Cohorts

As an ELCA pastor’s kid, Amy (she/her) was born into the Lutheran life. Her personal faith began to come alive as a kid attending Lutheran summer camp, and was forged as an adult in those same sacred, outdoor spaces in the midst of hikes, craft projects, quiet campfire songs and deep, authentic friendships.

Currently, her most demanding (and rewarding) gig is mom of two kids. That one doesn’t pay the bills, so she also works as a nonprofit consultant in rural, Northern California. In this role, she has supported a wide variety of good work around the world, including women’s empowerment organizations in Nepal, wilderness adventure programming in the Trinity Alps, cradle-to-career collaboration, community trauma healing and rural health system improvements in Shasta County. She is a Master Trainer for suicide intervention with LivingWorks, and a Certified Group Facilitator with the Center for Mind Body Medicine.

Amy joined the Episcopal Church as an adult and finds connection to God through music, volunteer work, and quiet, starry nights. She is “Type A” organized, but has learned to embrace the importance of emotions and authentic human connection in personal and professional settings. As a small group facilitator, her greatest joy is watching participants develop a deeper appreciation for their own unique brand of humanity, and a greater understanding of how authenticity (warts and all!) can catalyze deeper connections and greater joy.

Born on the Island of Barbados, raised in Brooklyn, NY, Antoine has spent time in Higher Education, working in the office of Student life and as an Adjunct Math Professor, Licensed tax professional, High School Math teacher and football coach. Curious about faith, young adults and leading service learning trips, he has also spent 12 years serving the ELCA in various capacities, including Director of Campus Ministry, Engagement Coordinator, Worship Leader and Community Organizer. Most recently, his passion for organizational change and leadership has led him into consulting for organizations serious about anti-racism, innovation, young adult engagement and discipleship. Although his journey has been uncharted and filled with many life-giving opportunities, the one thing that keeps him inspired is how much healing can be found in community; when we approach each other with a posture of humility and walk away from our interactions with a sense of awe and wonder! Within the ELCA, Antoine currently serves on the Commission for the Renewed Lutheran Church and Pacifica Synod as the Assistant to the Bishop for Anti-Racism Coordination.

Darryl W. Kozak is a Rostered Minister of Word and Sacrament serving Peace Lutheran Church in Corona, CA, and Bethany Lutheran Church in Norco, CA. He is also a Level 2 Coach and LabCoach/trainer with the ELCA. He is certified as a Care for Creation Coach, an End of Life and Grief Coach, and an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation. As an Associate (Oblate) of the Order of the Holy Cross, an Episcopal Benedictine community, Darryl has a deep passion for spiritual practices, and has practiced and taught centering prayer for over 25 years. He has also led retreats and workshops on prayer, walking the labyrinth, praying the daily office (the liturgy of the hours), and other spiritual disciplines. He enjoys a contemplative life grounded in Scripture and the writings of Christian mystics, especially the Desert Mothers and Fathers. He’s often said that two things get him up every day: God and music. Darryl is also a vocalist who has toured the USA and Europe as a featured soloist with various groups; he currently performs with a group in Palm Springs. He enjoys the outdoors and hiking, especially the desert. Darryl and his husband, Johnny, live in Corona, CA, with their family of many pets: a dog, three cats, a desert tortoise, and too many fish to count in multiple aquariums at home and at his church office.

Eric Bostrom(he/him) has served as an ordained pastor since 2003. He attended Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, Nebraska where he met his wife Rhonda, who is also an ordained pastor. After getting married in 1997, Eric and Rhonda headed off to Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. In 2004, they welcomed their daughter, Annika, and in 2006 they welcomed their son, Soren, into their family. Being a father is the hardest job and highest calling in his life. Eric has served in a variety of ministry contexts from small congregations, campus ministry, and on a staff team of a very large congregation. In 2010, Pastor Eric completed Seeking the Spirit Within, a two-year faith formation process to become a certified spiritual director.

Eric has discovered that running is the best way for him to care for his body, mind, heart, and soul. He’s kind of a Bible nerd and enjoys long theological/biblical conversations with anyone over coffee in the morning and over beer in the evening. He’s passionate about being a good steward of God’s creation and if you get him talking about electric vehicles, he won’t shut up. He loves the outdoors and exploring the outdoor wonderland of the Pacific Northwest.

Pr. Hallie is a recent transplant to Corvallis, Oregon. She likes to call Tacoma, WA home, though she has bounced between the Midwest (Iowa, Ohio, Nebraska) and West Coast (California, Washington, and Oregon) in many of life’s transitions. She studied cello and religion in undergrad, explored intentional faith communities at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and Holden Village in the wilderness of the North Cascades, and landed at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (MDiv 2019) for her seminary education. Her first call brought her home to Tacoma, WA, just a few months before the world would change with the pandemic. Sacramental life and gospel in the world took a different shape than she could have ever imagined. It was also in Tacoma that she began exploring a call to sacred organizing around climate justice in church and community life in Tacoma neighborhoods. In February of this year, Hallie was excited to risk big and take the call to young adult ministry with Luther House, the Lutheran Campus Ministry at Oregon State University. She was intrigued by the promise of “feral ministry,” the relationship building with young adults exploring spiritual life and vocation, and to help grow young adult ministry.

