where you come from & where you go: reflections on transition

Hello friends -

I hope you've all been well this month. Things have been busy since I've wrapped up my January term course, working at the bakery primarily. This weekend I had the opportunity to go to Marcell and spend time with my grandparents, visit my St. Andrew's family, and see good friends. It was a refreshing two days in the midst of life's busyness. My girlfriend, Lauren, came along with me.

It was a chance to laugh, to play "Spit" the card game, to drink bad coffee and make messy pizza dough. It was time for Nancy Raymond's amazing apple pie, for the love between us prayer, for asking the same question five times and for honest conversation. It was a time to give away bread, to hug good friends, and to wish for big things as I enjoyed the silence.

I was surrounded today not by cars and tall buildings and busy people but by birds, trees, and silence that hung like a cloak around us but I soaked in every second. I took the time to listen to how the snow crunched under our feet as we walked along the lake, and how the snow fell on the ground and covered the cabin deck.

We went to church yesterday at my old ministry internship site, St. Andrew's Lutheran in Grand Rapids. Got to hear the timely words - while we may be ordinary people, with God we are super (it was Camp Sunday at St. A's, the camp's theme being "superheroes") and catch up with Myrna and Pastor David and Pastor Megan and know that I was welcome. It is such a refreshing congregation to be a part of. Afterwards we went to brunch with my great-aunt and got to catch up briefly on what they were up to. How Florida was fun and life was good.

We made homemade pizza for dinner and I messed up the dough and had milk running all over the counter. Turned out nonetheless. Lauren and I later mixed ourselves E&J and Coke and watched Despicable Me 2 and laughed at the minions.

I left this morning thankful for those places and spaces and people in Marcell and Grand Rapids who have woven themselves into the fabric of my life. I returned to the Cities to drop off Lauren, and was surrounded, once again, by loud cars and houses and concrete. I have to remind myself that this life in the Cities will last just a few more months. Then I'm out - doing ministry and being among God's people in smaller places, where the silence is too big and not enough and the hardships are all too well remembered. My pastor always told me to remember how I felt leaving and place and returning somewhere else - for there lies my call.

I ask you this night - what are you thankful for? Who are the people, places, and spaces that have come into your life? Where and what is your God-given calling?

Joy, my friends - thanks be to God.

Dean

"You Are My Son, the Beloved" - a sermon for the community of Bethel Lutheran Church, Herman, MN

Hello friends -

Today at preached at Bethel Lutheran, in Herman, Minnesota - a small town in the northwest part of the state of about 400 people. I went with my classmate Jon Rundquist, who led worship. Adventures were had along the way - stopping to see the prairie views, and stopping at the local haunts - namely the local convenience store, for breakfast. The saints at Bethel Lutheran are wonderful people, and it was a privilege that they welcomed us for worship this morning. Here's the sermon I gave for the community:

You are my Son, the Beloved

Friends, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God’s beloved Son, Jesus the Christ. Amen. It is a joy to be with you today. I bring you greetings from Luther Seminary and sincere thanks that you have welcomed us to join you in worship this morning. My name is Dean Safe, and I’m joined by my classmate Jon Rundquist. We’re second year students at Luther Seminary both preparing to be pastors.

Jon and I both grew up in small town and rural contexts. I’m the son of a seventh generation farming family, who was raised on a 30-head Holstein dairy farm. My parents, when we were farming, never had much money. We lived lives of scarcity and hope for much of my first 16 years. Farm equipment was unpredictable, crop and milk prices always going up and down and crashing. My parents were consistently making choices between buying medicine and buying food. One memory I vividly recall is going to town with my dad in his ’85 Chevy Silverado. It was in the coldest days of winter, and there was snow flying through the back window. We were bundled up and the heat was on, but it didn’t make much of a difference. My dad couldn’t afford to fix it, as we needed groceries for the week. He attempted to make a joke – “Isn’t it cool, son? It’s not too often you get to ride in a truck with it’s own personal snow globe!” Life on the prairie wasn’t easy, but it indeed came with blessing. I was taught to live in communion with family – how to work with a team. How to trust friends. How to trust God. There was joy amidst the hardships. There were moments of clarity in the wilderness.

