Special Congregational Meeting

On behalf of the Call Committee, and with great joy, I am inviting you to meet our candidate as the next Pastor of Holy Trinity on Sunday, November 8, 2026, after our morning worship service. 

The Call Committee began the process of writing the Ministry Site Profile in February, and after multiple initial and then in-person interviews over the summer, plus extensive discussions, our discernment process believes that our candidate is being called to provide pastoral leadership at Holy Trinity.  Our candidate met with Church Council and Staff on September 29.  The Church Council affirmed the Call Committee’s work and called for a Special Congregational Meeting to be held so that you could meet him, and then as a congregation, vote on calling him.

Our candidate will be joining us for a Meet-n-Greet reception following the service.  Once he has had a chance to talk with us, he will leave the church and we will begin our Special Congregational Meeting.

NOTE:  Both the Meet-n-Greet Reception and Special Congregational Meeting are IN-PERSON ONLY.  There will be no online option available.

At this meeting, we will vote on two questions:

• Do you support calling this person to be the next Pastor of Holy Trinity? 

• Do you support the Compensation, Benefit, and Ministry Expenses package as prepared by Finance and approved by the Synod?

Pastor Mitch Phillips, Assistant to the Bishop for Leadership from the Northeast Ohio Synod, will be with us at this meeting to facilitate the proceedings and answer any questions you may have.

While we cannot share the name of our candidate out of respect for him and his current congregation, we can say that our candidate earned both a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work and a Master of Arts in Religion from Malone University.  His Master of Divinity degree is from Trinity Lutheran Seminary.  He has been a called pastor at several churches, with 16 years of experience since his ordination.

We are excited to introduce our candidate to you on November 8.

Holy Trinity Call Committee

Alexa Sandmann, Chair

Marsha Asente, Deborah Ickes, LJ Kimble, Gregg Loesch, Nan Riemenschneider, and Rich Williams, Members