Sacramento Conference, ELCA News

SACRAMENTO, CA (October 20, 2009) - The Rev. Jason Bense will be installed as Pastor of Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer on Saturday, October 31st at 3:00 pm. The Rev. Jose Luis LaTorre, Conference Dean of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will preside at the installation.

Bense, a recent graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, was raised in southern Indiana, graduated from Valparaiso University in 2001, and worked for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in Baltimore with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC). He moved to Chicago in fall of 2003 to serve another year with LVC at the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago. He was ordained at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Chicago on October 17th. Bense served as Vicar at Redeemer Lutheran in Kingston, New York, and most recently served as interim minister at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Smyrna, IN while awaiting a call to ordained ministry.

Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer (LCOR) was organized in 1953. The Rev, F. Noreen Meginness, pastor of LCOR from 1978-1986, was the first female Lutheran pastor in the Sacramento area. LCOR has been a “Reconciling in Christ” congregation, a program for Lutheran communities of faith to answer the inclusive call of the Gospel by welcoming people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, since October of 1989. The Lutheran Church of Our Redeemer is located at 4641 Marconi Avenue, Sacramento. A reception will follow the installation service of Holy Communion.