`When I found out from Pastor David that I would be preaching here, particularly on this text, I was delighted. There’s so much to say, and much to consider. In today’s reading from the Gospel of Mark, we begin with John the Baptist. We have seen John in earlier texts this month proclaiming the One who is to come among us. His work, primarily, is as a forerunner and baptizer of the people. With this understanding, this is where we first encounter John in this text. John is baptizing at the Jordan, and throngs of people are coming to him. There’s energy here – the gathered community of people is being baptized and sins are being forgiven. People are being washed anew and given life. There aren’t any rules. That’s my favorite part. There’s wilderness, there’s no exclusions. Everyone – regardless of belief, social order, and family status – is being baptized. It’s by no means tame or orderly or restrictive.

It would be easy for John to take credit for all of this. It would be easy for John to point to himself as something greater. But instead, he doesn’t. John stands on the banks of the Jordan and says that “Indeed, there is someone more powerful than I coming after me.” If anyone knows humility, it’s this man. John wears camel’s hair, eats wild honey and locusts and baptizes people but does it in the name of God. He speaks of the One who is coming as he says, “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” John does this to be clear. His is not the one to be followed, adored, or commemorated. It’s interesting to note, too, that in Mark’s Gospel John does not explicitly name Christ, but I believe it can be inferred. Jesus, the savior of the whole world, the one who is just about to begin his public ministry, is the one who will baptize with the Spirit and seal us as children of God.

This crossroads moment in the latter half of the text has always inspired me – because it’s still applicable today as when it was written. Jesus, after being baptized by John, hears the words of God – “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.” This authorizes Jesus’s earthly ministry and is the send-off for his roughly three years of work in the public arena – healing, teaching, preaching, eating, and throwing over tables. This baptism is the beginning of a religious and political revolution where the marginalized are included and the dead are raised and the poor are given something to eat. This baptism by John with the Holy Spirit show how God uses humanity to complete God’s work. This baptism is where God calls Christ God’s Beloved. This baptism of Christ is the clarion call for us all to participate. Even now in 2015. And what a beautiful and frightening call this is.

You may be thinking, what does this mean? My friends, our baptism into Christ’s Church and into this family is only the beginning. Our journey in the Christian story doesn’t end after we’re sprinkled with water, by no means. Baptism is where we are named, called, and claimed as children of God. Our baptism is where God says that each and every one of us is God’s beloved. Our baptism gives us an invitation to live into all of what God has promised – to live lives of mercy, justice, and hope for the whole world and for ourselves in our everyday lives. We are invited to live lives rooted in community – to be exactly what American culture says we should not be. We are called to be authentic and honest with each other as we work out of our Christian understanding. We are, indeed, to be the face of Christ to our friends, to our neighbors, to strangers, to the poor, and to those who make us uncomfortable. We can live fully into what Mark is promoting here – community that is inclusive, joyful, and anything but tame.

I realize that all of that sounds nice and ideal, but we know better. This passage doesn’t preclude that things will be easy, either. Jesus’s baptism is in the wilderness. The heavens are torn open. It’s real, and it’s honest. We all know what awaits Christ – the eventuality of the cross. Jesus baptism in this passage is, yes, an ordaining of public ministry and an acknowledgement of status as God’s son – but it is so much more than that. This washing in the Jordan seals what Christ is to fulfill. Living as a servant-king, Jesus is eventually to be condemned to death for the sake of the world.  There are parallels to be drawn here. Our baptism in Christ doesn’t promise us an easy life. We live with proverbial wilderness in our own lives. We’re human. We fight, we disagree, and we bicker. We get hurt, and it becomes all too easy to hurt others back. We deal with relationship strain, financial problems, depression, job loss, and a host of other things that life just seems to throw our way sometimes. Our lives on the prairie and in small towns are sometimes filled with hardships that seemingly have no answers. Our baptism calls us and claims us, yes, but we are still faced with the everyday unpleasant realities we face in our humanness. This is where our baptism changes the story, however. We wander through the wilderness for some seasons of our lives – but we live with the expectation and hope that God has the final say.

