How do you welcome a pastor? How do you say “hi” to someone who will one day bless your children with the seal of the Holy Spirit, care for your grandmother when she is frail, say words of hope when you are all strung out? How do you welcome a pastor? How do you a start a relationship which will hold the cosmic mysteries of life and death, sing of cherubim and seraphim in Sunday worship, explain the transcendence of the Holy Trinity in bible study?
How do you chit-chat with someone when so much is at stake? Well, you start like Jesus does, by inviting her to dinner, or coffee, or a summer ice cream (ok Jesus didn’t have summer ice cream, or coffee?).
Really, welcoming a pastor starts like the beginning of any relationship because all relationships are holy. This June we get the blessing of starting a new relationship with a pastor. Alissa Kretzmann Farrar will join our staff this June 1st as our new Pastor of Youth Education and Ministry. She’ll be with us in worship on June 3rd. She and her husband Kevin (also a pastor who is being called to Atonement Lutheran in Muskego) will be ordained here, at Lake Park, at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, June 4th. She will move into her new office right next to mine the first week of June.
Stop by and say hi. Bring her greetings. Invite her out for a chat. An entire world is opened up in such simple beginnings.
There is an old saying about pastoral ministry: great congregations make great pastors. You have held me in that truth and I know you will hold Alissa in that truth as well.
Let’s get started!
Pastor David