“PD” marks 25 years at Lord of All Lutheran

By Brad Everett Times Contributor

Pastor Dawn Nelson, a well-recognized fixture in Strathmore, recently celebrated her 25 years at Lord of All Lutheran Chuch.
“Being here for 25 years says more about the congregation than the pastor,” said Nelson (better known in the community as PD), reflecting on her 25 years of service.
Nelson and the congregation marked the 25th anniversary on July 14 with Sunday worship and an afternoon of activity that was attended by over 200 people from the church and the community. Pastor Garnett Leach presided over a rite in the service where Nelson and the congregation renewed the vows of service and support that were exchanged at her installation service 25 years earlier.
“It was special to be able to have the man who was my pastor when I was eight years old, take part in this service,” said Nelson.
Leach was serving Hope Lutheran Church in northwest Calgary then, which happened to be at the end of the street where Nelson was living with her family. Over the years, occasional attendance became more regular and when she was looking for an opportunity to become more involved in the church a young adult, Leach had a job for her working with youth. She was employed full time as a nurse but took a year off to do youth work. In that time, she started think about going into the ministry.
“It was then that I had the sense there was more God wanted me to do,” she said.
Nelson returned to nursing in Calgary briefly before entering Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon in 1985. Four years later, she graduated with a Master of Divinity degree and took her first call to St. Peter’s Lutheran Parish, serving congregations in Wadena and Margo, Sask., 200 kilometres east of Saskatoon.
“The first call was a city kid to the country, and I loved it,” said Nelson.
Her experience in those rural Saskatchewan parishes was excellent, but with her father’s health changing, Nelson wanted to be closer to her family in Calgary. So, after four years there, she started looking for a new call closer to home.
In 1994, Lord of All Lutheran Church in Strathmore was a nine-year-old mission congregation supported by its denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. In that time, it was served by part-time pastors, interns and a couple of short-term ministries, but by 1994 the congregation was ready to take a leap of faith.
Plans were in place for a new church building to be constructed debt-free and the church was looking to call its first full-time pastor, which was Nelson.
She started at Lord of All on Feb. 1, 1994 and her first Sunday service was marked with -40 C temperatures and 14 people in the pews.
“That Sunday, I was given a sheet of foolscap paper with a membership list of 16 families on it,” she said.
But Nelson’s ministry has never been solely about the congregation.
“My letter of call to Lord of All was uniquely worded,” she said. “I asked that 25 per cent of my time intentionally include community ministry.”
This has given Nelson the opportunity to serve as chaplain to the fire department and the RCMP, to do volunteer chaplaincy at the hospital and to serve on a variety of community boards over the years.
It is this opportunity to build and nurture connections with people in the wider community as well as with her congregation members which Nelson counts as one of the highlights of her ministry.
However, 25 years in the same parish is not without its challenges. The toughest one also centres on relationships.
“The hardest part is the transience of people,” she said. “People come and go, and relationships end or change as people move out of the community, move on in life and then of course death.”
The celebration provided a welcome opportunity for Nelson to renew some of those connections as some people came back to Strathmore especially for the event.
“I didn’t expect that. It blew me away,” she said.
Her most memorable experience of the last 25 years came early in her ministry.
“It was the dedication of the new church building on Sept. 1, 1996,” she said. “Although my dad had died two days earlier, it was such a blessing to be able to celebrate something that was important to him and to experience the care of the people for me and my family at that time.”
As her ministry moves on, Nelson says the best part of her weeks are when she can make a positive difference in one person’s life, and the toughest are when she is unable to help in the way or to the degree she would like.
Asked about what the future holds after 25 years in the same parish, Nelson answered, “I don’t know what the future holds but I know who holds the future.”
Lord of All Lutheran Church in Strathmore is located at 112 Lakeside Blvd., and worship services are 10:30 a.m. on Sunday and 7 p.m. on Thursday.