Dear friends and members of Luther Memorial,

Greetings on behalf of the associate pastor call committee.

I am writing to let you know that we have completed work on Luther Memorial’s Ministry Site Profile. The site profile is an ELCA document that summarizes who we are as a congregation and what gifts we seek in our next associate pastor. The call committee met six times since the end of December with five of those meetings focused specifically on completing this profile. On March 6, the congregation council voted to accept the completed profile and forwarded it to Bishop Mary Froiland.

Thank you for your prayerful consideration and conversations. We received 86 responses to the congregational survey, and along with email correspondence and personal conversations, carefully drafted the profile based on a wide variety of congregational input. The profile may be found online at www.luthermem.org. Paper copies are available at the welcome desk or you may contact the church office if you would like a print copy mailed to you.

A couple highlights of our ministry site profile:

Summary “We are seeking an associate pastor to serve collaboratively at a mid-sized congregation in the heart of the UW-Madison campus. Our congregation has a rich history of classic western liturgy and music, enhanced by our gothic revival nave. We seek an associate pastor who will attend to the sacramental life of our parish and participate in all ministry, including worship, preaching, teaching, pastoral care, outreach, and family ministry.”

For whom are we searching?  Ministry tasks were identified directly through responses to the congregational survey. Out of a list of forty ministry tasks, the following five were chosen (in alphabetical order) as the most critical in our search for our next associate pastor: pastoral care and visitation, preaching/worship, social ministry, spiritual formation/direction, and youth and family ministry.

Thank you for your continued prayer and support. The committee’s next task is to identify potential pastors whose gifts match the needs identified by the congregation and subsequently enumerated in our ministry site profile. We have also sent on to the Bishop all names of pastors lifted up by members of the congregation as possible associate pastors.  Our next step will be to conduct interviews. Once we have identified one candidate, we will recommend that person to the congregation council. At some point, a special congregational meeting will be called to vote on offering a call.

If you have any questions or concerns, please speak with a member of the call committee: Janice Ferguson, Sue Gaard (ex officio), Cliff Haaland, Bill Hunnex, Laura McGuire, Steve Neitzel, Pastor Brad Pohlman (ex officio), Beth Rahko, and Janet Zentner. I would like to personally thank them for their prayerful work and diligence on behalf of all of us here at LMC.

Please continue to keep members of the committee, the future associate pastor who will accept this call, and the people of Luther Memorial in your prayers. Thank you!

Blessings and Peace,
Dan Ruge, Call Committee Chair

Call Committee
Front row (L-R): Beth Rahko, Janet Zentner, Laura McGuire, Janice Ferguson.
Back row: Cliff Haaland, Dan Ruge (chair), Bill Hunnex, Steve Neitzel.
Not pictured: Pr. Pohlman, ex-officio.