Michael Lukens is a theologian, a civil rights activist, a Bonhoeffer scholar, a parliamentarian and an expert in Presbyterian church law. But soon, for the first time in 45 years, he will not be the stated clerk of Winnebago Presbytery.
Having spent her career at church-affiliated colleges, Cindy Gnadinger is ready for a new challenge as president of Carroll University in Waukesha, Wisconsin. She becomes the first woman to fill the president’s post at the school, which is one of seven Presbyterian-related institutions in covenant with the Synod of Lakes and Prairies.
Church ties may be looser and students may be less religious than in past generations, but most Presbyterian colleges and universities still believe in the role of a campus chaplain.
While water protectors, encamped near the confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri rivers in North Dakota, endure brutal winter weather, Elona Street-Stewart, synod executive of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies, recounted her mid-November trip to the encampment, describing the camp, the work to prepare for the north’s raw winter, the sacredness of water and the role of the church.
