Kristina Fruge

Managing Director, CCV, 7 years this month!

I am celebrating the creation of our  written by young adults to the church. Over the past year plus, 22 authors have been gathered and supported through the writing of 11 distinct chapters – each chapter speaking to a topic young adults would like to see the church give more energy to. Currently, I am compiling and revising these chapters into a manuscript we will submit to the publisher by the end of summer. This was an incredible creative task with lots of moving parts (and authors!) As the primary editor, I am excited about what this writing community has crafted. Their collection of voices on several meaningful themes is something I am honored to steward and eager to get printed and bound and into the hands of many readers!

One of my strengths is being a connector. While I get to utilize this gift in many ways in my work, we are approaching a season of our work where I’m noticing a growing need to apply this gift more strategically. As a leader, the call I am sensing is one that utilizes my gifts as a connector towards stewarding the trustworthy relationships we have cultivated over the years of our Riverside Innovation Hub work while also investing in relationships that build sustainability for the work and to continue.

Jeremy Myers

Christensen Professor of Religion & Vocation, Executive Director of the Christensen Center for Vocation | I have been at Augsburg since 2006

I am really proud of the Uncovering Vocation series we have developed over the last two years. On the 2^nd and 4^th Tuesdays of most months, we invite a different member of the Augsburg University community to share a short story about their vocation during our campus wide chapel time. It has become a beautiful way for our community to become reacquainted with one another, it has deepened our appreciation for one another, and it has provided tangible examples of vocation for our students.

Over the past year I have realized that it is critical for us to find ways to weave vocation throughout the culture at Augsburg rather than leaving it only in the curriculum. That is what I will be working on doing during my sabbatical from July 1, 2024 – January 21, 2025. I will be discovering how my gifts can help Augsburg develop a rich culture of vocational discernment that benefits our students, faculty, and staff.

Gretchen Roeck

Program Director for The Confluence. I’ve been at Augsburg for 5 months and 7 days! 

I am celebrating the relationships I have developed with colleagues, staff, students and congregational leaders.

I’ve learned I’m called to and find it life-giving and energizing to nurture community development and forge reciprocal relationships.  recently received a $50,000 grant from the Forum for Theological Education to build financial and programmatic sustainability. I’ll be working on an Executive Certificate in Religious Fundraising and taking a course on the Principles and Foundations of Philanthropy this fall. I’m excited to explore what community development looks like through a financial and philanthropic lens.

Geoffrey Gill

Your friendly neighborhood mystic and Congregational Facilitator, three years and counting!

I want to honor and celebrate endurance! It’s been a tough stretch, but I’ve stayed in the game, showing up day after day. That’s something I’m really proud of.

Looking ahead, I’m excited to jump back into the world of cinematography.  To start creating and sharing some fresh videos with my friends and family brings me energy.

Brenna Zeimet

Congregational Facilitator, 1 year with CCV

I am celebrating that the teams I facilitate have begun to build trust and deep relationships with me, their neighbors, and each other. They have begun to realize that relationship is the project.

This job uses all the skills and gifts that I have developed over my years of work and ministry as a pastor, coach, mentor and consultant. Walking alongside these churches and helping them reorient their vision, mission and identity to align with the neighbor feels like the work that God has been preparing me for vocationally for many years. It is deeply fulfilling and meaningful, I love my job

Ellen Weber

Operations Program Associate, 2 years

I am celebrating all the events we have hosted on campus and off in this last year! From writing retreats, happy hours, webinars, launch events and learning events. It has been an honor to help turn ideas into realities and to watch how our communities experience our gatherings that help foster relationships and grow the groundswell of people who deeply care about their neighbors.

I am continuing to explore what it means to be a community builder and gatherer. This past year I took a course from Priya Parker on the . It has continued to inform how we plan our gatherings and I look forward to building on what I learned in that course as we plan our upcoming gatherings in person with the Riverside Innovation Hub and online on the .

The post Staff Celebrations and Vocation Reflections appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

The work of being the public church in the neighborhood, of being a vital neighbor in the world, is the work of our lives. There is no graduation. It is a journey that always is and always was. We are called to show up with curiosity, humility and our full selves as neighbors. This work can be exhausting and feel never-ending. So we have learned the power in celebrating along the way. Celebrating the small ways we have been able to be transformed by being in relationship with our neighbors. It reminds us of the hope and the joy in this work. 

At the Center of Vocation we pause throughout the year at milestones throughout the year to reflect and share the joy of being in relationship with others doing this work. We love celebrating and sharing things that are happening in the work and outside of the work in our lives. We especially love celebrating through yummy treats! 

In the spirit of this season of celebrating, we wanted to share with you what we have been celebrating on our team:

������𳾲�:����’m celebrating that we were able to sell our home quickly and easily, allowing our family to move into the next chapter of our lives.

