Ethan Urtel will serve as vicar of Hartland and Manchester Lutheran churches through May 31, 2020.

What is a vicar? The vicar year is the fourth year of seminary, following three years of classroom training, according to a press release. Similar to interns in the medical profession, during the vicarage, the student is given practical experience in all the regular duties of a pastor.

Under the pastor’s supervision, the vicar will conduct the services, doing shut-in and hospital visitation, preaching once or twice per month, leading youth Bible studies and activities, giving devotions at Lutheran Pioneers, and will do some teaching in confirmation, Bible studies and ladies’ circle.

He will also direct the church choir and helping teach music to the Sunday school. The pastor will evaluate his performance and send regular reports to the seminary.

Urtel was born July 1994 and raised in Brooklyn Center. He was homeschooled through high school and also took post-secondary enrollment options classes in his high school years.

According to the release, he thoroughly enjoyed his four years at Bethany Lutheran College, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in sociology and minor in religion in 2016.

Highlights for him were choir, choraliers and any opportunity to sing, from chapel to choir tour. Through his training at Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary he hopes to do more serving to share the good news of Jesus Christ to others, the release stated.