That’s the beauty of it all. We are baptized into Christ with water and the Holy Spirit, called and claimed by God for community. We are called into participation. We are called to be promise. We are called in baptism to practice resurrection, dying and rising, every single moment of the day. We can live with this hope that no matter what hardships we endure, God has the final say. God gives reconciliation in our brokenness, and joy in our fear. Our baptisms are made complete in death when God actively reconciles every person to God’s self. We are assured that death has no power. In baptism, when we die, it is finished. Christ has won. And what a beautiful promise that is in our Christian story.

I leave you today with this: I encourage you throughout the week to notice where you see baptism in your life; where you see Christ’s promise at work in your day to day being. How does God call you God’s Beloved? For I promise you – God’s love is alive and fresh and real. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dean

Clinical Pastoral Education

Hello, friends -

It is finished. My clinical pastoral education (CPE) experience this fall semester has come to it's conclusion. I thought I would post a poem that I wrote specifically for inclusion in my final evaluation.

This is the first piece I've written since I graduated college. I wrote this to hopefully capture some of the poignant and difficult moments that summed up the experience.

The road was flanked in green that day

as I drove in anxiety. I was missing things.

My dog, the way the corn stalks waved

in the hazy midafternoon light. I wanted

I wanted nothing more than a cup of coffee

on the porch and to listen to my brother’s laughter

as he says you bastard.

I don’t know what I have left, you know, to live for

she told me. Machines whirring, air hot and too stuffy.

I say something, what, I don’t remember.

I leave that day, shutting the door, face warm.

I’m not made for this.

How are things?

They were really shitty this week.

Yeah?

Yeah. Sat with a man who had chronic pancreatitis said his world was crashing

down around him and he doesn’t know what else to do and there’s nothing but

silence.

I’ve never known grace, at least not like this woman does:

I’ve got a year left. I wanna go plant a garden and sit in the sun

and be with my grandchildren because they can’t be without me

and I want them and my husband and we bought a house

and I have all these questions about God but in the end

I know that God does love us. Loves me.

A garden. Sun. Family. Despair. Liver cirrhosis. Grace.

The woman struggles to breathe.

Thank you for your presence.

I see her five more times. I’m joyful.

I guess I’m thankful you wanna be my friend.

Yeah, me too.

The road was flanked in orange that day,

as I went to class. Listen to voices on suffering,

Psalms. Lament. Crucifixion. My mind,

it wanders. I want to go home, to the cows

and fields and dusty hay.

They don’t carry sorrow.

Do you have any fresh words for us, chaplain?

Ragged breathing stopped, expectant eyes gaze.

I speak words of promise and hope and grief

but in the moment I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.

I stay later. Give more hugs. Drive the way home, in tears.

The road was flanked in brown that day,

a sign that winter is here but not yet.

I leave, I breathe, I rejoice. It’s all becoming clear:

I’m made for this. 

In other news - I've bought 10 pounds of flour and a giant jar of yeast. Time to begin Christmas break bread baking! 

God's peace, friends - 

Dean 

Waiting

Dear friends - 

Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and God's Son Jesus the Christ - 

It's been a whirlwind, these past few weeks. I haven't updated lately for the sake of finishing papers, completing classes, and being at the hospital. It's been busy. 

I hate that. I hate using that excuse, yet I do it all the time, as many of us do. As 21st century Americans who are working, in graduate school, invested in living our privileged lives as it is - we're busy. We're tired, we're overworked, we're exhausted, we're sick. We're tired of it all, and just are hoping for a break. 

