Join us for Sunday Forum

Sundays September - April | 9:45 AM

When & Where  

Sundays, September through April 
9:45 – 10:45 AM
Shepherd of the Valley (Rooms 20-21)  
No registration necessary

Past Presentations

What to Expect  

During the months of September – April, people of all ages are invited to hear professors, teachers, and members of our congregation present topics connected to our faith. These speakers inspire us in our faith to seek a better understanding of God in today’s ever-changing world. There is time set aside for questions at the end of the presentation. 

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2025 - 2026 Presenters

January 25

“Held by Faith, Moved to Love”, with Dr. Salma Hussein, Principal at Gideon Pond Elementary School

February 1

“Called to Care: How
Faith Shapes a Public
Health Vocation” with
 Leah Moat, MPH

February 8 & 15

"Whose Body? Whose Future?" with Jerry Hamilton, Retired College Professor from Wittenberg University

2025 - 2026 Schedule Details

Held by Faith, Moved to Love shares Dr. Salma Hussein’s journey as a refugee coming to America, growing up in public housing, and discovering that education is liberation and liberation is freedom. Rooted in faith, this presentation lifts up the truth that home is where dignity lives and calls us to ensure that every human being is seen, valued, and treated with dignity

Dr. Salma Hussein is Somali Muslim woman leader and a committed community member who honors her interfaith family, including her husband’s Catholic relatives, and believes that love, dignity, and faith unite us far more than they divide us. God is Love.  

Hear how the core values of Leah’s faith: service, compassion, and justice, have led her to a vocation in public health. She’ll highlight transformational experiences she has had abroad and in communion with the global church as well as how current work to protect vaccine access reflects a continued commitment to living out her faith. 

Leah Moat, MPH, works for the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Her current work there focuses on safeguarding vaccine information and access with the Vaccine Integrity Project. Leah previously worked for the Minnesota Department of Health and the CDC’s Central America Regional Office in Guatemala. A fluent Spanish speaker, Leah also served with the ELCA’s Young Adult in Global Mission (YAGM) program in Mexico. She met her fiancé, SOTV’s Middle School Youth Ministry Director, Marissa Bachtel, through the YAGM program, and they now happily reside in South Minneapolis with their silly dog, Bugs.  

These two Sunday Forum sessions offer a critical confrontation with the Eugenics Movement—a historical apparatus of racism, ableism, and white supremacy that sought to dictate who could reproduce and who could not. We will analyze the movement's rise, its political power, and its central role in enacting compulsory sterilization laws and restrictive immigration policies designed to enforce a dangerous and unscientific ideal of "Racial Purity" that continues to surface in debates to this day.   

Jerry has taught at the elementary, junior high, and college levels, and has worked as an elementary school counselor. During his tenure at Wittenberg in the Department of Education, Jerry served as department chair, Faculty Personnel Board chair and Head of the Faculty Development Organization. In his non-teaching time, he was a volunteer football statistician and assistant women's basketball coach and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. He has traveled six times with students to Mississippi to help build houses as part of the Habitat Collegiate Challenge.    

Information coming soon!