LOM Board

Dave Jarvis, President; Leah Pletscher, Vice President; Karen Muse, Secretary; Dallas Shealy, Treasurer; Rod Boriack; Rev. Sara Cogsil; Jessica Jackson; Tami Lewis-Ahrendt; Rev. Matt O’Rear; Amanda Rasner; Rev. Daryl Thompson Powell; Rev. Kimberly Vaughn; Executive Director: Don Johnson

Conference Leaders

The 2024 Conference Planning Committee

  • Anthony Briggs & Sarah Lefler, 2024 LOM Conference Co-Chairs
  • Collin Grooms
  • Kaitlyn Olson Blend
  • Chad Hershberger
  • Dallas Shealy
  • Kathleen Ruen
  • Angie Pile, Co-Conference Coordinator
  • Lindsey Scheid, Co-Conference Coordinator

Keynoters 

Mary Kay DuesheneMary Kay Dueshene is a leadership coach and consultant, facilitator, teacher, and strategist with over 30 years of experience in management, leadership development, marketing, and business management and development. She is also a deacon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

A leadership consultant at LeaderWise, Mary Kay is committed to developing leadership excellence in faith communities. In addition to coaching, consulting with, and teaching individual leaders, she also develops teams toward achieving high performance and offers vision and strategy facilitation to leadership teams.

Combining business leadership expertise with her deep faith, in 2010, Mary Kay designed and developed a cohort-model leadership development program for high potential clergy. This program brings faith leaders together for a year-long exploration of leadership, with the vision to help them lead their communities through deep change effectively and enthusiastically into the 21st century. Since this time, the program has expanded into retreats and seminars in a variety of forms.

Mary Kay holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Minnesota, Business Coach Training from Coach U, and a Masters of Arts in Congregational Mission and Leadership from Luther Seminary. An expert in Adaptive Leadership, Mary Kay has studied under Ron Heifetz at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is also certified to facilitate many assessments used in leadership development.

When not working or in the throes of life’s duties, Mary Kay loves to spend time with her husband, adult children, granddaughter, and golden retriever; read; and commune with nature in the Twin Cities or at the family retreat near the North Shore of Lake Superior.

Pastor Liz Eide serves Lutheran Church of Peace in Maplewood, MN as a redevelopment pastor. Her ministry started in a partnership with Young Life and Trinity Lutheran Church in Owatonna, MN working with junior high students. Receiving an MDiv from Luther Seminary in 2001,  she has served as a solo pastor and on multi staff teams in Germany, Rhode Island, and Minnesota. She loves to create space for people to encounter God’s Word in new and challenging ways and counts it as sacred ground to be invited to step into someone’s story and wonder together about God’s activity there. As a redevelopment pastor, Liz listens deeply for the ways God is reshaping God’s church for the new context we find ourselves in. With a passion for developing leaders with the skill set for this new context and churches that are adaptable and innovative Liz also leads with The SHAPE of Leadership and the St. Paul Area Synod’s Vitality Team. She gratefully shares this adventure of life with her husband, 17 year old twins, and 2 cats. 

Music Leaders

Bio GenOUT

GenOUT Youth ChorusThe GenOUT Youth Chorus is the Washington, DC area’s only vocal ensemble for LGBTQ+ and allied youth. An outreach ensemble of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, DC, GenOUT operates under the two-fold mission: (1) to give LGBTQ+ and allied youth a voice through song, and (2) to connect that voice to community. The ensemble is open to all singers between the ages of 13 and 18. Since its debut in spring 2015, the GenOUT Chorus has performed at the Lincoln Theatre, the Kennedy Center, Washington National Cathedral, the White House, the Library of Congress, the GALA Choruses Festival, and the ACDA National Conference. Nearly 140 singers from over 80 schools have participated in GenOUT. In Spring 2024, 25 singers from schools in and around the DC metro area are singing in GenOUT.  More info at www.gmcw.org/outreach/genout.

Exodus Drive

Exodus DriveExodus Drive is a group of musicians and singers dedicated to creating innovative Christian music. Through original composition, and arrangements which endeavor to marry modernity and tradition, the group is unique in more ways than one.

