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“You feel honored,” Arends said. “To use a church word, you feel blessed. And for me, you also feel a little panicked.”
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The newly elected ELCA bishop Jim Arends.
Erik Daily |
Arends, 56, served as lead pastor at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in La Crescent, Minn., for six years.
He will become the third ELCA bishop when he’s installed Saturday at First Lutheran Church in Onalaska.
When the synod assembly elected him in June, he said, he realized his whole world was going to drastically change.
“First and foremost the bishop is a pastor for the synod, concerned with preaching, teaching and administering the sacraments. Everything else spills out of that.”
That includes a six-year term as bishop, filled with visiting many of the 81 parishes, with a total of 46,000 Lutherans, in a synod that stretches from Mauston, Wis., to rural Spring Grove, Minn.
“I’m already scheduled through Nov. 30,” Arends said.
On his visits he will celebrate anniversaries, ordinations and installations, but he will also meet with church councils or whole congregations when a congregation is in conflict, he said.
Even though he will be working with a great number of people over a large area, he said he will still have the opportunity to preach.
“I’m the connector for the congregations with the greater church,” he said.
Part of being the connector, he said, is helping to “raise up” new pastors and assist congregations in choosing a pastor that will be a good leader for their church.
“This office is one of the key parts in making sure good people are nominated for the right position,” he said.
Arends has been a pastor for 26 years, graduating from Augsburg College in Minneapolis in 1974 and then from Luther Seminary in St. Paul before beginning as an assistant pastor in Brooklyn Center, Minn.
He served as a pastor in Geneva, Minn., for eight years, and lead pastor in Spring Grove for 10 years before being called to Prince of Peace.
“It’s been very hard to leave,”
he said. “Prince of Peace is a great congregation of service. It’s a great congregation for young people. They’re even good at having dads in the pews, which is not always the case.”
He said he’s leaving behind the best staff he’s ever worked with, and he’ll miss working with the youth, but “we trust very strongly in our church that you’re called to the position you have.”
His wife of 35 years, Lynn, said she realizes he’ll be busy as a bishop, but she’s proud of him and thinks he’ll do a great job.
“It is a big change for us,” Lynn said, “but I guess I just look on it as another new adventure.”
The couple has four adult children. Arends said one of the things he judges his adult faith by is the fact that all four of their children are active in church or “caring” jobs.
“They all still enjoy worship,” he said.
Arends will succeed Bishop April Larson, who after 16 years as an ELCA bishop, will be moving to Duluth, Minn., to become lead pastor at the First Lutheran Church there.
Larson is the second woman Lutheran bishop in the world and the first in the ELCA.
She has known Arends for 20 years, she said.
“We’ve been good friends,” Larson said. “I have so much respect and trust in him. When you’ve been the bishop for 16 years it’s not easy to say goodbye. But I have complete confidence in his leadership.”
Arends said an important part of his faith is to respond to Christ’s love by trying to live the way Jesus would want him to live, and he looks for the same qualities in those he serves.
“In my faith, in my piety, it’s important that God’s people act like God’s people. That they walk closer and closer with God,” Arends said.
“A big part of that is reading Scripture and knowing the stories and truths from which we come, and that we’re challenged by the living word of God to make a difference in this world.”
If You Go
What: Installation of the Rev. James Arends as bishop of the La Crosse Area Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: First Lutheran Church, 410 Main St., Onalaska
