Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Celebrating 25 Years of Pastoral Ministry (Part 1)




Last December, Pastor Steve Peters (pictured above in the middle and in the bottom right of the CE National Baord of Director's picture) celebrated his 25th year of being the Sr Pastor at Community Church in West Milton, Ohio. This the church where I began my pastoral ministry back in the summer of 1985. The church asked me to put together a video message to Steve to be played on the morning they celebrated his 25th anniversary with them. Over the next two blog postings, let me share with you what I said in that video (to view the video itself go to http://www.gracechurchworship.org/pastordistlerdec27.html):

Good morning, Community Church. My name is Scott Distler and it is my absolute joy to be the Senior Pastor of Grace Church here in Lititz, PA, located in Lancaster County, right in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. It is my pleasure to be part of your worship this morning in celebrating Pastor Steve’s 25 years of ministry at Community.

Community Church and West Milton, OH will always be a special place to me as it was there that my family and my ministry were shaped. During the summer after my freshman year of college at Liberty University, I met Pastor Steve when he was the youth pastor at Maranatha Brethren Church in Hagerstown, MD. Shortly after that, Steve moved to Ohio and began his ministry at Community. Steve brought me out to West Milton during the summers following my sophomore and junior years in college to be the summer intern youth pastor. Then, after graduating from college in Lynchburg, VA in early May, I got married in Pueblo, CO two weeks later and two weeks after that my new wife and I moved to West Milton where I started as full-time Youth Pastor.

I then spent the next 9 years on staff at Community under Pastor Steve. Those years became a strong foundation for my family and my ministry. Laura and I’s first home was in West Milton. We started living in a 1-bedroom apartment across the street from Pastor Steve. We still laugh when we think about the evening that I was away and a bat got into our little apartment. Laura called Pastor Steve who came over with his huge pool net to rescue my wife as he chased that bat around our apartment until he caught it.

Our two kids were both born at the Good Samaritan hospital in Dayton. They were both dedicated to the Lord there at Community and they both came to trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior while we were serving at Community as well. Today, they still are walking with the Lord. Joy will turn 20 this February and is halfway through her sophomore year as an education major at Liberty University while Jonathan, who just turned 18 this past fall, is preparing to graduate from High School this Spring and he too will be heading down to Liberty this fall where he will be a Worship Arts Major.

But Community Church and Pastor Steve also shaped my ministry philosophy and prepared me for a lifetime of serving Jesus through the local church. I wish every young pastor could have a “first ministry” experience like I had. I will always remember all of the Bible School’s, Youthquake’s, Friend Day’s and Mission’s Conferences. It is amazing that I survived when within the first two weeks of my first summer I got roped into portraying the role of Robin Hood for Bible School, green panty hose and all.

Read the conclsion in tomorrow's posting!

1 comment:

sue cline said...

Please tell Steve and Susie hello from hagerstown Md. From sue and ed cline we had been talking and wondering how you guys are doing. Sounds wonderful! Email us sometime we'd love to catch up email is dei3sr8jr@men.com