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Siersbeck Retires
At 80, Pastor Sierbeck retired from his part-time visitation ministry ad became pastor emeritus. On May 15, 1982, the Dana Collete Alumni Association presented Siersbeck its Distinguished Alumnus Award at a recognition dinner on the Nebraska campus where he served as president four decades earlier.
A search began to fill the pastoral vacancy. The Rev. Robert Kompelien, an experienced, mature clergyman whom Pedersen had met at summer seminary at the Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, was called in June 1982 to serve as outreach minister.
A Minnesota native, Kompelien had been ordained in 1954, and had served churches in his home state and elsewhere in Wisconsin. He had been a faculty member at Luther Theological Seminary and pastor of an American congregation in Greece. He came to St. Mary’s from Memphis, Tennessee.
As St. Mary’s ended its 110th year in 1983, it numbered 1,168 families, consisting of 650 two-parent family units, 97 retired couples and 168 retired widows or widowers.
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In 1983, Pastor Ray Pedersen spoke out about the importance of the church’s social mission.
“All that we do here might be in response to human need and the human dilemma,” he said. “We need to continue to fund ways to improve the programs and the ministries of this parish so that all who participate in the life and tempo of this congregation might sense the movements of God’s Spirit among us.”
St. Mary’s efforts in this regard include the Kinship program begun in 1975, which matched adult mentors with in-need girls and boys. Project Andrew would aid persons and families facing crises. A St. Mary’s member, Greta Hansen, was instrumental in est-ablishing a community soup kitchen program in 1983. It evolved into the Shalom Center in which Greta continued to be a key element, and many St. Mary’s members helped out.
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Beginning in 1991, the parish has strongly supported the Inns shelter program for the homeless, although, in consideration of neighborhood concerns, not at St. Mary’s church. However, members have staffed INNS each Wednesday night at other churches in the community.
Pastor Ray’s announcement that he would leave St. Mary’s in January, 1984, came as a thunderbolt. He was, he said, called to a new challenge, “a specialized ministry” at Warburg College in Waverly, Iowa, where he became Director of Planned Giving.
In leaving St. Mary’s, Pedersen, who always claimed not to speak Danish, offered “Mange Tak!” - many thanks – to all, lay members and professional staff, who had served with him for those 22 years.
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