New intern pastor for Island of Faith congregation

The Island of Faith congregation has settled in with a new intern pastor.

Lynne Ogren, the church’s intern pastor, arrived in Wrangell back in January, but started her ministry recently. So far, she’s overcome her share of island adjustments.

“Not being able to drive to another town has been an adjusment,” said the Oak Harbor, Wash. native. “When you need to go to the mall in another town, you just get in your car and go. Here you need a plane or a boat. That took some adjustment for me.”

The relocation from “down south” also brought some unexpected pleasures, Ogren said.

“I live on the back side of the church building,” she said. “How can you beat that? I told my husband ‘We’re going to have to find another water view if we move.”

Shepherding the flock of 14 regular attendees is Ogren’s third career. She got her start in church work on the administrative side at a church in Oak Harbor, and before that, she was an elementary school teacher.

Ogren intends to focus on the future and the past.

“I’m going to be focusing on some Christian education things,” she said. “I’ll also be looking at the archives of the church, the history. Those are the two areas I’m focusing on.”

Ogren is performing her pastoral internship. The role typically requires an assistantship at a larger church, and is a step toward becoming a full-fledged minister with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. However, Ogren’s husband is an electrician recently employed full time at the Tyee Lake electric plant, so instead, she’s working for two full years as the head of a much smaller congregation.

“It worked out great,” she said.

When her internship finishes in January 2015, Ogren plans to relocate back to the lower 48.

“The intention is to go back south,” she said. “The internship is over in January 2015. We’ll have to see where we are led.”