I've been reflecting on Advent - on how Advent is supposed to be this season of hope and expectation and waiting and patiently waiting and waiting some more for the Christ child to come to Earth God incarnate - Emmanuel, God with us.

Let me ask – how many of you are actually waiting? How many of you are waiting in hopeful expectation? I’ll be the first to admit I’ve failed at this.

It’s difficult it is for us to do that. We can't wait. We can't sit. We have a really hard time dealing with expectation. We want things now; we’re rushing to get the next thing done or crossed off our to-do-list, we want instant gratification, because we're busy. 

I ask you to pause for a moment. Consider these:

My last weeks of my clinical pastoral education experience have been involved with a 21-year-old boy who is dying of bone cancer. I read psalms with him and held his hand for over an hour, have prayed with him, and have simply sat with him. The boy, who has become the adopted son of us staff at the hospital, has gotten every wish: friend plantains, Chinese food, a new computer. His family isn’t able to come from Nigeria as he passes, and it’s looking like he has a matter of days.

I read Psalm 6 to him the other day, and it puts his situation in a new light: where it talks about anguished bones and how long, how long O Lord?

How, in the season of Advent, do you think this boy is waiting? Where do you think Christ is breaking into his life?

I was called in to the hospital on Monday night to sit with a family of 9 people who had a woman dying – their daughter, mother, sister, friend – who was only 43 years old. I went into the room and was faced with expectant eyes. The room was warm, silent, except for the woman’s ragged, drawn breaths. They had a space for me right in the middle of the family. One by one, I went to each person, taking my time getting the background, learning stories. Memories were shared. Laughter went around, and doughnuts were passed. “Silent Night”, that old Christmas hymn, was played and tears formed as they sang “sleep in heavenly peace”. My heart broke as I reflected on the fact that a husband and wife had to bury their daughter, and that a girl who was about my age was about to lose her mother.

I stayed with the family through the advent of the woman’s death, leaving twice to give them space as a family as the time drew near. Upon her death, the family turned and looked to me, and after some deep sobs and tears and hugs, asked “Chaplain, do you have any fresh words?”

Thank God for the promise of the resurrection – I was able to bestow words of peace, allowance for grief, and promises of God’s safekeeping as the woman joined the church triumphant. I waited for a few more moments, exchanged hugs and words of consolation as deeply as I could, waited some more for any final conversation, and left, driving the way home in tears. 

In Advent, what does waiting look like for this family? Where do you think Christ is breaking into their lives?

In the midst of this season, I ask you to pause.

Breathe.

Stop for awhile.

It could be a hell of a lot worse.

I hope each of you these days to take some time to stop. To live into what Advent calls us to in preparation for the Christ child’s birth. To wait, and give thanks for the beautiful lives that surround and fulfill each and every one of you. To live more deeply and fully into the life that God has called you to. That’s been a blessing in my CPE experience – I am learning daily how to live more fully into the life that God has given me – as Dean, as friend, as brother, as son, as pastor, as chaplain.

With this, I leave you.

Where do you see Christ breaking into your lives? Where are you waiting? What is God calling you to in this season of your life?

Thanks be to God, my friends. Amen.

Dean  

"Living Into Pastoral Identity" - Huh?

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Creator and our Savior Jesus the Christ -

It's 6:28pm. In about an hour I'm going to take off to see my girlfriend in Eagan. It's quiet in my little 546-square-foot apartment at Luther Seminary, and I'm hankering for an apple right now. I've got Corelli on in the background and I have an application essay on the screen. Letting it sit and settle for a bit before deciding on edits and changes.

I'm applying for a Fellowship. A Fellowship to Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE). It's basically a two-week intensive where students from the fields of medicine, law, journalism, and theology gather together at Auschwitz and other prominent Holocaust sites to discuss the pressing contemporary ethical issues affecting the people we serve through our chosen vocations. I think it would be an amazing experience that I would grow from as I continue down the path to ordination and rostered pastoral ministry. When I say this, I am aware that there's no guarantees. I still need to finish my application and doing some waiting, as decisions aren't emailed until February 1st. I'm competing with kids from Harvard and Yale, but I figure you don't stand a chance if you don't even try. I'm gonna go for it and see what happens!

