Pastor Owen Christianson will serve as Good Shepherd’s supply pastor for services of Holy Communion on Saturday and Sunday, October 18 and 19. A native of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and a Luther College graduate, Pastor Owen and his wife Linda (Norma Refsal’s sister) retired in Decorah six years ago. He received a M.Div. degree from Luther Seminary, was ordained in 1976, and served as a pastor in what became the ELCA; all his calls were in Northern Minnesota. The Christiansons are parents of two grown children, and grandparents to identical twin boys who are their pride and joy.

In his ministry, Pr. Owen was a bridge-builder. For two decades his was a ministry of healing and reconciliation in a once strife-torn parish. Greatly influenced by Professor Orlando “Pip” Qualley, he’s kept up his Greek and Hebrew through the decades. (In his military service in the late Sixties he was a Russian linguist in the Army stationed at a top secret border site in the then West Germany.)

Throughout his ministry he’d also done many Fifth Steps with those living with addictions and worked with Prison Ministries. Congregations he’d served spoke of, in effect, the wide umbrella he set up. Parishioners of varying backgrounds and viewpoints, including those who had been alienated from the Church, struggling skeptics, those with developmental or mental health issues, or those who had suffered from crime, marginalization or trauma, by their own admission sensed a ministry that welcomed and equipped ALL sorts and conditions of persons.   For twelve years he served on the Board of Directors at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, eventually becoming chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, and serving on the Executive Council.

Devoted members of First Lutheran Church in Decorah, Owen and Linda love living here in Decorah. You may know him as “the guy on the bike;” his bike became their second car upon retirement. In their everyday lives, he and Linda aim to stay fit in the variety of ways that Decorah offers. They both are Parish Visitors at the Barthell Eastern Star Home for FLC. He’s greatly enjoyed the experience of preaching and presiding at neighboring churches including their closest neighbor: Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.

This month we will be collecting supplies for our LWR school kits. We are in need of 70-sheet notebooks, 30-centimeter rulers, pencil sharpeners, blunt scissors and blue or black ballpoint pens.  LWR school kits contain basic items that do a lot to help families send their children to school.  Currently there are more requests from around the world than kits to fill them.  Collections boxes will be set up in the narthex on the weekends.  Donations during the week can be placed in the W/ELCA cupboard in the north classroom. School kits will be assembled on Sunday October 26.  If you have any questions contact Bev Sheridan.

Kids of all ages are invited to participate in a scavenger hunt on Sunday, September 7th to kick off the Sunday School year.  Come celebrate this year’s theme:  Everyday God-Every Day, God by sharing random acts of kindness within our congregation and community!

A celebration of the fifteen-year ministry of Pastor Joan A. Mau at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church will be held on Sunday, August 31, as she is retiring from that call on September 1.

      Pastor Mau will preach at the 9:30 A.M. service.  According to Brooke Joyce, interim music director, preservice music will begin at 9:15, including the Good Shepherd Band and guests Spencer Martin, viola, and Heather Armstrong, oboe, who will play a sonata by Antonio Vivaldi, accompanied by Kathy Reed.  The prelude will be a fanfare composed by Daniel Raney,  featuring the Good Shepherd Band with timpani.  The anthem, sung by Andrew Whitfield and the Good Shepherd Choir, will be an aria and chorale by J.S. Bach.  Jonathan Struve will sing “Love Bade Me Welcome” by Ralph Vaughan Williams for the offertory.  Also, the choir will sing a brief  new piece by Brooke Joyce as part of the post-service program.        

      Following brunch in the social hall, there will be a program of appreciation and thanksgiving for Pastor Mau’s work at Good Shepherd.

     “We invite friends of Pastor Mau from the Decorah area to join with members of our congregation for this day of celebrating her contributions to our church and to this community,” says David Judisch, co-chair of the celebration committee with his wife Gail.

     Joan Mau’s early education took place in Germany and Switzerland as her father, the Reverend Carl H. Mau Jr., held executive positions with the Lutheran World Federation.  She earned her bachelor of arts degree at St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN.  While pursuing advanced German studies, she was a teaching assistant at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas.  After earning a master of religion degree from the University of Iowa and a master of divinity degree from Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque (1979), she was ordained into the Lutheran ministry, making her the seventh generation in an unbroken line of Lutheran pastors in her family.

     Before coming to Good Shepherd, Pastor Mau served in campus ministry at Waldorf College, Forest City, IA; and as pastor of Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, Audubon, IA; Trinity Lutheran Church, Sioux City, IA; and Trinity Lutheran Church, Washington Island, WI.