Calvary Lutheran Church in Federal Way, Wash. sponsors Lenten studies focused on the environment. Calvary’s “Caretakers of Creation” program includes a study of J. Matthew Sleeth’s book Serve God, Save the Planet (Chelsea Green and Zondervan, 2006).

Luke Smetters is a candle carver who has led workshops at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, Ill., where he is also a student. Contact him at Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, Mich., where he is the vicar.

With attendance down in mainline Protestant churches and older ministers delaying retirement, many recent seminary graduates are finding that pastoral jobs are scarce, according to a Religion News Service story published Sept. 30, 2006, by The Washington Post.

Read a March 17, 2006, New York Times story about how fewer seminary students are interested in leading churches. It’s posted by Netscape.

Ann M. Svennungsen is president of the Fund for Theological Education, an Atlanta-based ecumenical organization that gives fellowships and support to young women and men exploring ministry, and Texas Lutheran University in Seguin. She was elected Bishop by the Minneapolis Area Synod Assembly in 2012.

Read the United Methodist Church’s guide to Investment ethics.

Read a Nov. 2011 article from Religion News Service about the investing guidelines issued by the Lutheran Church in Germany that considers companies producing hard liquor immoral.

Patricia M.Y. Chang is a lecturer in the sociology department at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. She has studied clergy career characteristics and the supply of ordained leadership in some Protestant denominations, and she co-authored Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling.

A national shortage of Protestant clergy is taking its toll on rural congregations, according to a Kansas City Star article published June 11, 2005, by The Washington Post.