I'm applying for a Fellowship. This feels like the first big thing I've done as, now, reluctantly, a man of the academy. There's a distinct tension there. Throughout my seminary career, I've felt out of place. Coming to the cities, indeed, was a substantial culture shock. Take a kid from small town, rural southeastern Minnesota and transplant him into MSP and see how he does, really. I've always felt drawn back to home, to the farm. I get out of here every chance I can. I want nothing more than to serve in a rural context; be pastor to a small congregation. I'm noticing more and more, however, that my identities are becoming distinct. What I once was, a farm kid living in the country, is now being traded for and replaced by a man going to seminary in the cities who is finally learning what it means to follow God's call. I'm not sure how I feel about this, honestly. I claim my rural roots with all that I am, but somehow, I feel like being here in Lauderdale isn't being honest or authentic. I don't know if that made sense. It is what it is.

It won't necessarily change when I get out in the parish. We talk about "living into our pastoral identity", or whatever that's supposed to mean. When I get into my small rural church, I won't be knitted into the fabric of the community. I will be pastor. I will be "the other", one whose career is placed upon a pedestal and my perceived image along with it. That's the thing. I don't want that. I want to be a pastor, but I want to be real with people. I want to be able to swear and drink beer and hang out in the community as I do when I'm in Cannon Falls, at home. I identify so, so strongly with place and relationships, and it will be different to be in a role where I'm approachable, but where I have to place boundaries on friendships. In the parish, I can be friends, but I can't be your friend. The whole trust-power dynamic that plays into being a pastor, ya know?

"Living into pastoral identity". Does that mean growing to the point where you are always in your pastoral role? What will this mean for my girlfriend, Lauren? Am I as much a pastor at a Friday night football game as I am at the bakery on Wednesday mornings as I am preaching Sunday at worship? Does that allow for any differentiation? Will I be able to go back home and be a brother to my brothers, or am I supposed to be pastor even there, too? How much, honestly (as the endorsement essay prompt indicates), are our lives "above reproach"?

"Living into pastoral identity". I realize that us pastor types, we are set apart namely for administering the sacraments and ensuring proper teaching and preaching of God's Word entrusted to us. I realize that as pastors we are representatives of the Church, and we do indeed point to something beyond ourselves - we preach Christ crucified and are to be advocates of that message to our people. What about when I just want to bullshit with my friends and be Dean, not Pastor Dean or Reverend Safe?

That's the first time I've written those titles next to my name. Gah. Weird. Maybe that's a step into "living into pastoral identity". Recognizing that for myself. Maybe the rest will come later. I want to be pastor, but I also just want to be Dean. I want to be there with my farmer parishioners who are concerned about crops or losing their farms while also being able to be a advocate for something larger than myself. I want to be able to be authentic and real and honest without having a preconceived notion of who I am because of my role, because of my vocation.

Maybe there's no answer to those questions.
Maybe it's something we're supposed to wrestle with, to contend with.
Maybe right now, that's okay.

Peace, my dear friends -
Dean

Being Rural, Being Radical, Being Church - Get Set for the Millennial Clergy Wave

Friends in Christ - Grace and peace to you this day from God our Creator and our Lord Jesus Christ:

Reading Emmy Kegler and Eric Worringer's blog post last week, and after reading the Rev. Charles Austin's article in The Lutheran (which the aforementioned co-authored blog post was written in response to); I decided to pair up with my co-CPE Chaplain and fellow Luther Seminary Middler, Jon Rundquist to write a response to both posts as well - to add more voices.

