Hi, I’m Thomas Strandskov, the new Director of Faith Formation. I am from Michigan and graduated from Central Michigan University with a Bachelor’s degree in Biology: Biomedical, Cellular, and Molecular and a minor in Chemistry. Prior to coming to Lutheran Church of Hope, I was the Youth and Tech Coordinator at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Mt. Pleasant, MI (the congregation I grew up in) for 4 years. Youth trips outside of the church walls are some of my favorite forms of ministry, and I am excited to experience them with the youth of this church. When it comes to things like mission trips, lock-ins, camp, or Christmas programs; I’m your guy.

Camp has always been a big part of my faith journey. I’ve had the privilege of attending two ELCA camps throughout my life and they have given me some of the greatest weeks. My family has been attending family camp at Camp Nawakwa in south central Pennsylvania for 17 years now, and I was a rental counselor for a couple weeks in 2019 and 2021and Stony Lake Lutheran Camp in western Michigan is where I met some of the best people to be around. It was through connections made at Nawakwa that I got connected with this church!

Throughout my life, I have been heavily involved in Scouting. I obtained the rank of Eagle scout in 2018 and am one of four Eagle Scouts in my family. In high school and college, I continued to be involved through working on National Youth Leadership Training courses and attending the National Youth Leadership Training: Leadership Academy in St. Louis, MO.

In my free time, I enjoy playing games with friends, both video games and board games, as well as cycling, playing volleyball, and watching football (Go Pack Go!). I also love to travel, both domestically and internationally. So far, I’ve been to 34 states and 4 countries. I am excited to get back into camping and backpacking here in Colorado, two hobbies that I unfortunately did not have the time to enjoy as much as I would have liked. Some fun facts about me: I’m SCUBA certified, I was once in a Super Bowl commercial, in college I was a competitive esports player and captain, and I was briefly the Stony Lake-Country Dairy Chocolate Milk Drinking champion.

I’m very excited about what the future of LCHope holds. It is a time of change, and that can be disruptive to people’s routines, but change can be good. I look forward to getting to know all of you and working with you!