She lives with her spouse, Nate and a busy puppy named Beans. With joyful expectation, Hallie and her family will be welcoming a new baby any day now!

Pastor Jen Rude (she/her/hers) finds joy and meaning in serving as the University Pastor at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. She enjoys accompanying students, faculty, and staff in learning and discovery, engaging big enough questions, and imagining a different way to live that is more rooted in compassion, justice, meaning and purpose. In an attempt to not try to do all the things, but to do the right things, Jen is practicing paying attention to discern what the Spirit is already up to and seeking to join that creative energy. Before coming to PLU Jen served as the program director for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a national support and advocacy organization for LGBTQ+ pastors and seminarians, and as an Outreach Minister with The Night Ministry in Chicago, working with street based young adults. In 2007, Jen was extraordinarily ordained at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Chicago and served there as Associate Pastor. After policy change at the national level removed barriers for partnered LGBTQ clergy, Jen was received onto the ELCA roster in 2011. Jen received her Masters of Divinity from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA and her B.A. from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD. Jen enjoys hiking, cooking, brewing kombucha, the Enneagram, reading about minimalism/simple living, running, tending to her composting worms and exploring Tacoma and the Pacific Northwest with her spouse Deb Derylak.

My name is Joe Zimmerly and I serve as the Director of Children, Youth and Family Ministries at Mount Cross Lutheran Church in Camarillo, CA. Having participated in a TLF Cohort previously, I am looking forward to leading a group this year.

Hi, my name is Keith Weatherford (he, him, his). My wife of thirty-three years and I have five children, four who are adulting in their own homes and the youngest who remains in our home in Helena Montana. We are blessed with two grandsons. As a family, we enjoy the many outdoor activities that Montana has to offer.

After a thirty-year hiatus from academia, I attended Youth Certification School at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg (now United Lutheran Seminary ULS) in 2014/2015. I then found myself following and discerning a deeper sense of call. In the Fall of 2017, I returned to ULS to begin the journey of pursuing a Master of Divinity degree. In May 2022, I completed all the requirements and graduated from the Master of Divinity (MDiv) program at United Lutheran Seminary.

As a lifelong Lutheran, I have served in many different capacities as a lay person within the church. In terms of doing things in an “official” capacity, I was called to and worked as the Director of Youth Ministry at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Billings from 2014 through 2020. I had the joy of serving a detached Internship at Emmanuel Lutheran, “the little white church,” in Shepherd, Montana from August of 2021 through July of 2022. I began First Call with Saint John’s Lutheran in Helena, Montana in January 2023.

Laurie currently serves as Interim Pastor at St. Andrew Lutheran, in Beaverton , Oregon. She brings an ecumenical background, having served in the Presbyterian Church (USA) for over 20 years. Fellowship, Congregational Care, Stephen Ministry, Small Groups have been her areas of expertise. Interim ministry suits her now, as issues of transition, change and growth are ever present.

She is a mother to two young adult sons. She is passionate about social dancing, choral singing and music that makes community.

Pastor Meredith Harber (she/her) serves as the solo pastor to Christ Lutheran Church in Soldotna, Alaska.  Meredith, though born and raised in Pennsylvania, has found her way to Alaska by way of adventure and pure insanity.  When she’s not digging herself out from epic amounts of snow in the winter, she likes to cross country ski, visit breweries, play board games with friends, and rewatch The Office for the 257th time.  In the summer, you can find her hiking, backpacking, bike riding, doing projects around her house, attempting to garden, playing rugby, and watching The Office for the 258th time.  Meredith has two rescue pups, Jimmy and Ruthie, who both drive her insane and give her more love than she could imagine.  She is childless herself, but loves her godson and his brothers, as well as her nephews, more than life itself.  She is passionate about multicultural and multi faith dialogue, as well as attempting to learn how to accompany people in journeys unlike her own.  She is straight and cisgender, with a heart for Indigenous approaches to group formation and dynamics.  She is very white–as in, listens to murder podcasts and makes her own candles–but has been fortunate to do life in Bethlehem, Palestine, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and the Cherokee Nation.  She is a trained coach and works through her practice Faith Like Fireweed (http://www.faithlikefireweed.com/).  She participated in a TLF a few years back and is excited to help create space for others during this season!

