Peter W. Marty Commissioned As Lutheran Vespers Host

DAVENPORT, Iowa (ELCA) -- The Rev. Peter W. Marty, senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, was formally commissioned in his congregation here Aug. 8 as the new host of Lutheran Vespers, the radio ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The Rev. Eric C. Shafer, director, ELCA Department for Communication, Chicago, officiated. Others who participated included Tamara Hermanson, St. Paul vice president; the Rev. Kurt R. Nordby, assistant to the bishop, ELCA Southeastern Iowa Synod, Des Moines; and the Rev. Jennifer L. Henry and the Rev. Ronald R. Huber, St. Paul Lutheran Church.
Marty, 46, succeeds the Rev. Walt Wangerin Jr., author, speaker and faculty member at Valparaiso (Ind.) University, who served as the program's speaker for about 10 years. Marty will continue in his role as St. Paul senior pastor while he serves as Lutheran Vespers host.
"We're very excited about the opportunity not only for Peter to share his many gifts with the wider church but for our church to stand behind him in spirit, in prayerfulness and in thought every day," said Hermanson. "It creates a greater sense of community for us, as well, to be behind our senior pastor whom we love and have great respect for."
Lutheran Vespers has been on air for 57 years. It is heard on some 186 radio stations in North America, Africa, Europe and Australia. Marty is the first parish pastor to serve as host since the program's founder, the Rev. Harry Gregerson, who was speaker from 1947 to 1972.
Marty said being a pastor in a congregation gives him a chance to share with listeners the kinds of things he experiences every day including routine happenings, great joys and disappointments.
"To have all of that is part of who I am, infusing ideas, insight [and] perspectives on the radio program, that's really important to me," Marty said. "If I lose a sense of ordinary life, the everyday challenge and routine of a seven-day week that can often be hell for some people -- I think I'm going to lose the perspective of what this radio ministry can really mean to everyday people."
Marty's first broadcast as Lutheran Vespers host will be in February 2005. While many of his programs will be produced well in advance, Marty said he hopes the program can be "spontaneous" when events call for it.
"We'll look for those opportunities," he said. "Never will be the program be canned. Never will the message be out of date. Always, I want relevance and messages [that are] contemporary and current to the time."
It is significant that the radio ministry is "grounded" in an ELCA congregation that reaches out to the world, Shafer said. "We're very excited about Pastor Marty's ability to take the gospel message and make it in ways that people will understand," he said.
An early challenge for Marty and the Lutheran Vespers staff is to help the ministry grow and expand. For example, Shafer said the staff will be working to find an affiliate to carry Lutheran Vespers in this area.
"We want to 'grow it' (the radio ministry) throughout the ELCA, United States and Caribbean and throughout the world," he said. "To do that, we need people's prayers, we need donations to support the churchwide ministry, and we need people to take responsibility locally to get it on the radio and raise funds."
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A video news release on the Rev. Peter W. Marty's commissioning as Lutheran Vespers host is at http://www.elca.org/co/news/videos/video.index.html on the ELCA Web site.

Information about Lutheran Vespers is at http://www.elca.org/lv/ on the ELCA Web site.


For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news