Ultimately, more voices are what we need. Ultimately, we think Millennials have proved their worth at making their voices heard. Through movements like Occupy Wall Street and many other vocal protestations of the issues affecting our generation and our contexts, we have been able to effectively raise our concerns. This is our take on what it means to be and do church going forward into a “shifting” American religious climate.

Both Dean and Jonathan’s upbringings consist of a primarily Small Town/Rural story. We are concerned with BEING the church and DOING church in a way that may be perceived as “radical”, but more important, what is life-giving to (particularly) rural people in a shifting world. Where oftentimes rural folk are neglected, or considered “fly-over country”; where churches are closing left and right; where rural people are aging - how can we as millennial pastors become passionately invested in being the church for these people whose lives are changing just as often without much say in the matter, and who are afraid of being forgotten? How can we be the radical, life-giving Church to a people whose histories are valued, whose traditions are near-sacred?

Radical and life-giving… Like The House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado.

Thus, we’d like to address the ‘Nadia Problem’ that Emmy and Eric make reference to. It has been a concern of ours as well. They write, “We have witnessed the rise and popularity, and celebrated the work of Nadia Bolz-Weber, but we also have an issue with it.  Not because of anything she has said or done, or because she is tattooed, crass-mouthed, or too progressive or too orthodox, but because she does not represent the actual ELCA.  She has been raised up and celebrated as a voice, particularly before our youth and young adults, as "a new way of doing church," putting the "evangelical" in "Evangelical", and so on.  Then we send kids home from Youth Gatherings and college weekends and seminary visits to places where church continues in much the same way it always has.”

Yes. Precisely. We wholeheartedly agree.

They continue, “Our concern, which again is brought up by this article, is that because Nadia has become an example, it allows the institution to use her image and ministry while still largely continuing on its own path, rife with institutional anxiety and attitudes of scarcity, and bemoaning the loss of a generation of institutional pastors.  We continue to produce leaders equipped to explain what it means to be Lutheran (using our institutional memory), when what the world hungers for is a real and meaningful experience of a God worthy of worship and service. What we pray and yearn for is not an institution with one Nadia as an example, but a transformational generation of leaders of all ages that are able to cope and proclaim the Gospel as well as she has.”

We’ve had some thoughts as of late, on our down time from CPE at Unity Hospital, that may ALSO seem “radical” at first. But as we state above, radical is how we need to look at how we DO Church. As the church is “shifting” in its identity (in our post-Christendom world where the church can no longer assume that people will come through the doors), we as millennial pastors-to-be are called to find ways to bring the church to the people without the pretense of “doing church”. Rather, as pastors, we are called to bring ourselves; our broken, ordinary, foul-mouthed selves and some bread and some wine and gather around a common space and say, “Hey. I have this message. I have this bread and wine. There’s community here, and I’m a sinner amongst you. Let’s talk.” It’s in doing this; in getting outside of the church walls, in losing the expectation that people must come to the church, where these radical acts of ministry will suddenly not be so “radical”. Radical, different, and earnest as we see these things now will be the new normal. We envision a world where pastors are out on the streets and sidewalks in the small towns and big cities with the homeless and poor and marginalized and everyone would recognize it as being the Church.

“Radical” congregations do indeed exist. They’re the ones with the hip names like, ‘Jacob’s Porch’, ‘Mercy Seat’, ‘Solomon’s Porch’, among others. Our point is this: Radical doesn’t need to have a hip name. Radical doesn’t need to be in a major metropolitan area to BE Church. A rural congregation of 15 people wondering where their hope has gone is no less doing amazing acts of ministry in living out God’s call. Radical can indeed be found in, as Emmy and Eric feel, “church[es] marked by “Scandinavian” jokes, cultural enclaves, Lake Wobegon stoicism, and endless conflict over any number of issues.”

