A Passion for Ministry and Waterfalls
Linnea Ek C’09, S’16 is a two-time North Park alumna, who graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and in 2016 with a Master of Divinity. Currently pastor of Community Covenant Church in Menominee, Michigan, Ek comes from a long line of Evangelical Covenant Church pastors and North Park alumni. She and her two brothers are alumni and fourth-generation pastors. Ek combines her passion for ministry with a newfound passion for chasing waterfalls in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Here’s what she had to say about her time at North Park.
Why North Park?
I chose North Park on the last day the deposit for the fall semester was due. Ultimately North Park’s distinctives as Christian, city-centered, and intercultural won out.
What is a favorite North Park memory?
Two of the most eye-opening experiences I had during my undergrad experience were Sankofa and participating in a Displace Me event by Invisible Children. These experiences helped expand my worldview as well as my understanding of compassion, mercy, and justice. Both reinforced lessons I was learning in the classroom and in the North Park community.
How did North Park inform your career?
Before I began my first year at North Park, I had already privately sensed a call to ministry. I think learning about human nature through psychology and sociology helped me become a better pastor.
How did North Park foster your Christianity?
North Park fostered my faith by exposing me to a variety of worship styles, speakers, and traditions. There are some songs that take me right back to CollegeLife worship services.
Investing in Faith
Vince Lambert G’96 was browsing a copy of Christianity Today when he came across an ad for a North Park Saturday grad program.
“I saw this MBA program at a Christian school in Chicago and I thought the approach was intriguing,” Lambert recalled.
Some two-and-a-half years later, the freshly minted MBA launched a successful 15-year career in financial services and investing. In doing so, he left behind a calling to be an army chaplain, one he first felt while at North Park. But when the housing bubble burst in 2008, his long-held dream caught up with him again.
“I’d seen previous financial disasters but there was something different about that one that made me say, no, this is a wrap,” he said.
In addition to banking, Lambert had various ministerial roles. So, with the support of his family, he enlisted in the Army and was commissioned at Fort Jackson in South Carolina in 2009.
Today, Lambert is Deputy Command Chaplain of the Illinois Army National Guard, where he provides support for servicemen in the form of worship services and counseling. He also oversees the marriage and relationship programs, providing couples with the tools and skills for a healthy relationship.
He credits North Park with equipping him for such a fulfilling and varied career. “My professors brought faith into our
classes, which was really important when you’re talking about leadership and ethics in business,” he said, citing Dean Lundgren as a particular inspiration.
“Through casual conversations with people like Dean, my faith grew deeper.”
A Heart for Advocacy
Nancy Valentin C’13 works tirelessly to ensure health equity for all Chicagoans.
During her time at North Park, communication studies alumna Valentin grew a heart for advocacy, something she taps into daily in her position as director of health equity at Chicago’s Northwest Center, a nonprofit founded in 2003 to address the housing crisis. Her work was recognized by the City of Chicago, which gave her the Mayor’s Medal of Honor Award in 2022.
Valentin leads the city’s northwest region in a program that identifies social determinants of health, which the Chicago native describes as an enormous task. The vulnerable residents in that community, Belmont-Cragin, tend to live 10 to 15 years less than their wealthier peers, according to U.S. Census statistics.
“Our organization started because a lot of residents were dealing with bad mortgages, and since then we’ve expanded to meet the needs of the community,” Valentin said. “I’m committed to health care equity for all Chicagoans.”
The desire to help others was something she learned firsthand as she struggled academically and socially after transferring to North Park her sophomore year.
“There was a lot happening in my life then,” she said. “A lot of people at North Park were extremely kind and generous in their time with me, really nurturing me to help me finish.”
In particular, Dean Liza Ann Acosta, a fellow Latina, and Professor Tim Lowly were there when she needed support. In addition to a counselor she saw during her tenure at North Park, they helped her feel “seen as a whole person, which is so important for a young person.”
Now, she’s applying to master’s in public policy programs, something she wouldn’t have been able to achieve without North Park, she said.
“I’m doing what I am now because I had a stroke of luck in that I had opportunities, and people who believed in me. I want to put opportunities in front of other people.”