Steve Jerbi
Pastor, All Peoples Church, Milwaukee Age: 37
No one is more surprised than Steve Jerbi at the fact
that God’s call led him to the city. A Lutheran pastor’s kid from a farm town in western Illinois and a former camp program director, Jerbi entered seminary to study environmental theology and return to outdoor ministry. An urban CPE (clinical pastoral education) program
in Chicago and an internship in Minneapolis changed all that, helping Jerbi realize urban ministry was his
calling. He has served for almost eight years as pastor of All Peoples Church, a congregation he describes as “65 percent African-American, 25 percent white, 15 percent Latino, 70 percent people in poverty and 50 percent under 25.” Young adults make up the fastest-growing demo-
graphic of All Peoples. Jerbi attributes this to the con- gregation’s involvement in social justice activism and an explicit focus on young people that “is in everything we do. It isn’t just lip-service.”
“As a church with a theology of the cross, we are called into places of suf- fering, [like] police/community engage- ment, not only in solidarity but also to cast another vision …,” Steve Jerbi said. “There’s a reason the vision of Revelation is a new Jerusalem, a new city. The urban core is not a wasteland. It’s the promised land.”
Steve Jerbi (center) leads a prayer with Rainbow Push Coalition and the Coalition for Justice in Milwaukee. He is joined by Jesse Jackson (left) and Janette Wilson (right).
Kylie Oversen
State representative, North Dakota House of Representatives, Grand Forks, N.D. Age: 26
Kylie Oversen had never considered politics
until her senator sent a Facebook message asking her to run for state representative. Even then, she admitted, “I had to read it several times.” Working with city and state government
“Broadly, public service. Once I got into the legislature, I found new ways I was able to express my faith in the area of social justice,” Kylie Oversen said. “I
was proud to be an ELCA Lutheran in a discussion about discrimination based on sexual orientation … to say ‘some of us are called to social justice and equality as part of our faith, not against our faith.’ ”
SEAN LEE
leaders as student body president of the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, had shown Oversen “a lack of young people involved in the process.” She said this encour- aged her to become “a needed voice at the table, [someone] who knows what it’s like to be a student.”
Her support system includes the Christus Rex
Lutheran Campus Ministry at UND, a “second home and family” that is still her faith community. Currently, Oversen balances her legislative duties
with law school. In March she was elected chair of the Democratic Party in North Dakota.
June 2015 19
the ELCA’s calling?
What is
your call- ing?
What’s
JOE BRUSKY PHOTOGRAPHY
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