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Us Communications expert takes up Theology post at Otago

“All the other jobs I applied for were very narrow and very focused on one area and I didn’t like that,” she says.

“The other advantage was being able to leave the United States. This is not a good time to be an American; bad things are happening in our country.”

Lynne moved to New Zealand from Seattle at the end of June with her husband, David, a retired dentist.

With a background in ministry and communications – her PhD from the University of Washington is in communications – she is ideally suited for her new role.

She was writer-editor for Presbyterian Church (USA) publications before she became an ordained minister, then served as associate pastor at Bethany Presbyterian Church, in Seattle, from 1997 to 2004, when she left to complete her PhD. She has also written six books on topics from fasting to beating burnout in congregations, and has lived 11 years outside the United States, in six different countries.

“I did my PhD thesis on congregations’ websites. This whole high-tech thing is [very much] what I’m interested in,” she says, adding that very rapid technological changes bring challenges for the Church.

Lynne spent two years studying websites created by three types of Protestant congregations in the United States, choosing those she believed might represent possible future directions for the Church.

They were In Dunedin, Lynne has hit the ground running, teaching the “Person in Ministry” paper within days of arriving in Dunedin.

The course, part of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies distance learning programme, covers such topics as spiritual gifts, spiritual discipline, boundaries and living by grace.

“It’s about how to be a whole person in ministry, lay or ordained,” Lynne says.

The 15 students enrolled in the paper are from all over New Zealand.

The small class is “wonderful”, she says.

“I’ll be teaching only one paper each seminar.”

Lynne already has begun formulating the content of “Communication and Ministry” for semester 1, 2008, and is obviously looking forward to it. “It’s everything except communication from the pulpit,” she explains. The paper will include using as communication tools newsletters, oral announcements, “websites, blogs, anything”.

Her University of Otago appointment is a five-year one and its part-time nature fits in well with writing commitments, which include contracts with American publishers to write a book on congregation identity and an online adult curriculum. However, her teaching and writing workload will still enable Lynne to be available should other teaching and research opportunities arise.

Describing herself as “here to learn, not just teach”, she says she and David find Dunedin “very beautiful” have “been so impressed with the people”.

“People have been so kind, so helpful, so friendly.”  By Gillian Vine