Getting It Done: Practical Tools for Managing Ministry

Grace Duddy Pomroy is the Director of the Stewardship Leaders Program at Luther Seminary. She’s a lay, millennial stewardship leader, speaker, and financial educator based in Allyn, WA. She is the co-author of the stewardship book, Embracing Stewardship: How to Put Stewardship at the Heart of Your Congregation’s Life, as well as author of the free 2013 ELCA stewardship resource, “Stewards of God’s Love.” Her latest book, Funding Forward: A Pathway to More Sustainable Models for Ministry, was just released September 2024. Grace is also a consultant with Relèven, a charitable organization that lovingly preserves, restores, and repurposes under-utilized churches into community hubs and affordable housing.

Terri Martinson Elton began teaching at Luther Seminary as an adjunct instructor in 2004 before becoming the director of the Center for Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2008. In addition to her continued work with the Center, Elton accepted the position of associate professor of Children, Youth and Family Ministry in 2010 and associate professor of Leadership in 2014.

Prior to her call to Luther Seminary, Elton served as an associate to the bishop in the Saint Paul Area Synod where her responsibilities included working with congregations, leadership development, First Call theological education and youth and family ministry.

Before her work in the synod, she served at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minn. for 16 years. While at Prince of Peace she worked in various roles within children, youth and family ministries, as well as served as the director of Changing Church Forum, an outreach ministry of Prince of Peace. She also authored To Know, To Live, To Grow, a confirmation curriculum, and co-authored What Really Matters, a book for congregational leaders, with the Rev. Mike Foss.

Elton holds a B.A. degree in communications from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. (1986). She earned both her M.A. (1998) and Ph.D. (2007) degrees in Congregational Mission and Leadership from Luther Seminary.

Elton’s research and teaching interests include: congregational leadership, leading in the midst of change and conflict, helping ministry leaders craft a missional ecclesiology with an eye toward the First Third of Life, awakening a vibrant theology of baptism and vocation and reimagining faith and mission practices for children, youth, young adults and their families.

Elton is a member of the Academy of Religious Leadership, the Association of Youth Ministry Educators, the ELCA Youth Ministry Network and the American Society of Missiology and is on the board for Real Resources. Elton spends much of her time working with congregations and congregational leaders and seeks out opportunities for enhancing ministry with those in the First Third of Life within the ELCA.

Dr. Susan Leigh Brooks is a lifelong literacy educator with a passion for learning and teaching. After more than three decades of teaching reading and writing to learners from preschool age to graduate students, she currently serves as the Associate Director of Faith+Lead Academy. She creates online courses to encourage and equip people in their faith.

Along with reading, of course, Dr. Brooks loves to garden and hike. She also loves to travel, having been to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area over 50 times. She and her husband have two adult children, two amazing children-in-law, and a new grandson, all of whom receive books for Christmas.

The Rev. Melissa Cooper is an ordained Deacon in the United Methodist Church. Prior to serving at St. Luke’s, Melissa served as Program Coordinator for the Life Enrichment Center and Warren Willis Camp. Before receiving her MTS in 2009, Melissa earned a B.A. in English from Middle Tennessee State University. She is originally from Tennessee, but began her full-time ministry in the North Carolina Annual Conference at Camp Don Lee, where she served as the Faith Formation and Retreat Ministries Coordinator. From 2011 to 2017, Melissa built a ground-up program ministry at the Life Enrichment Center, at which she was the first program staff member.

The Rev. Joy McDonald Coltvet has served as pastor of faith formation at Incarnation Lutheran Church in Shoreview, Minnesota, since December 2024. She was ordained in 2001 and has served in several congregations, a campus ministry and a seminary of the ELCA. She served for 10 years at Christ on Capitol Hill (St. Paul, Minnesota) where she delighted in serving in this diverse community where worshipers encounter Christ, the tree of life. She is a graduate of Luther College (BA), the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (M.Div.), and the Catholic Theological Union (D.Min.). When she’s not at church, she enjoys conversation with her children who are in college, high school and elementary school, sharing time with her life partner Ben, or enjoying music and the arts.