Again this year, the MTSO House at Lakeside will offer barbecue lunches to alumni and friends attending the West Ohio and East Ohio annual conferences. Those United Methodist events are just two of the gatherings MTSO will host during a busy summer.

Visit our conference gatherings page for details on additional gatherings, including those during the Indiana, Susquehanna and West Virginia annual conferences.

The West Ohio lunch will be served Monday, June 6, at the MTSO House, 324 Sycamore Ave. The East Ohio lunch will be served Tuesday, June 14. No RSVP is required for either.

We welcome suggestions for other opportunities to bring together alumni and friends. If you are planning or attending an event where you would like to see a presence by MTSO, please email April Casperson, vice president for institutional advancement, with information about the event.

MTSO awarded 42 graduate degrees at the school’s 54th commencement May 21. Clarence G. Newsome, president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, addressed graduates.

The degrees awarded:

• 11 Master of Arts in Counseling Ministry.
• Five Master of Arts in Practical Theology.
• One Master of Theological Studies.
• 25 Master of Divinity.

Baccalaureate was held May 20, with graduating senior Mary Kate Myers delivering the sermon.

Archived video of commencement and baccalaureate is available on MTSO’s Livestream page. Selected photos from commencement are available on MTSO’s Facebook page.

We congratulate all MTSO students and alumni who are celebrating ordination, commissioning and other significant steps in their ministry. A current – and growing – list of those marking milestones is here.

If you’re being ordained or commissioned or are celebrating a similar denominational achievement, please take a moment to complete this brief form so that you can be recognized.

From counseling troubled youth to ministry with the poor, MTSO offers short-term, intensive summer courses that provide valuable continuing-education opportunities for professionals in ministry and counseling.

Registration deadlines vary by course. If you’re interested, we encourage you to inquire soon. All courses may be taken for credit, and many may be audited on a not-for-credit basis. A sampling:

• Congregations and Communities as Partners in Ministry with the Poor, which examines best practices used by congregations and community groups for launching and growing ministries with the poor that are asset based and sustainable. Most or all of this class’s sessions will meet at Community Development for All People in Columbus. July 24-28 and July 30.
• Counseling Interventions with Troubled Youth, which offers critical insights and advanced skills for generating and guiding optimum collaboration, balance and growth within the individual, the family and the social system. July 11-15.
• Food, Land and Faith Formation: Holy Communion for the Whole Creation, which immerses participants in the critical questions, spiritual energies, and regenerative practices bound up in the emergence of a more ecologically sustainable and economically just food economy. July 31-Aug. 5.
• United Methodist Polity, which will cover the nature of the church, membership, congregational life, ministry, chain of conferences, agencies, property, judicial administration and ecumenism as reflected in the Book of Discipline and the Book of Resolutions. June 27-July 16.

Details regarding these and other summer courses are at www.mtso.edu/learnmore.

A bumper crop of Seminary Hill Farm’s community-supported agriculture participants are enjoying the CSA spring term. The summer term begins June 21, with a June 7 registration deadline.

CSA members take home a generous supply of organic produce each week during spring, summer and fall terms.

The new year has brough a number of updates to the CSA program:

• Tuesday is the new pick-up day.
• New, expanded pick-up hours are 2-6 p.m.
• The new pickup location is the MTSO Coffee Shop porch, near the campus’s Route 23 entrance.
• Half shares are available for the first time. Half shares include 6-8 items per week; full shares are 10-12 items.

Pricing details and online membership registration are available here.