Geoffrey: During our sustainability retreat, Cathy crafted the shawl with her own hands. It was during this creative process that she caught sight of me and felt a deep inspiration to offer it as a heartfelt gift. I was incredibly moved and filled with gratitude. The moment she completed it and presented it to me, I was filled with a profound sense of humility. Since then, I have incorporated the shawl into my daily prayer and meditation routine. It has become an integral part of my mornings, akin to experiencing a warm and comforting embrace from God each and every day.

Kristina: Marie’s 80’s concert! I loved seeing my kid doing something they love! 

�������Ի岹:��

I’m celebrating taking time to stop and smell the roses (dandelions).

After a long and busy winter, it feels like a gift to spend quality time at home with furry friends and bask in the sunlight. In a few weeks, I just wrapped up my role as congregational facilitator, and I’m excited to step into summer with more time to rest, explore, and rekindle curiosity. Taking any and all favorite hiking trail recommendations! 

(Amanda will stay on RIH staff in a part time capacity managing the Young Adult Book Project, so don’t worry, she is still around!). 

���������:��

I am celebrating the ways that I am helping create community through the sports league I run with friends. It has been a joy seeing old and new faces as the spring season kicked off. It has been energizing to think about the ways we can help create ways for people to build by moving their bodies together through softball, adult P.E. soccer and more!

After the long winter, to be in a community outside again brings new life. And of course, celebrating lots of outside time with our favorite pup Buzz Dublin. 

The post The Art and Importance of Celebrating appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.

With more people out and about rather than nestled inside, we are given the opportunity to meet those around us with our presence in new ways. This month we will be inviting you to reconnect in a variety of ways, with yourself, with your neighbor, with our initiatives, and even our CCV Staff! We have some recent changes with two of our staff members now in new roles and we would love for you to celebrate them with us! 

In case you haven’t met these two lovely individuals, it is a pleasure to introduce you to two amazing humans who are on our CCV staff. Amanda Vetsch and Geoffrey Gill. 

If you have the chance, please send them a congratulations via email or the next chance you see them!

Amanda Vetsch 

Amanda joined the Christensen Center for Vocation on Riverside Innovation Hub team in August of 2018 as an Innovation Coach. During that year she learned and explored at the intersections of church, neighborhood, and young adults. She then moved into a communications role with the Hub while she finished up her M.A. in Theology with a Concentration in Justice and Reconciliation from Luther Seminary. After that, she helped recruit and launch the next congregational learning community. Now she works as the CCV Lead for Special Projects. One of the special projects is continuing to facilitate a learning cohort of congregations in the RIH learning community. Another new thing she gets to work on is a book project that will amplify what young adults want the church to know. 

Prior to working at Augsburg, she spent some time away from Minneapolis in La Crosse, WI and Rwamagana, Rwanda. In La Crosse, she studied Biology, Religion, and Math at Viterbo University. Then she lived, played, and learned alongside the community of Rwamagana Leaders School in  Rwamagana, Rwanda. She calls St. Peder’s Lutheran Church, her home congregation. Amanda plays and coaches volleyball, hikes and camps, spends time with her cat, drinks a lot of coffee and tea, and reads books. This year, she hopes to read forty-five (for fun) books, thirty to go!

Though her title and tasks have changed through her time in the Christensen Center for Vocation, she has continued to love the way that the team holds a hopeful realism about the church. Her favorite artform of the Public Church Framework is Accompaniment and the multitude of ways it takes shape. She loves that part of her work is exploring neighborhoods, churches, and communities. She also appreciates that the CCV Team grounds the questions of vocation into the particular and the mundane. Asking ourselves and the learning community, “what does it look like, feel like, taste like and sound like to show up for the sake of my neighbor, and for the sake of a thriving community in this place and this time?”

Geoffrey Gill

One of Geoffrey’s favorite quotes and something he is leaning into:  “Integrity is the courage and self discipline to cooperate and initiate according to the Divine, which you know in your heart to be Truth”.  

Geoffrey is inspired by his son Liam (7). Who teaches him to pay attention to the little things, be more patient, and to love unconditionally. 

Geoffrey joined the RIH team in June 2021 as a part time facilitator, and since April of 2022 has been working aslead facilitator, assisting 8 congregations through the process of public church.  

Geoffrey is also a partner at Future Systems Consulting International, a consulting firm. The firm focuses on change and transformation with individuals and organizations. Also, they’re celebrating their first published book, called I-trust; trust starts with you, and permeates all that we are, and do. Along with Geoffrey’s private coaching clients he is also mentoring young men and leading healing and restorative justice circles. 

Geoffrey graduated from Augsburg College with a BA in Youth and family Ministry. He is also a certified Master Life Coach through Best Life Coaching Society.

In Geoffrey’s free time he is developing music, vlogs, spending time with nature, or just being still. 

The post A Month for Reconnection: It’s Amanda and Geoffrey! appeared first on Bernhard Christensen Center for Vocation.