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2014 - 2024

Executive Director- Abbey of the Redwoods, McKinleyville, CA*

Lecturer- Osher Learning Institute, Humboldt State, Arcata, CA

Pastor- Grace Good Shepherd,

McKinleyville, CA

 

The Abbey is a contemplative interfaith educational community. Focusing on the study of religion and contemporary culture, the Abbey promotes inter-faith understanding and respect through daily spiritual practices, retreats, conferences, lectures and media presentations. We are a socially engaged community working to achieve peace, justice and equality.

 

 

2009-2014

Executive Director, Navajo Lutheran Mission,

Rock Point, AZ

I directed a K-6 grade school for seventy Navajo children and a health clinic for the community in Rock Point, Arizona. It was in one of the least populated and isolated communities on the Navajo Reservation. We ran over firty percent unemployment, about a third of the people had no access to electricity or running water. Some of the older people couldn’t speak English and many people’s primary occupations are as Shepherds. I also helped my wife pastor the House of Prayer an ELCA Lutheran congregation housed at the Mission and provide music for the services. Basically, we helped care for hundreds of very poor Navajo people in the middle of a vast desert with a staff of some twenty Navajo people at the Mission. We were truly a Mission in the old and true sense of the word: a place where people come for help and understanding, for shelter and education, for health.

 

2004-2009

Pastor, Eden Lutheran Church (ELCA),

Munising, MI

Functioned as a Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and also founded and directed the Turtle Island Project a nonprofit organization that promotes dialogue between Christian and Native American communities. I also founded the Grand Island Conference and Retreat Program offering courses in Religion and Science, Health and Healing, and Ecological Theology.

 

2001-2003

Spiritual Director, Alternative Treatment Centers, Chicago, IL

Provided spiritual counseling, clinical workshops, spiritual retreats, small group counseling, community reintegration programs, and multi-cultural worship services for juvenile sex offenders and their families.

 

1997-2000

Director of the Institute for World Spirituality, Chicago, IL

Chief Development Officer and Program Manager for the IWS. Initiated and coordinated national and international conferences, including twelve presentations of the IWS for the second Parliament of World’s Religions in Cape Town, South Africa.

 

1994-1996

Pastor, Caribbean Synod, ELCA,

St Croix, U.S.V.I.

Served as interim pastor for two afro-Caribbean Lutheran churches on the island of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands.

 

1993-1994

Development Director, Parliament for the World’s Religions

The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions was created to cultivate harmony among the world's religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions in order to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world. It traces its origins to the first World’s Congress of Religions at the Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. A Centennial celebration was held in Chicago in 1993, bringing together over eight thousand religious leaders from around the World.

 

1987-1992

Assistant Dean of Rockefeller Chapel,

University of Chicago

Liturgist in charge of all services, including preaching on a regular basis. Served as development officer and financial manager for the Chapel’s operational budget. Helped supervise and fund raiser for the restoration of the chapel’s E.M. Skinner organ, over saw a multi-million dollar restoration of the Chapel. As the Graduate Assistant to the head of the Systematic Department, I taught classes in process theology and religion and science at LSTC.

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