How does one go from being a newspaper editor to a Unitarian Universalist minister? (click here)
Now-Rev. David Kraemer, who was the editor of the Ames Tribune for eight years, explains: “It’s like Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road.’ Life is one long, steady stream with good adventures all along the way.
“A book about my life,” Kraemer said in an article published in the Rochester Post-Bulletin, “would be called ‘Adventure by Adventure,’ where I turn good newspaper stories into good sermons. So, it could also be called ‘Story by Story.’ Journalism, at its root, is about words and people. I like both. Ministry is much the same.”
Kraemer was ordained April 12 at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Rochester, Minn., only the second minister to be ordained there in the church’s 149-year history.
“At this moment, you are the newest Unitarian Universalist minister in the world! This is a moment to savor. You have worked long and hard,” said the Rev. Dr. Carol Hepokoski, the church’s minister since 2006, in the ordination service.
Kraemer’s nontraditional path to the ministry can be traced back to high school, when he read “Walden,” a seminal book that “turned me around” and sparked an enduring academic interest in American transcendentalists. But when asked if his life has turned out how he planned from those high school days, he said, “Hell no! I had no idea!”...
Now-Rev. David Kraemer, who was the editor of the Ames Tribune for eight years, explains: “It’s like Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road.’ Life is one long, steady stream with good adventures all along the way.
“A book about my life,” Kraemer said in an article published in the Rochester Post-Bulletin, “would be called ‘Adventure by Adventure,’ where I turn good newspaper stories into good sermons. So, it could also be called ‘Story by Story.’ Journalism, at its root, is about words and people. I like both. Ministry is much the same.”
Kraemer was ordained April 12 at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Rochester, Minn., only the second minister to be ordained there in the church’s 149-year history.
“At this moment, you are the newest Unitarian Universalist minister in the world! This is a moment to savor. You have worked long and hard,” said the Rev. Dr. Carol Hepokoski, the church’s minister since 2006, in the ordination service.
Kraemer’s nontraditional path to the ministry can be traced back to high school, when he read “Walden,” a seminal book that “turned me around” and sparked an enduring academic interest in American transcendentalists. But when asked if his life has turned out how he planned from those high school days, he said, “Hell no! I had no idea!”...
