Kristin Foster ’77 M.Div.

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 2019, Rev. Foster was the recipient of the Yale Divinity School Distinction in Congregational Ministry award.