Candidate Application Detail Listing

Ordained Minister

willing to be placed on the ballot for the Office/Board(s) for which I have been recommended

I have served as sole pastor at St Paul's Lutheran Church, Brookfield, since August 2023.
After returning from Sri Lanka I served as vacancy pastor at Concordia Lutheran Church, South Hills (Pittsburgh) for six months, and provided pulpit supply in the local area as needed, from 2021-2023.
Before my service to the LCMS as theological educator to South Asia, I served as assistant pastor at Redeemer Lutheran Church, Oakmont, PA (2013-2015- an English District congregation).

In NID since 2023 I have attended circuit meetings and a forum, and pastors' conferences. At the May 7-8 conference I presented a paper entitled, "Reconciliation in the Early Church".
Prior to missionary service, I attended circuit meetings, forums and pastors conferences in the English District. I served on a floor committee for the English District convention in 2016.

From the summer of 2015 to the summer of 2021, I served the corporate Synod in the Office of International Mission, as theological educator to South Asia. In this capacity I helped to provide ongoing theological education to pastors, assisted in the formation of new pastors in the region, contributed to mission strategy, and published Lutheran educational materials. While living in Sri Lanka, I learned to speak Sinhala, to enable me to share the Gospel locally, especially among the Sinhalese population.

In Brookfield we are still getting integrated into the community, which takes time. We are getting to know people better by opening our home in hospitality. We take our children to the library, to the local farmers' market, events at the Zoo. Through the Church I have been able to put into motion new events such as the Oktoberfest, Youth Lock-in, Carol singing, and restarting of the church choir.
In Sri Lanka and more recently in Pittsburgh and Brookfield, I made friends playing soccer or futsal in a local group. I also engage in the community through my seven children, whose school community has been a key component of our social engagements, from friends' birthday parties to choir concerts.
In Pittsburgh (2013-15) I served on the cemetery committee, to help clean up Minersville Cemetery, which was massively overgrown, and maintain it as it is this day.

The mission of every member of the LCMS (and the NID) is to be God's living instrument, so that He may work through us to call, gather, enlighten and sanctify the flock of Christ, and keep them in the one true faith unto everlasting life. To this end the NID has the opportunity to assist and support the work of proclaiming the Gospel to all people. The NID provides oversight, to protect the flock from scandals of injustice and false doctrine, which cause people to fall away. The NID should also, however, in a place to encourage and facilitate the Gospel. It can provide useful resources (or inform members where they can find such resources), needed to carry out Word and Sacrament ministry faithfully, and the NID can provide further resources helpful for conducting effective community-building and charitable activities, to the glory of God, in testimony of His love toward us and our love toward all people.

The challenges of American culture are great. Individualism, lack of engagement in the life of the church, sinful addictions, depression, loneliness, family conflicts, lack of resources, and the great variety of different ways the Church is openly or surreptitiously undermined and attacked, require a wisdom, discernment and guidance that goes beyond human capacity. What the Church constantly needs is the blessing of God. We need faithful pastors to serve with a pure heart and a good conscience, and faithful sheep who follow the voice of Christ and reject the voice of the stranger.