Kara Kristen Root
Kara Kristen Root is Pastor of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, MN. Check out her blog about ministry and motherhood at kara-root.blogspot.com. Kara wrote Leader Guide content for re:form Traditions. While working on this project, Kara gained this insight about her tradition’s founders: “Whatever else they were (and they were all shades of crazy), they were brave. Seriously.”
Degrees: M.Div. from Fuller Seminary, ordained PC-USA Minister of Word and Sacrament, PC-USA Certified Christian Educator
Family: Husband Andy (theologian and professor) and two kids (Owen and Maisy).
Voted the re:form contributor most likely to: cry at sappy commercials
Youth ministry superpower: A megadose of patience. And the ability to hold tension better, keep silent more, let things unfold instead of jumping in. Are those superpowers? (Not very sexy or marketable superpowers, anyway…)
On your iPod: Night Swimming by R.E.M., Happiness Run by Storyhill, Big Red Car by the Wiggles
Dinner guest: Stephen Colbert
Essentials for a youth lock-in…on a desert island: Cool-ranch Doritos. I don’t know. I’m not the lock-in type at all. I avoided them even when I was a youth…
6-word story: Did you check the coffee shop?
A favorite theologian quote: This much is certain, that we have no theological right to set any sort of limits to the loving-kindness of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Our theological duty is to see and understand it as being still greater than we had seen before. (Karl Barth)
A favorite pop culture figure quote: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one, wild and precious life? (Mary Oliver)
If your Sunday school teacher knew you’d be creating sparkhouse resources, what would she or he say? That figures.
Your work on re:form is a success if a youth responded by: Questioning, seeking, searching. Looking at their life and the world around them for God’s presence and God’s absence, and talking about it outloud. Karl Barth said, “In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.” I’d love to see youth own their theologian-ness.