Musings on 25 Years of Ordained Ministry--4

Beginnings...

To be ordained in the Lutheran Church a person needs a college degree (I received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biblical Studies through the Lutheran Bible Institute in 1980--an aside: Jan was pregnant with Alycia so she flew home from Seattle to Minneapolis on May 18, 1980--the day Mt. St. Helen's blew up. Jan could see the cloud from the plane. Exactly one month later Alycia was born.) and then 4 years in a Masters of Divinity program (seminary). I attended my first year of Seminary at Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, MN. Bethel is a General Conference Baptist school--a strange place for a Lutheran boy but I wanted a different theological perspective before diving head first into the Lutheran Seminary.

After my year a Bethel I headed straight into Summer School at Luther Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul.

My 3rd year of Seminary, as is generally true in the Lutheran Church, was to be spent on a one year internship, placed in a congregation to experience what it is like to be a real pastor. Since Jan and I owned our own home in St. Louis Park and didn't want to have to rent it out for a year, I put in a request to stay in the Minneapolis area that year. Plus, my internship supervisor recommended that I have a more traditional Lutheran church experience since my church background had been anything but traditionally Lutheran.

In early 1982, a few weeks before I was to receive my internship assignment, Jan's mom called from Sun City, Arizona. Arizona was nowhere on my radar. I was only aware of it because Jan's folks spent 5 months there each winter.

Jan's mom called to say she had visited Community Church of Joy in Glendale. Her good friend's brother, Walt Kallestad, was the pastor there.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was aware of Walt from the days he lead a singing group in the Minneapolis area.

Jan's mom was calling to ask if we might be interested in doing our internship at Community Church of Joy.

A bit of background. Jan's mom was a deeply committed Christian. She had a singing/speaking ministry mainly for Christian women's groups. She was on the conservative side of Christianity and didn't have a lot of appreciation for the Lutheran understanding of the Gospel. She was always a bit concerned about my theology, though I know she deeply appreciated my commitment to Christ and the church. So she wanted to do her part to get me to a good church.

What I didn't know at the time of the phone call was that she had approached Walt after the attending Joy and asked if they would be interested in an intern. Walt, always the optimist, said, Sure! Even though he hadn't thought about it! Jan's dad was a very successful businessman and he and Jan's mom offered to finance our internship.

So...she called that day to ask if we would be interested in Glendale, AZ.

I told Jan, to very politely tell her mom, "I would prefer God to decide where I do my internship, not your mom!"

We ended up in Glendale, AZ. There is one power greater than the power of God...the power of a mother-in-law.

So, near the top of my list of early influencers are Jan's folks, Vic and Phadoris Wallestad. God used them to connect us to Joy! It was the best gift possible!

In March of 1982 Jan and I flew down to Phoenix to meet with Walt for the first time. It was chamber of commerce weather. And Walt and I hit if off immediately, a friendship and partnership that would last 20 years! Walt's vision for ministry and Community Church of Joy were everything I dreamed of since the second grade. I often told people God created me for Joy and Joy for me.

We officially started our internship in August of 1982. My brother, Jeff, and I drove to Phoenix from Minneapolis and arrived on a day when the temp was about 118 degrees! I thought I had arrived in hell! This wasn't the Phoenix I saw in March!

But weather aside, it was a fantastic year. Joy was still meeting in their first phase building, an almost full-sized gym with a couple of small rooms attached. I was officed in trailer. The congregation was close to breaking ground on a new worship center when we arrived.

Walt had been at Joy about 5-6 years prior to my coming. He had gone through a painful transition process with the congregation, moving it from an inward, traditional Lutheran congregation to a outward-looking, contemporary Lutheran congregation. The worship services were vibrant and alive. There was a continual buzz in and around the church day in and day out. And the congregation was growing at a phenomenal rate. Over 60% of those joining were from a non-church going background.

The purpose of internship is to experience first hand what it's like to be a pastor. And Walt was a terrific supervisor. From the first day he let me dive into every facet of ministry from weddings to baptisms and communion to preaching to teaching to counseling to sitting in on board meetings. I essentially functioned as a pastor for that year. It was great.

The other purpose of internship is to begin to discover gifts/strengths and areas for work. Again, my internship was perfect. I discovered I was not a youth director as I lead the youth for two months until the new youth director came on board. I grew the group from 50 to 5 in those two months! I knew I loved preaching and that gift/passion was affirmed on internship. I also discovered a passion for teaching.

While on internship Walt introduced me to a fairly new movement in the church--the Church Growth Movement. The movement focused on how the church could do a better job at reaching those unconnected to the church. I read a bunch of books on the subject while I was on internship. One of the seminal moments in my early thinking was the Robert Schuller Leadership Conference. The Church Growth Movement spoke to my passion for seeing the church becoming the place for evangelism once again.

The highlight of that 12 month experience was the birth of our son, Mike, born March 3, 1983.

The year went far too quickly and we had to head back to St. Paul to finish out my last year of seminary. Because I had taken summer school, I graduated from Luther in March of 1984. In order to be officially ordained, one needs to have been called to a congregation to serve. To my delight, Joy issued me that call. So on March 4, 1984, in a Minneapolis blizzard, I was ordained. On March 5, 1984, we headed back to Phoenix to begin our first year of ministry at Community Church of Joy.