- Steven Bliss came south recently from three small Lutheran churches just twenty miles south of Canada.
Steven Bliss is the new 57-year-old pastor for the Bethany Lutheran church in Storden and the Trinity Lutheran church in Jeffers, and he has been serving the parishes since this spring.
Both congregations at one time had its own pastor, but over the years the reduced area population and church members has led to a combined effort to share a lead pastor.
Bliss has experience leading multiple churches at the same time, as he is coming from far northern Minnesota, just 35 miles from the Lake of the Woods, where he served three Lutheran churches in Wanaska, Skye and Pencer, all in Roseau County.
“Nobody is going to know where any of those places are,” Bliss laughed. “We were there eight years, and it was really good. We enjoyed it there.”
Bliss is married and he and his wife Sheila have two sons: Kyle, 23, who is following in his father’s footsteps and attending seminary, and Jordan, 19, who has autism and requires extra help and care. He is now in a group home near Wilmar and coming south allowed Steve and Sheila to be closer to Jordan and also continue the call to ministry.
Near the border
The churches Bliss served in northern Minnesota were in the North American Lutheran Church denomination, and the churches in Storden and Jeffers here are LCMC, which stands for Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.
“There are a lot of similarities between NALC and LCMC,” said Bliss. “And some differences, but they both broke off from the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America).”
As seen in recent splits in the Methodist church and other denominations, Bliss explained that some of the Lutheran splits or changes came down to what pastors and believers saw as a closer adherence to Biblical principles and historic doctrine. There are also LCMC churches in Lamberton and Springfield.
For more details on this story, please see the July 24 edition of the Citizen.
