Staff & Leadership

Church Council and Lay Leadership

We recognize the gifts and talents in our community and encourage our members to actively participate in ways that nurture their gifts and feed their spiritual life and uplift the mission and ministry of this congregation. Some of the opportunities for leadership in our church are listed below.

  • Church Council
  • Staff Support Committee
  • Worship Committee
  • Tender’s of the Fire
  • WELCA (Women of the ELCA)
  • Men’s Group
  • Specialized task forces

Pastoral Staff

Pastor Sally Ankerfelt and Pastor Dan Ankerfelt share a full-time call position. This allows for a rich pastoral team and allows each to utilize their individual gifts and passions that best suit the community.

Pastoral Ministries page explains more about what the pastors do at Minnehaha Communion Lutheran Church.

Pastor Sally Ankerfelt

Ministry Includes:

  • Administration: managing staff, building use, executive committee and church council
  • Education and Youth: Sunday school, youth activities, Tenders of the Fire Committee
  • Financial Advisory Group, The Minnehaha Communion Foundation
  • Visitation: home visits, hospital visits, prospective members
  • Worship: any involvement or ideas surrounding worship, mid-week worship, etc.

Pastor Sally feels grateful and honored to serve a congregation that has a heart for mission and a spirit for exploring new ways to be church in this culture. She is passionate about creating space and opportunities for people to experience hope, healing and wholeness.

Pastor Dan Ankerfelt

Ministry Includes:

  • Outreach: Longfellow Faith Forum, Longfellow Community Council, new relationships with neighbors, keeping in touch with neighborhood
  • Visitation: home visits, hospital visits, prospective members
  • Worship: any involvement or ideas surrounding worship, mid-week worship, etc.
  • Stewardship: offering, fundraising, yearly fall stewardship drive
  • Financial Advisory Group, The Minnehaha Communion Foundation

Pastor Dan appreciates the many opportunities to serve both in the congregation and the surrounding community as an ambassador for Christ’s love. He enjoys meeting new people connecting with neighborhood friends and groups. He also enjoys sharing music and coordinating the worship experience at Minnehaha Communion.

Parish Nurse & Deacon

Sue Arens, R.N, M.A., Deacon

Ministry Includes:

  • Health-related activities
  • Home visits and hospital visits
  • Word and Service Deacon applications: worship organizers for lay Sundays and copyright guru
  • Coordinate Prayer and Healing Ministries
  • Synod Obligations

Learn more about our Parish Nurse Ministries

Sue has been with MCLC since 2006. She graduated from Luther Northwestern Seminary in 1992, and was commissioned as an Associate in Ministry (now called Deacons) that same year.  She strongly believes that health and spirituality are intricately woven together, and that true healing occurs when the entire person – body, mind, and spirit – is tended to.  Sue and her husband Dick are parents of an adult daughter, and grandparents of the world’s cutest twins!  She is an avid knitter, who enjoys “making string pretty!”

 

 

 

Intern Minister of Word and Service

Kaye Mills, M.A.

Ministry Includes:

Being an intern allows for an in-depth, hands-on learning experience to enhance and prepare for future ministry within the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) by combining the intern’s personal learning goals with the congregation’s mission. She is a recent graduate of Luther Seminary receiving an M.A. in Christian Ministry. What she loves most about MCLC is that it has a feel of a small town church in an urban area where the Gospel of Jesus is preached with love and conviction. Kaye loves to sing, indulges in pop culture TV, and enjoys exploring ways of creating in community settings.

Worship Music Leader

Richard Duncan

Ministry Includes:

  • Encouraging communal singing through excellence in accompaniment on organ and piano during worship
  • Collaborating with the pastors in selecting music for worship
  • Offering music for contemplation as we purposefully dwell in the presence of each other and God during worship

Richard is passionate about the role music plays in our spiritual and congregational life. Music is a personal expression of his own faith and a way to encourage other people in sharing their spiritual gifts.

Secretary

Roberta Edstrom

Ministry Includes:

  • Providing hospitality to all who come through the doors or contact our church
  • Creating bulletins for funerals, weddings, and other special rituals
  • Preparing our weekly bulletins and our monthly newsletter called the Illuminator
  • Coordinating building use and office management

Roberta retired in 2015 from a 37-year Financial Analyst career with the Federal Government. She enjoys spending time with her family, going “up north” to the cabin, gardening and various crafts. What she enjoys most about working at MCLC is the people.