Vocalists (Devin Robinson, Taylar Lee, Camille Jones) all hail from Howard University’s elite singing ensemble, Afro-Blue. They have performed at venues such as the Lincoln Theater, and are all recording artists in their own right. Music Director, Jeremy Grenhart, received a Grammy nomination for his work with famed Philadelphia group, “The Roots”, but has also been a music director within the E.L.C.A. for 25 years. Working together for 10 years, the singers and Grenhart have led music at the Reformation 500 Anniversary at The National Cathedral, many Synod Assemblies, and currently serve at Christ Lutheran in Bethesda, MD. Other all-star musicians join the core group as they spread the Gospel through the good gift of music.

Worship Leaders

Rev. Leila M. Ortiz

The Rev. Leila M. OrtizThe Rev. Leila M. Ortiz is a pastor and theologian in The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and serves as the Bishop of The Metropolitan Washington D.C. Synod since September of 2019. She works alongside pastors, councils, and church members as they discern their call in the church for the sake of the world. Leila joined the synod staff in 2016 as Assistant to the Bishop.

Bishop Leila completed graduate degree coursework and comprehensive exams at United Lutheran Theological Seminary of Pennsylvania and is currently “All bur dissertation.” Her concentration was in Systematic/Contemporary Theology with a special interest in Protestant Latinx Liberation Theologies in the United States and the impact of Latina hermeneutics on Lutheran ecclesiology.

Given her particular perspective and call to the church, in the fall of 2012 Bishop Leila served as a representative from the United States at The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Global Theological Consultation in Wittenberg, Germany, to assess Lutheran heritage and the Reformation in defining what it means to be Lutheran in a fast-changing world. She served in this capacity again at the 2016 consultation in Geneva, Switzerland.

In the spring of 2013, Bishop Leila served as a member of the LWF Resource group, which prepared Lutheran Theological Education Network guidelines that would define the goal, process, roles, and responsibilities of the network at different levels within Lutheran communion. That fall she was invited to participate in The Global Ecumenical Institute in Busan, South Korea; an initiative of The World Council of Churches that gathered theological students and lecturers for a major project promoting ecumenical leadership formation, intense theological learning, and mutual dialogue.

Bishop Leila is an alumna of the 2015 Lewis Fellowship sponsored by the Lewis Center of Church Leadership of Wesley Theological Seminary. She is also an alumna of A Convocation of Christian Leaders, a series of four gatherings designed for promising young leaders from around the country who seek extended conversation about the theology and practice of leadership in Christian institutions hosted by Leadership Education of Duke Divinity.

Bishop Leila is a contributing author in “Global Lutheranism: Vitality and Challenges,” co-authored a chapter entitled “Pentecostal Latinas: Engendering Selves in Storefront Congregations” in Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a City Street (Oxford University Press, 2014), and has published articles and commentaries in Gather Magazine, in the journal Dialog: A Journey of Theology (Wiley Online Library), and workingpreacher.org. Currently she serves as the Conference of Bishop’s liaison to the Association for Teaching Theologians of the ELCA and is on the board of Select Learning.

Rev. William (Bill) Gohl Jr.

Rev. William (Bill) Gohl JrThe Rev. William (Bill) Gohl Jr. was first elected to be bishop of the Delaware-Maryland Synod, ELCA at the 2016 Synod Assembly, and was then re-elected on the first ballot at the 2022 Synod Assembly. Prior to being called to this work, Bishop Gohl was Lead Pastor of Epiphany Lutheran Church and Intern Supervisor/Vice Pastor of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, both in Baltimore. Previously, the bishop served at Peace Lutheran Church in Glen Burnie and vice pastorates at Our Saviour, Lansdowne; Zion, City Hall Plaza; Faith, North Avenue and assisted at All Saints, Loch Raven and Peoples Community, Baltimore.

He attended Gettysburg College (BA, 1996) as well as the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (MDiv, 2000). He is caught-up somewhere between an STM and DMin at United Lutheran Seminary

Bill is married to the Rev. Arwyn Pierce Gohl and they have four children, Saliese, David, Andrew and Joyanne.

The Gohls make their home in the northeast corner of Baltimore City and enjoy time with their families; the Gohl side in Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania (by way of Long Island, where the bishop grew up) and the Pierce side in Fairhaven, Massachusetts

Rev. Amy Asendorf Berger

Rev. Madeline Tallman

Chad Hershberger

Rev. Jim Vitale

Rev. Ryan Fitch