It’s the home of Carleton College, where Rossing studied geology as an undergraduate. She […]
A public pastor for a public church More than 50 years ago, in 1968 to be precise, Brian Eklund (MDiv 1970) was a spritely 20-something seminarian. Axel Kildegaard, professor of theology and director of contextual education at LSTC, approached him for a conversation that would change his life. Kildegaard had been ready to send Eklund […]
Strategic plan update: Accomplishments & focus on new priorities We’re nearly halfway through LSTC’s strategic plan for 2021-2023 that the board of directors approved in November 2020. And although prayer has been part of it, it’s also taken a lot of time, work and commitment. We need it all “for such a time as this” […]
Lois and Bill Williams: Giving as a way of making the ordinary extraordinary The great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, “It takes three things to attain a sense of significant being: God, a soul and a moment. And the three are always there.” For Lois and Leon “Bill” Jackson, the wisdom of Rabbi Heschel […]
Seminary ambassador: How Lane Lewis jumped from limited seminary knowledge to telling LSTC’s story When Lane Lewis was encouraged to consider volunteering with LSTC in 2019, he realized he hadn’t ever given much thought to where pastors come from and how they are trained. A member of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Naperville, Ill., he was nudged toward LSTC by […]
Retired missionaries, teachers, Kenneth and Eloise Dale embody LSTC’s values “LSTC has always been very close to my heart,” said Kenneth Dale (Augustana, 1950, MDiv), when he and his wife, Eloise, made a leadership commitment to Giving Day. The Dales embodied many of LSTC’s values and commitments in their long ministry in Japan and even […]
