Full of Joy Podcast - Worship Stories: Visual Arts

Full of Joy Podcast - Worship Stories: Common Threads

What are the regular elements of a church service that help make it feel familiar to us? At Spirit of Joy, we call these frequent pieces that help connect everything together Common Threads. Heather Wald explains all the different ways we incorporate these reoccurring segments and how our worship and visual arts teams intentionally plan out all the details. We also discuss how the lectionary helps us organize our worship services into a three-year cycle. And Heather talks about some of the different ways YOU can be involved to help with our worship (hint…there is a shameless plug to join the choir). (Originally aired November 17, 2025)

Full of Joy Podcast - Bible Stories: The Wedding at Cana

Pastor Eric is in the studio today to talk about the wedding at Cana, which is Jesus’ first sign (we’ll get into why the Gospel of John calls it a “sign” and not a “miracle”). He gives us a little background to set up the story and then treats us to a retelling of it to fill in the details. And Eric and Marnie discuss how the story is about God encountering us amid our everyday lives and saying He will be present with us. (Originally aired February 9, 2026)

Full of Joy Podcast - Faith Stories: Krista Ohrtman

On today’s episode of Full of Joy, we get to talk to our one and only pastor’s wife and potter extraordinaire, Krista Ohrtman. We hear so often from her husband it’s more than time for her to get the chance to talk to us! Krista shares about her “classic Lutheran upbringing” growing up in Detroit Lakes, MN, attending Augustana College, and working at Luther Heights Bible Camp in Idaho. She discusses how she lives her faith through empathy, kindness, care, respect and by being in service to others. And, of course, she talks a little about her life as a pastor’s wife! (Originally aired November 24, 2025)

Full of Joy Podcast - Lutheran Stories: The ELCA

Pastor Eric Ohrtman joins us to talk about the things of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that the average Lutheran probably doesn’t know. How did it get here and where is it going? We dive into the structure of the ELCA, with congregations on top, followed by synods, regions, and the churchwide national office based in Chicago. And we discuss Spirit of Joy’s work with our state synod in South Dakota. (Originally aired October 13, 2025)

Full of Joy Podcast - Worship Stories: Behind the Scenes of Sunday Morning

Did you know it takes between 75-100 people to pull off a typical Sunday morning at Spirit of Joy? Heather Wald is in studio to tell us all the different ways people are involved in putting together everything needed for worship. We try to cover everyone—from bulletin folders to Sunday school teachers to offering counters and everyone in between. And it’s quite apparent just how much Marnie loves Sunday morning coffee (she could probably do a whole podcast episode just on that). (Originally aired October 20, 2025)