Barn Geese Worship is the offshoot of a small community of pastors who have been meeting every summer for the last several years to brainstorm around the coming liturgical year. We call it: PREACHING CAMP.
But it became about more than preaching, because we believe strongly in centrifugal worship. The texts we preach on are also at the center of our worship, and driven by the momentum of the Holy Spirit, they fling out all kinds of possibilities for a faith community’s life together.
That’s what Barn Geese is about: exploring those possibilities. We offer materials to support creative worship and preaching, usually on the texts of the Revised Common Lectionary. We identify arcs that run throughout a season of scriptural readings, and equip you to use them to unite your community’s proclamation, worship, devotions, and study.
Our convictions
All of us are pastors ordained by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, though not all of us serve in ELCA congregations. But because of this shared background, you’ll notice a few trends in our work that reflect of our some basic theological tenets:
- Low anthropology: we believe that humankind is a hot mess, and that we depend on the grace of God made known to us in Jesus to get anything done. The good news is, scripture tells us repeatedly that God loves working with sinners and broken people. Beautifying the broken is how God likes to roll.
- Trinitarian: We believe in God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And who is also Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. And likewise Fortress, Cornerstone, and Anchor. And also Midwife, Mother, and She-Bear. We revel in the many names used for God in scripture that in turn reveal God’s many facets, and are committed to reflecting their diversity in our work.
- Jesus-centered: Jesus is our primary source for who God is and how God works. We lean into Jesus’ incarnation, and love to wonder about what it meant, really meant, that he was fully human and fully divine.
- Seeking the sacred in the secular: We believe that God communicates with us in the everyday things of our lives as well as in sanctuaries and through sacred things. We think God has a sharp sense of humor and love that Jesus’ first miracle in John’s gospel was turning up the volume at the wedding party. We think the Holy Spirit looks like a dive-bombing pigeon at least as much as she resembles a descending dove. We live at the intersection of the common and the cruciform.
What’s in the name?
One Preaching Camp, Linnéa brought an idea for a November series exploring several saints whose feast days happen in that month. We were all attracted to the story of Martin of Tours. Martin was a righteous and upstanding person of faith, and people wanted to make him bishop, an office which Martin did not wish to inherit. Apparently he was literally being chased down by the bishop-makers when he decided to hide in a barn. Un/fortunately, the barn he picked was full of geese. Geese are not naturally inclined toward subterfuge or hospitality, and made their feelings about this shushing invader known. The cacophany attracted Martin’s pursuers, and he became a bishop.
There are better-known stories about St. Martin, most of them about his charitable and principled life as a soldier. We just like the goose one better.
We resonate with the belief that within each of us, there are gifts of the Spirit that are meant to be shared. And sometimes, the Holy Spirit feels like a honking goose, prepared to drive us out of hiding for the sake of the world.
Who are we?
Rev. Victoria Larson,
she/her/hers
Pastor Larson is a self-professed liturgy nerd who enjoys creative writing, social dancing, and long walks with her dog Zin and a good podcast on. She is currently studying for a Doctor of Theology degree at Duke Divinity School, focused on Liturgics and empowered by the Holy Spirit and a lot of coffee.
The Rev. Linnéa Clark
she/her/hers
Pastor Linnéa loves cats, tea, social justice, knitting with hand-spun yarn, and creative liturgical aesthetics. She serves at St. Mark Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Hamilton, NJ, where she goes through a lot of beeswax.
Rev. Emily Trubey-Weller
she/her/hers
Pastor Emily is a home-loving rambler who has put down roots from coast to coast and at several points in-between. She’s passionate about ministry to and with the youngest members of the church, ecumenical and interfaith relationships, and the radically inclusive love of God. She serves as Pastor of Augustana Lutheran Church and Grace Lutheran Church in Elkhart, IN, and lives on a farm in South Bend with her family and 20 lbs. of home-grown pickled jalapenos.
Rev. Justin Kosec
Founding partner, 2021-2025
He/him/his
Pastor Justin loves board games, names all his rescued greyhounds after literary characters, and delights in creating liturgical dramas and dramatic liturgies. He most recently served as Pastor of Outreach and Communication at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Sioux Falls, SD.
Rev. Jo Urriola-Schonewolf
Communications Manager
They/them
Jo would never say something as cheesy as, “They’ve always had their head up in the stars,” but with degrees in Physics and Astronomy and Science and Religion, it’s a hard point to argue. They are independently ordained through the Church Within A Church Movement and work in church and church-adjacent spaces around Albany, New York.