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Pr. Taran Denning

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” – Proverbs 19:21

As a child growing up in Helena, Montana, I had many plans about my future. I wanted to be an NBA basketball player, a pastor, the president, and later (more seriously) a dentist. I know it is quite the spread.

During my undergraduate years, I studied Biology while in full pursuit of a career in dentistry. After graduating from Gonzaga in 2011, I applied for and then served as the Youth Coordinator, here at St. Luke Lutheran Church. My stated plan was for this to be a one-year position to bridge the gap year as I applied to dental school. My top five dental schools, my life plan, and direction felt set.

And then as I began serving in this position something started stirring up in me spiritually. The message came in two forms. It came from within as I began imagining myself at the pulpit proclaiming Christ crucified. I began to wonder and ponder if that was actually my call. But more profoundly, it came from brothers and sisters in Christ, who began to name gifts they saw in me for a future in ministry. Soon those two callings (internal and external) began to be something that I could no longer ignore or even hold back.

So, dental applications were withdrawn as I then applied at Luther Seminary. After further discernment, I was accepted and then enrolled in Luther's Distributive Learning program. This program allows students to remain where they are and take classes both online and doing intensive coursework on campus in January and June. That program allowed me to continue in my role as Youth coordinator while attending seminary. One of the blessings of that was the opportunity to apply learnings from the classroom into context at church. Youth have a great way of pointing out the heart of a theological matter. It felt like taking a chemistry class while also getting to experiment learnings in the lab. It was the learning about alongside the hands-on, doing learning environment.

During seminary, I met and later married my wonderful wife, Curyn from here in Spokane. We were married in the fall of 2018. After about one year of marriage and for the final year of seminary, we moved to Vancouver, Washington. There I served my yearlong internship at Messiah Lutheran Church and Preschool. That spring, I graduated from seminary (digitally due to the global pandemic).

Over that coming summer God would be up to something else unexpected and exciting. Through the generosity of the congregation, the discernment of the region’s bishops and the call of the church, I was called, ordained and serve now as pastor at St. Luke Lutheran Church.

As I look, back it is incredible to see the ways that God’s plans for my life panned out in ways that I could not have expected. Indeed, God’s purposes prevail in whichever vocations we are called to as we live receptive lives out of the abundance of God’s grace.

Your brother in Christ,

Pr. Taran Denning

Pr. Jim Johnson

Pastor Jim Johnson is Lead Pastor at St. Luke Lutheran Church, North Division in Spokane. He has been in parish ministry since he was ordained in 1993. He has served 3 parishes:

He was first called to serve as Associate Pastor at Bethlehem Lutheran in Sedro-Woolley, WA. from 1993-1996.

His second parish was a solo call to Holy Cross Lutheran near Lake Stevens, WA from 1996-2000.

He then came to St. Luke January 1, 2001 as Lead Pastor.

Pastor Jim grew up in Spokane. His father, Wally Johnson, was pastor at Calvary Lutheran (which later merged with Ascension and became Prince of Peace) before retiring from ministry in 1987. Pastor Jim moved away from Spokane after graduating from North Central High School in 1983. He graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in Education (BAE degree). He was in secondary education – Social Sciences – before leaving to Minnesota to attend seminary. He graduated from Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. in the spring of 1993 with a Masters of Divinity.

Pastor Jim and his wife Lori married in the summer of 1993. They have four children (three boys and a girl). Together they have enjoyed travel, time with family, sports, music, the arts, reading and movies.

Pastor Jim has been very fortunate to have experienced opportunities that have further developed his skills and education as a pastor, and in turn have been a blessing to the parish:

He completed the Pastor-Theologian Program in 2006 (a 3 year interdenominational cohort study program through the Center of Theological Inquiry - CTI - at Princeton).

He received a Louisville Institute Grant for Pastoral Sabbaticals in 2008, providing he and his family the opportunity to travel to Europe where Pr. Jim studied Martin Luther’s Writings.

He was selected to participate in the 2009 Cousin’s Foundation 2 week pilgrimage to Israel with 19 other clergy from various denominations from around the USA, lead by a NT professor from Princeton Seminary.

In 2014, on his 2nd sabbatical while serving St Luke, he received the Clergy Renewal Grant from the Lilly Endowment to travel with his family to Turkey, Greece, and Italy on a Pauline pilgrimage studying Paul’s preaching ministry.

In 2019, he completed a Doctor of Ministry Degree in Preaching from the Association of Chicago Theological Seminaries (ACTS) through The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC).

In 2022, he received another sabbatical in which he studied the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He also received a Share Grant from the Northwest Intermountain Synod of the ELCA to travel to Malinyi, Tanzania to visit the Tumaini Lutheran Seminary with which St. Luke had partnered and supported the construction of a wall surrounding the school, the purchase of text books, the making of a library and renovation of a science lab and class room.

Pr. Jim was honored with the 2024 Alumnus of the Year award from North Central High School in Spokane.

Pr. Jim is currently enrolled in a ThM (Master of Theology) degree program through Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. He is studying Martin Luther’s writings with a focus on Luther’s understanding of baptism and its implications for daily life. He expects to complete this degree in 2027.

The passion to preach the gospel - to share the good news of God’s gracious act of forgiveness, love, and salvation through Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead; that freedom to live down to earth and embrace the world and the neighbor as gift, which results in a compassion to serve the neighbor in need as we have been served by God’s grace - continues to be the driving force in Pr. Jim’s life and ministry. To this calling he continues to serve the Church, and calls the congregation to serve the neighbor, creation, and the world.