MEET THE NEW SENIOR PASTOR
LIVING WATER LUTHERAN CHURCH
On Saturday, November 21 we had the “Get Acquainted Ice Cream Social”.
Pastor Dave shared his history and details of his family, faith and more to the congregation. we then adjourned to the outdoor fellowship area for some ice cream and some personal visits with Pastor Dave and his family.
Pastor Dave Thomas, 47, has served as the Senior Pastor of a midsized, program congregation, in Arizona, since 2003, where he has been instrumental in casting a new missional vision for a congregation that had been in decline for two decades. He has brought hope and a renewed vitality through supporting and enhancing traditional ministries while also developing new entry points into the community of faith through ministry initiatives in youth, innovative worship, Latino ministries, social services, hunger advocacy, excellent staff and financial management, campus improvements, and, above all, sharing his contagious passion for the good news of Jesus Christ through a preaching and teaching style that is engaging, creative, biblical, relevant, warm and humorous.
Pastor Dave was born in the Ozark Mountain region of southwest Missouri, where he met and married a lifelong Lutheran young woman, Barbara Dykman. Dave and Barbara moved to Arizona first in 1985, where he completed his undergraduate degree in journalism at ASU and she began a career as a Certified Public Accountant. They joined a small church, All Saints Lutheran, where they grew in their faith and were prepared by God for the next phase of their lives together.
After graduating summa cum laude from ASU, Dave worked for several years locally as a reporter, including three years at the Scottsdale Progress/Tribune. In 1991, he and Barbara were sent by All Saints to Africa for two years through Food for the Hungry International (FHI), a Christian relief and development organization. Upon their return, Barbara remained with FHI at their Scottsdale headquarters, while Dave returned to the newspaper business. Two years later, however, they once again felt God leading them to Africa with FHI. Preparing for a career in missions, they sold their belongings and moved to Nairobi, Kenya.
With FHI Dave served as a field correspondent and liaison as well as a communication and logistic officer as part of a rapid response team. Dave worked in many challenging locations, including Mozambique, Ethiopia, Angola, Zaire, Uganda, Chad, and Rwanda. He served Sudanese and Somali in Kenya, and was among the first to respond to the genocide in Rwanda. He and Barbara aided in the development of microfinance programs in the slums of Nairobi, Entebbe, and Kampala Addis Ababa. He helped organize the first child sponsorship program in Mozambique during the civil war there, as well as a program to serve HIV/AIDS victims and to promote AIDS awareness and prevention with the youth of Africa. He also traveled to FHI sites in several Latin American countries. Among his duties were promoting FHI and hunger advocacy, and working with international journalists and publications.
While in Africa, Dave and Barbara were blessed with the news that their family would soon grow. While on Christmas furlough in Arizona in 1995, David Anthony Dykman Thomas was born. The family soon returned to Kenya for two more years. It was while in Africa that Dave felt God calling him into ordained ministry. In 1997 the family returned to the States, and Dave enrolled in the Master of Divinity in Cross-Cultural Studies program at Fuller Theological Seminary. While there Dave served as youth director and pastoral intern with four congregations together called the Pasadena Area Lutheran Parish. Graduating from Fuller in 2000, Dave and family moved to Boise, Idaho, where he completed a formal ELCA internship at Immanuel Lutheran. It was there that Dave helped develop the first contemporary service called Omega, drawing unchurched families, young adults and youth to the congregation through this warm, worshipful, engaging outreach.
To fulfill requirements for ordination and in pursuit of his developing specialty in a missional approach to parish ministry, Dave next moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, to attend Luther Theological Seminary. He studied there for a year in the Master of Theology and Doctor of Ministry programs in Congregational Leadership and Mission. In 2002 he was invited by the Bishop of the Grand Canyon Synod to return to Arizona and apply his experience, education and energy to the redevelopment of St. Peter Lutheran Church, where he was ordained and installed as a pastor in the ELCA.
Pastor Dave’s other interests besides his faith and his family include golf, tennis, softball, crossword puzzles, fly fishing, music (he’s an amateur percussionist), and coaching and supporting his son David in academics and athletics (David’s primary sport is baseball which takes up much of the time he doesn’t spend attending to the demands of being a student at Mesa Preparatory Academy). Pastor Dave walks and works out almost every day as part of his ongoing recovery from very successful coronary bypass surgery in June. His surgery caused Pastor Dave to put on hold his studies in a Doctor of Ministry program through Luther Seminary, a pursuit which he very much hopes to return to in 2010.
Pastor Dave and his family enjoy going to sporting events in which they are participants or spectators, playing games, traveling or just hanging out. They are absolutely rabid fans of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, but they also support the local teams and generally are big sports fans. Barbara is the Minister of Finance for the Grand Canyon Synod of the ELCA, and an avid runner, reader, hiker and busy mom. David, who will turn 14 in December, is in 8th grade at Mesa Prep.
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