I have been to exactly three Lutheran ordinations in my (nearly) forty-eight trips around the sun. Of course, it wasn’t until my twenty-seventh year (a little over twenty-one years ago, in 2002) that I was confirmed, but even then, that’s not too many.
On Sunday, July 9, the Candidate David Woelmer, a recent graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana was ordained at Grace Lutheran Church in Smithville and then installed there as their fifteenth pastor.
He was ordained by the Rev. Michael Newman, president of the Missouri Synod’s Texas District. His father, the Rev. James Woelmer of Faith Lutheran Church in Plano served as the lector, and his father-in-law, the Rev. Peter Lange, First Vice President of the LCMS, delivered the sermon. His sister, Bethany Johnson, Kantor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Topeka, KS, served as the organist.
Rev. Woelmer is of Wendish extraction via his mother. It’s pretty neat to see someone with that heritage in a pulpit out here in “Wendish Land.”
We, appropriately (but perhaps not intentionally), even sang a hymn with a Wendish connection during the distribution… Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness (“Přihotuj so, luba duša” in Wendish). Its tune was composed by Jan Krygaŕ (in English hymnals, his German name, Johann Crüger, is used).
Gratuluju, farar Woelmer! Blessings on your ministry at Grace!
