Kristin Foster, ‘77 M.Div.

At the heart of YDS is the commitment to train women and men for the lay and ordained ministries of the Christian church. The award for Distinction in Congregational Ministry is awarded to a lay or ordained individual who has shown exceptional pastoral competence in the work of developing the ministry and mission of local congregations.

For three decades, the Rev. Kristin Foster provided dynamic leadership to Messiah Lutheran Church, ELCA, in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, a congregation located in the rural-mining-wilderness region known as the Mesabi Iron Range. Before her recent retirement, she guided the church into an unfolding mission by listening to the hopes of people within and beyond the congregation.

Over their decades together, Foster and her congregation embraced visionary and courageous initiatives. They launched the Mountain Iron Neighborhood Network to revitalize neighborhood parks, the Summer Work Outreach Project for youth of the community, and a seminary internship to train future pastoral leaders for dynamic rural ministry. After a lightning strike fire destroyed the church building in 1998, Foster led the congregation in relocating and designing a new structure.

A beacon of hope in its new location, Messiah became the first ELCA congregation in the rural upper Midwest to formally adopt a statement of welcome for LGBTQ people, then called a partnered gay woman as assistant pastor and opened its doors to same-gender weddings. The congregation also initiated the Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability and Iron Range Earth Fest and developed a community kitchen, a community garden, and an afterschool program for community children.

In addition, Foster wrote guest columns in the local newspaper and and convened Ecclesia, an initiative to record and interpret the stories of congregation members. Ecclesia gave rise to the Iron Range Immersion, a two-week experience designed for seminarians to learn how to listen to a congregation’s story and encounter the culture and politics of the Iron Range.

From beginning to end, Foster’s ministry was shaped by the conviction that the Gospel is met and manifested in the living tissue of the community and place to which the church belongs.