June 3, 2004

FOCUS ON FAITH

Young pastor heads Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church
Members say they’re happy with pastor’s ‘young thoughts,’ ‘energy’

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

Almaden’s Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church is a community of believers enthused by the leadership of a young pastor who hopes to attract more members to his fold with a rich conventional Protestant theology. 

Headed by the Rev. Robert Weller, a native of Southfield, Mich., the congregation has 450 members on its rolls, but only about 120 attend Sunday worship services regularly.

Pastor Weller replaced the Rev. David T. Shoemaker, who retired in 2000 after more than 35 years of ministry, 17 of which were spent at Shepherd of the Valley.

Pastor Weller was ordained into the ministry in July of 1994. The service of ordination took place at his home congregation in Royal Oak, Mich., and he was installed a pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Logan, Utah, where he served for six years until his installment at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church Aug. 6, 2000.

The congregation selected Pastor Weller after holding “call meetings” and praying and voting for the best candidate to lead the congregation.

His wife, Lisa, is a native of Los Altos Hills, so he says coming to serve in the South Bay was like a “homecoming” for her. The couple has a 5-year-old daughter named Emily and a newborn son named Luke.

Pastor Weller said although it was difficult to leave his small tight-knit Utah congregation, he was excited to move to Northern California. “I looked forward to being near a big city again,” he said, explaining that he grew up outside of Detroit and liked the excitement of a big city. “I was excited to work with a larger congregation.”

Pastor Weller graduated from the Lutheran Concordia College in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1990, where he obtained a bachelor of arts degree in Biblical languages specializing in Greek and Hebrew, which he can read.

In 1994, he received a master’s of divinity from the Lutheran Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Ind. He’s now working on a doctoral degree from the Lutheran Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Miss. He’s preparing a thesis for his doctoral degree on evangelism in an educational setting.

The 36-year-old minister says he enjoys serving the congregation because of the members’ “dedication to worship and to the word of God and helping with the preschool.”

The preschool opened in September 1981 with a “commitment to provide Christian training as well as an excellent academic program in a Christian environment for the young children of the congregation of Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church and the surrounding community.” The school today has about 60 children enrolled in its program.
Marie Mosier serves as preschool director with Pastor Weller acting as a faculty advisor.

Pastor Weller can be found at the church as early as 6 a.m. on Sunday mornings. He spends between 40 and 50 hours a week performing his ministerial duties.

During worship services he wears the traditional Lutheran white robe called an “alb” to represent God’s forgiveness of his children. The alb is worn over his black collar, which represents sin. He also wears a stole over his shoulders, which changes based on the seasons. As the Pentecost season approaches he’ll soon be wearing red to represent the fire of the Holy Spirit. He also wears a cross to represent Christ.

On Sundays he conducts services, which involve preaching a sermon based on the Bible and administering the Holy Communion, the ritual sharing of bread and wine, from the altar.

Pastor Weller said he decided to become a minister when he was 12 years old. “I had a pastor who told me he thought I was gifted in these areas,” he says. “I can’t remember ever thinking any different from that time on. I always just thought that this was the right thing to do, to become a pastor.”

Pastor Weller comes from a family with strong Lutheran roots, but he says, “They never pushed me to become a pastor but they thought it was great that I was going to be one.”

Pastor Weller said the most challenging aspect of leading the congregation is dealing with difficulties and crisis. “Many times you’re called into people’s lives when they really feel kind of broken whether it be by divorce, or by sin, or by tragedy such as sickness or death. While those are the hardest times, they’re also times when God really works through me and gives me what I need to help these people,” he said.

Pastor Weller said his church abides by the rules and regulations in The Book of Concord, which contains all of the Lutheran Confessions. They include the Small and Large catechisms, and a host of other important documents. Apart from scripture, the book is the central basis on which the Lutheran Church forms its beliefs. It contains many of the chief works of Martin Luther, guiding the church in most areas of life. While the book can be heavily theological, it is not required reading for those who wish to become Lutherans.

Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church Head Elder Don Patterson, who’s been attending the congregation for 20 years, says he loves worshipping with the congregation. “Were a strong family of believers who all share in the same faith. We love Pastor Weller. He’s been here now three years and it’s fun having a young pastor with young thoughts and the energy of youth, especially for us older members.”

About the shrinking congregation, Patterson said many families have moved away because Almaden Valley is an expensive place to live. “For us we thought that was a problem 10 years ago,” he says. “We thought we would dwindle away after many retired, but that hasn’t been the case.”

Pastor Weller agrees. He says many congregation members left after the economic downturn and the dot-com bust. “When the church called me to this position they recognized that membership would drop. We had many members in those years retiring or moving and that was good and bad. It was good because it forced the younger members to step up and take leadership roles, but it was bad because we lost experience of leadership.”

Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church was organized in 1969 and was originally called Almaden Lutheran Church. The congregation belongs to the California/Nevada/Hawaii District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, one of the three largest Lutheran denominations in the country. The others are the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The church is a traditional conservative Lutheran approach to worship and family life.

For more information on Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, 1281 Redmond Ave., San Jose, CA 95120-2747, call 997-4848 or visit www.sanjoselutheran.org. The church offers Sunday worship services at 10 a.m. and Sunday school and Bible classes at 8:45 a.m.