ST MICHAEL’S Lutheran Church in Tarrington has a new pastor, Joshua Pfeiffer, who has already settled nicely into his new parish.

Pastor Pfeiffer arrived recently with wife, Kimberley, and their four children ranging in ages from four to 15 after a two-and-a-half-year stint studying theology in the United States.

He takes over from Pastor Neil Guthrig who recently retired.

He said he felt very blessed with the new role.

“I’m actually the pastor of the Tarrington Parish, which consists of this congregation as well as Trinity Lutheran Church at Warryure and the primary school (Tarrington Lutheran School),” Pastor Pfeiffer said.

He said the welcome he and his family had enjoyed upon their arrival was overwhelming.

“People have been wonderful,” he said.

“Very much a warm welcome.

“We had people greeting us as we drove in, we had people making meals for us every night for the first week, we had people bringing eggs from their farm and the shed is full of firewood.

“It’s just lovely hospitality – there is a real sense of community here and that is very special.”

Pastor Pfeiffer started out his initial training in Adelaide.

“I studied at the seminary in Adelaide for basic pastoral training, I was there for five years,” he said.

“I’ve been a pastor for over 10 years; I started out in Brisbane for five years and then Adelaide for five but then I’ve been in St Louis for the last two and a half years studying theology,” Pastor Pfeiffer said.

He said he had a strong calling to go into ministry since he was very young.

“I grew up in a church, I grew up as a Christian,” he said.

“As I started to get into my latter teen years, I just had a great interest in the Bible, in theology – I really enjoyed talking with people and talking about spiritual things and helping people through challenges in their life and praying with people – I just sort of gravitated towards these sorts of things and I kind of thought that was what it was like for everyone.

“Then someone said, well not everyone kind of feels like that – maybe you should think about the ministry.

“Once I got to seminary to start testing that out – I just never looked back – I just loved it.”

Pastor Pfeiffer is also in the throes of completing his PhD in theology.

“I’ve done all of the requirements that you need to do in person in St Louis when we were there.

“The last big part is the writing project – the dissertation – I will be chipping away at it quietly over the next year or two.”

As far as making any changes during his tenure, he said he would like to take the time to adjust and see how things operate first.

“My experience from other parishes and communities is that it can be a very good idea to do a lot of listening first,” Pastor Pfeiffer said.

“Try and work out why things are the way they are before making any changes.

“There’s an old story of a man that goes into a field and sees a fence – he doesn’t understand why it’s there, his instinct is to knock it down, but doesn’t stop to ask the reason why it’s there – he may discover there’s a very good reason for it.

“I see my task in the first place as doing lots of listening, lots of meeting people, lots of reading too – reading up on the area, the congregation – its history is very rich.

“You always have ideas when you come from the outside.

“Potentially one of the gifts you bring is fresh eyes, but no rush.”

Pastor Pfeiffer said he felt a deep appreciation for the history of the parish.

“As I hear the stories and read a bit of the history, and that there’s been five generations of families here, it’s quite a humbling thing to be here.

“The fact that the founding pastor was a missionary who had come from Germany and then from South Australia and the fact that his descendants are members of this church.

“They did it pretty tough in the early days; I’ve been reading about them building their own huts and working their own land as pastors.

“The founding pastor’s name was Pastor Clamor Schurmann – he’s quite well known in the Lutheran Church for working in mission first with Indigenous people in South Australia and then planting churches around Victoria later in his life and then this is where he died.”

Pastor Pfeiffer said he and his family were looking forward to further settling into the community.

“Having just moved all the way from America, we’d like to put down some roots,” he said.