Dean’s home congregation, Spring Garden Lutheran in rural Cannon Falls, Minnesota is the traditional white-clapboard country Lutheran church as described above, however now the church is finding itself having to respond to the clarion call for widespread social equality. With the 2009 Churchwide Statement on Human Sexuality, the pastors voiced their support. However, no conversations with the congregation have been held. How do we spread those words of equality, peace, and hope from the pulpit in ways that aren't considered so radical? Because they shouldn't be. Why do we need to consider being an advocate of marriage, gender and racial equality in the name of Christ an earth-changing position to hold?  

Jonathan’s congregation in which he grew up in, First Lutheran in Morris, Minnesota; is one of two ELCA congregations in Morris. Morris is a small community that has undergone many changes in the last 20 years, but has been recently undergone a new change: Latino immigration. Northern and Central European Lutheran, Catholic, and Anabaptist immigrants emigrated to the area in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, and because of the railroad and fertile farmground; populated many small communities in the surrounding counties. Now, Morris and other communities around rural Minnesota are experiencing a newer changing demographic by way of immigrants from other parts of the world. How can Morris and these other communities be a welcoming face to these ‘New Minnesotans’? How can we be the hands and feet of Christ, to our new neighbors? These, and other important questions are what face modern Small Town/Rural communities.

It’s no myth and it’s readily apparent that these Small Town/Rural settings ARE changing. Small Town/Rural dynamics are steadily shifting - ways of life for many rural folk are becoming unsettled. Specifically in agriculturally-based contexts, small family farms are quickly becoming a bygone era, with land being purchased and cultivated by large, corporate agriculture. Modern advances in production and agricultural technology means the need for less hands and workers in the field. Gone, by and large, are the days of the small, family farm where commitment and teamwork were imperative for a family’s survival.

This is what we will be walking into as future pastors.

In this haphazard, shifting era, the important question that needs to be asked is how do we do ministry with a renewed sense of what it means to be the rural church, and the Church at large? What, in this time and space, can the Church be to give her people hope? It begins with this, we think: this “radical” concept we talk about above should merely be the standard by which we as human beings sharing the Gospel and living lives of grace should hold ourselves to. In essence, there shouldn’t have to be this “radical voice” in the first place. Those “radical voices” should be the Church - plain and simple - in broken spaces and places and with the broken people, of whom we are a part. This ‘Nadia Problem’ shouldn't be such a big deal. The way Nadia has been doing ministry should just be the Church, period.

We feel, as (future) Lutheran pastors, that all clergy (future and current, lay and ordained) need to create those spaces for the marginalized and oppressed. This should be a Church-wide undertaking. It is, after all, our calling, hope and promise that takes root in the Gospel proclamation. We hope that this ideal is what all of us, as Christians with a public leadership role, are aspiring to do. This needs to be the Church, not just some poster image that we claim as our banner but in reality are just using to mask issues of injustices in denominational polity.

How we as young (future) pastors begin to do Church may be different than it has been in many years, but as Emmy and Eric assert, “Young leaders are of great value to our church, particularly because of the rapid rate of cultural change that has occurred since the birth of the ELCA. The innovative ideas that young leaders (both ordained and lay) can bring to our worship, programs, structure, and congregational life should be celebrated as greatly as the gifts of the "older generation" whose retirement is impending.” It’s time for us up-and-coming millennial pastors and Church leaders to get our hands dirty. To revitalize. To go out among our people and ask, “What gives you joy? What can we as the Church do for you?” To proclaim the Gospel of Christ, clearly and with emboldened clarity, and to pass bread and wine for the sake of the world which we are called to serve and be a part of.

We are called, sent, redeemed and emboldened Luther Middlers, adding our voices; opening our hearts; nailing our theses to the door. Now it’s your turn.

Here we stand - we can do no other:

Dean Safe and Jonathan Rundquist

Luther Seminary Master of Divinity Middlers

“All alone, or in two's,

The ones who really love you

Walk up and down outside the wall.

Some hand in hand

And some gathered together in bands.

The bleeding hearts and artists

Make their stand.

And when they've given you their all

Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy

Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall.”

"Outside the Wall" - Pink Floyd