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 June, 2002

Mindekirkens Web site.
by Magne A. Hatlevik
President

 Many of the readers of The Communicator have visited Mindekirkens web site www.mindekirken.org at one time or another. But most of you might not even know that Mindekirken has a web site. Well here is your opportunity to check it out.

In the spring of 1999 I was the Treasurer on the Congregational Council and I was also involved with putting together computers, printers and a scanner on a network in the offices of the new addition that was being built. The Call Committee chaired by Orlyn Kringstad was looking for a new pastor to replace Pastor Gunnar Kristiansen. One of the members of the call committee asked me if Mindekirken could get a web site because it would help with advertising for a new pastor. A few days later, the congregational council met and approved the purchase of the domain name www.mindekirken.org and the web site was established soon thereafter.

I remember that Mindekirken was only the 12th Lutheran church in Minnesota to get its own web site. From the beginning, the web site has been published using Microsoft FrontPage. A simple template in that computer program defined how the site looks.

Right from the beginning, the web site has featured an up-to-date calendar of events at Mindekirken. In addition, the pastors’ and presidents’ articles have been published every month and the pastor’s sermons in both Norwegian and English are added weekly. In addition to that we have always had a variety of pictures and images of flyers advertising different events and concerts at Mindekirken.

The online sermons have been one of the most popular pages on the web site. I received testimony to that one time when the sermons were published a bit late. It turned out that there is a Bible study group in Florida that bases their study on the sermon of the week. So I received a concerned e-mail asking why the sermons had not been published yet. After that we have tried our best to have the sermons on line almost as soon as the pastor has written them.

The StarTribune Newspaper has reviewed the Mindekirken web site. This happened in their Faith and Value section shortly after we started publishing the web site. They especially liked the content page of the site and the fact that we publish the sermons in both Norwegian and English.

Just a few days ago, I received by e-mail another great comment about the sermons on the website. This was from a Norwegian lady - Randi Lien Evans that has lived in London, England since 1953. She said that she enjoyed reading Pastor Jens Arne Dale’s sermons because he uses language that she can understand.

Another sample of how the web site has spread the awareness of Mindekirken can be found in the story of Rita Fredheim and Jan-Erik Holter. They are both Norwegian, and moved to Rochester, Minnesota in August 2001. They decided to get married and wanted to find a Norwegian pastor in USA that could perform the wedding ceremony. Thanks to the web site they got in contact with Pastor Dale and are getting married at Mindekirken on June 1, 2002.

There is a new committee at Mindekirken. It is called the Technology Committee. One of the first tasks for this committee is to improve Mindekirken’s web site. Inserted in this issue of the Communicator you can find a one-page survey. It would help the committee a lot if as many as possible of the readers of the Communicator would answer this survey and return it to Mindekirken. In advance, a big thank you to all those that participate in this survey.

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716