LSTC Student Ingrid Kieffer on Attending Q Conference 2026 Ingrid Kieffer is an MDiv Student at LSTC who remains deeply engaged in campus life, community activism, and Public Church theology. Their reflection below articulates the value they found attending Q Conference 2026. In mid-January 2026 I had the fortunate opportunity to attend QCF’s Annual Conference. […]
Calling as Covenant By Lyndsay Monsen How solo backpacking over 3,000 miles alongside my seminary career aided in my discernment Starting seminary fresh off a 2,194.3-mile thru hike of the Appalachian Trail, I was acutely aware of the lessons God was teaching me through nature. When I came into LSTC’s orientation three years ago, I […]
Bearing Witness in the Academy: LSTC Doctoral Students at AAR/SBL Each year, the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting (AAR/SBL) gathers thousands of scholars from around the world to share research at the forefront of religious studies, biblical scholarship, and public theology. To present at AAR/SBL is a significant milestone […]
Honoring the Rev. Kara Baylor MDiv ’00, a Pastor of Courage and Joy This semester, LSTC students will receive a meaningful gift, a set of stoles donated by the family of the Rev. Kara Frances Baylor (1970–2023), LSTC MDiv ’00. Pastor Kara lived her ministry with courageous love, first at Mount Pleasant Lutheran Church in […]
Heralding Utopias: Immanuel Karunakaran’s Art of Wound and Witness When LSTC PhD candidate and 2023 ThM graduate Immanuel Paul Vivekanandh Karunakaran steps into a gallery, he brings more than canvases. He brings testimony. This fall, his work will be featured in Heralding Utopias: Conceptions of a caste-less, class-less, state-less world at the Bellefonte Art Museum […]
Orientation Week 2025: “Here I am. Send me.” The start of a new academic year at LSTC is more than just the turning of a calendar—it’s a threshold moment, a call to step into a community of learning, worship, and service. From August 25–29, new and returning students will gather for Orientation Week under this […]
Called to the Hill: LSTC Students Embody Public Church Through ELCA Advocacy Immersion In spring 2025, MDiv students Hannah Peterson and Megan Mong traveled to Washington, D.C. and New York City to participate in the ELCA Young Adults Advocacy and Policy Immersion. Their journey was more than a trip; it was a living embodiment of […]
LSTC Students Explore the Vital Role of Administration in Ministry Leadership By Rhiannon Koehler Behind every vibrant ministry is an infrastructure of strategic planning, thoughtful leadership, and administrative precision. For Lyndsay Monsen and Shemiah Curry, students in the 2025 J-Term Ministry of Administration course, these skills came into sharp focus in exploring the unseen work […]
How MDiv Student Hannah Peterson Engages in Community Organizing to Answer Her Call For second-year MDiv student Hannah Peterson, community organizing is imperative to living out her values. “I organize because it answers a spiritual need in my heart,” she says. At the end of February, Peterson joined 89 others in Washington, DC for the […]
A Blessed Baptism MDiv student Kylee Bestenlehner on the pilgrimage of a lifetime My first semester of seminary, I took History and Theology I with Dr. Peter Vethanayagamony and I wrote an essay on the cultural context of the Roman Empire and its effects on the spread of Christianity. During that class, I learned about […]
