Wisconsin native turned Chicago dweller ready for her future in ministry Melissa Hrdlicka toured four seminaries/divinity schools before settling on LSTC, a school she didn’t visit until she arrived as a student four years ago. “LSTC was the best choice for me,” she says confidently. It’s a wonderful place. The first time I was on […]
Madagascar pastor returns home as a systematic theologian When the Malagasy Lutheran Church identified Hery Andrianotahina Naivoson as a trailblazer, he accepted the call to further his education in the United States, particularly LSTC. Naivoson is a pastor in Madagascar, a big island in the Indian Ocean separated from Africa by the Mozambique Channel, nearly […]
TEEM program provides bridge from Baptist to Lutheran It was a good Friday when Sean Ramsey was tapped to preach to a Lutheran audience. Actually, it was Good Friday. Yehiel Curry, now bishop of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod, had asked Ramsey to preach on one of the Seven Last Words when Curry was serving Shekinah […]
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” […]
Podcast with humble beginnings surprises & delights When Kimberly Wagner, Marvin Wickware and their podcast editor Eric Fowler bounced around names for what would become “An Incomplete Field Guide to Ministry,” Wagner says they wanted the name to reflect what the podcast is about, but also “have a little humor, humility and honesty. Hence the […]
Vance Blackfox: Shifting the narrative of mission and service From an early age, Vance Blackfox (2012, MATS) felt a call to help others feel included. Blackfox has fulfilled that call in many different roles across the church: as a youth leader and a director of youth programs, in positions at Women of the ELCA and […]
Commencement 2020: A year of asking, and now facing, ‘What’s next?’ In campus apartments and in homes well beyond Chicago, LSTC 2021 graduates gathered around screens to “officially” graduate on Sunday, May 16, as they watched the seminary’s 161st commencement video released on YouTube and Facebook. This was the second year the global pandemic prevented […]
Speaking truth to the church: three global theologians reflect on LSTC, TEEM and joy in the midst of struggle June 30, two esteemed global theologians, José David Rodríguez and Javier “Jay” Alanís, retired from full-time duties at LSTC and the Lutheran Seminary Program of the Southwest (LSPS). Rodríguez began teaching at LSTC in 1981 and […]
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 […]
