Hello! Intern Here!

Easter Sunday at Red Rocks
Hearing Bishop Jim Preach

Hello readers of the Rocky Mountain Synod! My name is Kaari von Bernuth and I am serving as the Synodical Life Intern at the Office of the Bishop this summer. One of my main tasks is to find out the cool and amazing ways that you (yes, you) are doing God’s work in the world, and to share that with the rest of the synod!

As a college student there were times when I feel really disconnected from the world and the church. I’m very involved in the Lutheran Campus Ministry (LuMin) at Colorado State University (Go Rams!), but even that felt somewhat separated from the rest of the church. As I began the process of becoming an Intern at the Office of the Bishop I began to think of how this position could be a position of connection. How could I help make the connection of Campus Ministry to the rest of the church more apparent? And even bigger than that, how could I help connect congregations and ministries around the Synod to each other? El Paso is very far away from Fort Collins, but we’re still a part of the same Synod. How can we be connected to each other?

As an English major, the answer was pretty obvious to me: stories. Our stories are what define us and what connect us. If I could share the stories of amazing things happening in our synod, the stories that define us, that could help connect us and also inspire us to try new amazing ministries.

So, this summer I’ll be traveling around to different places to hear your stories and learn about the amazing things that are happening in our Synod. This includes an eight day roadtrip with the Youth Discipleship Team (don’t know what that is? Go to this link! https://www.rmselca.org/faith-formation/youth-discipleship-team) to all five states in the Rocky Mountain Synod. We’ll be making stops in Broomfield, Cheyenne, Casper, Salt Lake, Grand Junction, Albuquerque, El Paso, and Colorado Springs. Are you from there and have a cool story of ministry happening in your community? Email me and we can try to arrange a meeting! Not from one of those places but still have a cool story of God’s work happening? Still email me and we can still make something work. I want to be able to hear all of the amazing things that are happening around our synod.

And, be checking back to this blog to hear all of these stories! My hope is that these stories of congregations doing amazing ministry can help us to learn from each other, and grow as a church. Hearing other people’s stories can inspire us to do more, maybe start something new, and most importantly, the stories of amazing ministry can inspire us to share God’s love and grace in our communities in new ways. Remember: We are church, better together! Let’s use our connections to do God’s work.