Chaplains
The Rev. Barbara Lundblad
Barbara Lundblad earned her BA at Augustana College. She was the youth director in two Minnesota congregations before attending Yale Divinity School, where she received her M.Div. and was ordained in 1980. Lundblad served at Our Saviour's Atonement Lutheran Church in Manhattan. Since 1997, Lundblad has served on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary as associate professor of preaching and has been one of the Lutheran preachers on The Protestant Hour radio program since 1983. She has taught preaching at Yale Divinity School, Princeton Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College and the Doctor of Ministry program in preaching at the Association of Chicago Theological Schools. She is the author of Transforming the Stone: Preaching through Resistance to Change. A long time friend of Lutherans Concerned, Barbara served as keynote speaker for Assembly ’88 in Toronto and Assembly ’94 in Charlotte, NC, as well as Bible Study Leader for Assembly ’04 in the Twin Cities.
The Rev. Bradley Schmeling
Rev. Bradley Schmeling serves as the pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Atlanta, Georgia. In January, 2007, he was put on trial by the ELCA for being in a same gender relationship with Rev. Darin Easler. Although the Discipline Hearing Committee removed him from the roster, it suggested that the policy was bad and should be changed. Their decision initiated an unprecedented attempt to change the policy with memorials adopted by 21 synods. Although the 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly did not change the policy, it did encourage bishops to act with restraint and to refrain from disciplining the church’s LGBT pastors. Ordained in 1989, Schmeling graduated from Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio and served Calvary Lutheran Church, Columbus before moving to Atlanta to enter doctoral work at Emory University, Atlanta. He was called to St. John’s in 2000.
Chaplain Lionel Ketola
Lionel Ketola is an approved candidate for ordained ministry with Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM). Presently awaiting ordination, Lionel serves in long-term care chaplaincy and also coordinates a drop-in ministry for low-income adults in downtown Toronto. After publicly coming out in seminary, Lionel’s candidacy with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada was cancelled in 1988.
Following seminary graduation (M.Div.) in 1988, Lionel worked in the non-profit sector with a variety of non-profit housing and community mental health organizations, and eventually retrained as an arts therapist. Endorsed in 2004 by the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, Lionel was called in March 2006 to Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Newmarket Ontario, making Holy Cross the first ELCIC congregation to call an openly queer-identified intern.
Lionel and his husband Steven were married in 2003 and make their home in a 60-year-old cottage in the Greater Toronto Area where they enjoy the beauty of the “near north” from canoes, campfires, and cross-country ski trails.