photo of Intern Kim

Reaching Out to Our University Neighbors

          When I proposed the title, “Opening Doors: A Neighborly Ministry of Hospitality,” for my internship project to my seminary, my first thoughts gravitated towards finding creative ways to draw people inside the open doors of our church home and to offer an atmosphere of Christian hospitality; however, an open door has another and perhaps more important function.  It allows us to get out into the world, to leave these sheltered walls, and to meet our neighbors where they live.  Jesus’ ministry wasn’t centered in one place.  He didn’t just wait around Nazareth for people to come to him or center his ministry at the established temple in Jerusalem.  No, he went out to love and serve people where they lived.  So if we are now called to be Christ in the world we cannot be limited to only being hospitable inside these walls, waiting for our neighbors to come to us. We must venture out to meet, to serve, and to get to know people where they are.
          This is why we will be taking our gifts, talents, and hospitality to our neighbors at the University of Alaska, for a series of three dinner seminars on various topics within the larger subject of religion and science.  For each evening, we are inviting the students to join approximately 10 members of CLC for a pizza dinner, lecture, and discussion at the UAF Wood Center, Room’s C and D, from 6-7:30pm  (with setup by 5:30pm).
Seminar 1 – Tuesday, February 9th, 6-7:30pm – Religion and Science: Conflict, Coexistence or Cooperation? - Juan G. Roederer, Emeritus Professor of Physics, UAF
Seminar 2 – Tuesday, March 2nd, 6-7:30pm – Faith and Genetics: Power, Choice, and Responsibility – Intern Pastor Kimberly Carlson, Ph.D. and Michael Swenson, M.D.
Seminar 3 – Tuesday, March 30th, 6-7:30pm – Faith and Ecology – Presentation title and lecturer(s) TBA
          This is our opportunity to make CLC’s presence and love known to the students at the UAF.  Although I have organized this as a part of my internship project, this is a ministry of the whole congregation, and it is my hope that you will join me in being the face of CLC at these gatherings.  Signup sheets to help setup and be a part of the audience for each of these evenings will be posted on the bulletin board.  There will also be a signup sheet to help post fliers on bulletin boards at the UAF the week of each seminar.  Please consider helping with this if you work or study at the UAF.  I hope many will be able to join me in making this a welcoming evening of learning, conversation, and hospitality

Peace and blessings,
Intern Pastor Kim

 

A Note of Thanks.
Thank you!  What a wonderful surprise it was to return from my Christmas vacation to find such a generous Christmas monetary gift from the whole congregation waiting for me in my mailbox.  Thank you for this and all the many ways you have generously supported me throughout my internship. I am extremely blessed.

Peace and blessings,
Intern Kim

 

This page updated 2/22/10

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Christ Lutheran Church...God's work. Our hands. click for Alaska Synod website click for ELCA website

Christ Lutheran Church 1798 Iniakuk Ave. Fairbanks, Alaska 99709       (907)479-4947           clc@mosquitonet.com

©2010 Christ Lutheran Church of Fairbanks Alaska; backgrounds from Backgrounds Archive

photo of Intern Kim Kim Carlson

Greetings Christ Lutheran Church,

My name is Kim Carlson, and I will soon be serving as your intern for the 2009-10 academic year.  I feel extremely blessed to have such a fantastic location for my internship, and I am really looking forward to my time with you.  I want to share with you a little about the journey that has brought me to this point.  Although it is not exactly a straight or predictable path, it is one extremely blessed by God’s grace.

The first thing you should know about me is that I am not a cradle Lutheran. I was born and raised in Michigan in one of the suburbs of Detroit, but I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church. I am ecumenically minded, and my theological education reflects this perspective. Although I am coming to you from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, I have done the bulk of my theological studies at the Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, a very ecumenical Methodist seminary.  This spring marks the end of the academic portion of my theological studies.   With completion of my Lutheran year of study at LSTC in May, I fulfilled the requirements for my M.Div. from the Duke Divinity School.  So my internship represents the last major phase of my formal theological education.  Although I have not taken a route typical of most Lutheran seminarians, I have truly been blessed by the diversity of my experiences.

You should also know that ministry is not my first vocation.  Science was my first love.  After finishing my undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, I moved to Seattle to pursue a Ph.D. in bioengineering at the University of Washington, after which I took a position as an assistant research professor at Duke University.  In my research I strove to create novel materials for biomedical and biotechnology applications based on the structure and composition of remarkable natural materials, such as spider and silkworm silks and elastic proteins like the ones found in human tissues. Although God has called me out of science as a career, I will always be fascinated by it.  I suspect I will always have a keen interest the intersection between science and the Christian faith.

Without a doubt though, it is my personal life, which has presented the most unpredictable, challenging, and formative events of my life.  In the fall of 1992 I met the man who was to become my husband on my first day of graduate school.  Over the next 9 years Paul and I built a wonderful life together - first as friends and colleagues, later as a couple, and finally as husband and wife while we both studied toward our Ph.D’s and began our respective careers in biomedical research.  Sadly, six months after those careers began, our wonderful life together ended abruptly in January of 2001 when Paul died without warning from a fatal heart arrhythmia.  Losing Paul was totally devastating and completely overwhelming.  In my grief, when I had neither hope nor strength of my own, I cried to God for help.  God answered my cry and slowly healed my broken heart by leading me back into the church that I had abandoned for most of my adult life.  God and the church have shaped me in ways I could never have imagined and have blessed me tremendously, drawing me through my grief and eventually into a new vocation: a life in God’s service through ministry.

I am so looking forward to getting to know you all and spending my internship year in such a wonderfully different environment – even if it will be a bit of a shock to one who has grown accustomed to the mild winters of North Carolina.  I love the outdoors though.  I adore hiking, backpacking, and skiing, and Alaska is one of only four states I have not yet visited.  So I am sure a year in Fairbanks will be a fantastic adventure.  I have no doubt this year will be extremely important to my formation as a future pastor, and I am looking forward to discovering the ways in which God will shape all our lives this year.

Yours in Christ,  Kim Carlson

 

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