Interim Pastor for Spring/Summer

Melissa Melnick will join our staff as a part-time Interim Pastoral Assistant for the period of April 17-August 27. She will assist with pastoral care as well as general pastoral duties including leading worship, preaching, and program participation or teaching. Melissa’s interim period coincides with Pastor Diane Sponheim’s sabbatical (April 21 - July 13) and our two mission trips to Tanzania led by Pastor Chris Smith (July 29 - August 12) and Pastor Randy Brandt (August 7-20).

Melissa is a 2014 graduate of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN with a Master of Divinity and is concluding her internship with Jacob’s Well, a church in Minneapolis. Much of Melissa’s pastoral care experience was developed during her internship as a chaplain with the Good Samaritan Society in Minneapolis, where she worked with traumatic brain injury residents and led chapel services. Before entering into ministry, Melissa worked as a Spanish and ESL teacher. Melissa has two sons. Her older son is in college studying to be a neurobiologist, and her younger son is in high school and active in local theater where they sing together in a madrigal group (an a cappella music group of secular and sacred music).

We look forward to the opportunity to partner with Melissa in ministry over the summer! Please give her a warm SOTV welcome!