Hi, I’m Michael TeKrony, a blessed Child of God.  For 35 years, I have had the joy to journey with my wife and experience together, God’s abundant life.  I am called into the ministry of Word and Sacrament and have had the privilege to serve for 18 and a half years in my first call in Colorado and now for a year and a half as interim pastor in Wyoming.  One of the joys I’ve had over the years is hearing peoples sacred stories of how God has been revealed to them on their life journey.  And, I love how the Spirit is revealed through spiritual practices.  Photography is one of the practices that continues to invite me to be present and focus on what is right in front of me, right now.  Or, to put it Biblically, “Be still and know, God is God.”

Mollie (she/they) is a San Diego native currently working on her PhD in femme chronic pain and hysteria in antiquity and the modern American healthcare system. Before becoming a pediatric hospice chaplain, she ran a tiny private practice where she specialized in trauma counseling for the LGBTQ community, disability community, as well as domestic violence and narcissistic abuse recovery. She’s passionate about bioethics, Carole King, pasta, pharmacology, iced tea, and her growing library. She recently started a theology podcast named En Gott with one of her PhD colleagues.ed

Pastor Monica Butler serves a joint call to Lutheran Episcopal Campus Ministry and Immanuel Lutheran Church in Greeley, CO. She is committed to cultivating communities of faith and belonging that embody God’s transforming love in the world. Pastor Monica is a graduate of Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Art History. Before coming to Greeley, she served as The Rev. Dr. John S. Damm Pastoral Intern at Saint Peter’s Church, New York City and worked in education at art museums in Santa Fe, NM and San Francisco, CA. She loves hiking, road cycling, knitting, and a good novel.

Nate Sutton (he/him/his) has served as pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in downtown Puyallup, Washington, since 2015. He graduated from Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and was ordained in Augustana Chapel in 2013, the culmination of a winding journey to ministry leadership. His sense of call is rooted in a love for God’s reign of mercy and justice, embodied in part in congregational gathering around the word and sacraments, and expressed in part in the congregation’s response to God’s call to follow the crucified and risen Christ back out into the world for the sake of love. His areas of greatest interest include theology with an emphasis on theology of the cross, ministry leadership, worship and spiritual formation, ecclesiology, language and other arts, political economy, and history with an emphasis on the history of racism and the movement for racial justice. Prior to seminary, he taught sixth grade English and history in South Los Angeles and traveled with a children’s theatre troupe in North and South Dakota and Minnesota. He shares his life with Bethany, a mental healthcare provider, and together they raise two children, ages 7 and 3.

I am Sabi Elizabeth Aitiya and a member of Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria. I grew up in the Lutheran church, I am a sustainability and global citizenship educator with about seven years’ experience in the field of sustainability education that spans across environmental education, sustainability and climate change education.

I have served for over 8 years in Lutheran ministry, congregational youth and women ministry and served on the staff of the state education management board. I am married to a LUTHERAN Pastor and we have 2 children. I care deeply about the church and its leadership and was part of the first cohort climate justice and faith by PLTS and has also been involved in faith-rooted community organizing in various contexts and that of GreenFaith international. Professionally, I hold an M.sc. in ERM from the Moddibo Adama University Yola.

I am deeply committed to forming faithful leaders equipped to mobilize individuals and communities of faith to make a difference in the world by taking risks, collaborating with others, and acting on our faith to make a difference in our communities.

Susan Berg (she, her) is a native Pacific Northwesterner and lifelong Lutheran. She earned degrees from both Pacific Lutheran University and Seattle University. Susan loves photography, reading, Netflix-ing, (card & board) gaming, walking by salt water or in the woods, camping, kayaking, and traveling with her husband. She has two amazing young adult children – whom she will brag about if you ask (and sometimes even when you don’t.)

From early days as a camp counselor to her present role as Director of Communications & Events on the Northwest Washington Synod staff, Susan’s work experiences have been both inside and outside of the church, including 12 years working alongside her ordained spouse. Through it all, she has tried to listen to where the Holy Spirit has nudged her to use her gifts.

Over the last few years, the Spirit has led Susan into some tough and joy-filled conversations with other partners of clergy. Inspired by these connections, you are invited to join this cohort journey and discover fellow friends in this unique role in the church.

Rev. Wayne R Shipman (He/Him) pastors two ELCA congregations in southeast Idaho. Wayne is a second-career pastor and MDiv graduate of United Lutheran Seminary in Pennsylvania. He serves as president of the Portneuf Valley Interfaith Fellowship in Pocatello, ID and as Dean of the Upper Snake River Cluster of NWIM Synod. Wayne still enjoys learning together with others in a relaxed teaching environment.

Originally an East Coast kid from New Jersey, he and his spouse Janet are enjoying their explorations of the Pacific Northwest. Wayne gets a lot of satisfaction from fusing glass as an art form and faith expression, often making crosses of many colors and designs.