I did not realize how much one community could pray before coming to LSTC. Granted, I’m a life-long Lutheran with your stereotypical aversion to praying in public, whose high school youth group played the “nose goes” game (the game starts when one person surreptitiously places their finger on their nose, the last person to notice has to perform a prearranged task) to decide who had to pray. But I went to a Lutheran college (Go Gusties) where there was daily chapel, blessings and benedictions before conferences, community meals and graduation, it should be similar to that right? Not so gentle reader, not so. When classes started I discovered that all of them open with some form of prayer, in one a student takes concerns of the class and prays to open the day, in a couple others the professor opens the class in prayer, in worship class students signed up to open the class by praying the collect from the previous Sunday. Prayer concerns go out to the community by email and there are lengthy petitions in chapel, my goodness it just never stops!
As I adjusted to the sheer volume of prayer I realized that it is not out of obligation or route that continuous community prayer happens here, rather it is a thread that ties these nomadic religious scholars and teachers together, at the same time creating community and connecting us to the whole world. For that I say thanks be to God.
–Emily Hefty
Emily Hefty is a junior (first year) M.Div student from Portland, Oregon. Emily graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 2009 after studying music and religion and spent a year volunteering with AmeriCorps in Portland before coming to LSTC. Emily enjoys theological study, chapel and exploring Chicago with her husband, Nick.
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