Bethel Lutheran Church has selected the Rev. Theodore H. Vogel, veteran pastor emeritus, to serve as full-time interim pastor for the congregation.
Vogel, 83, is no stranger to Bethel or to Sweet Home. He served an internship in 1945-46 at Bethel as a student pastor and has returned many times over the past 60 years to preach for special anniversaries.
“I am honored and so privileged to be back at Bethel, where I began 60 years ago and once again can share the good news of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’s forgiving love for everyone through His suffering, death and resurrection,” Vogel said. “I treasure your support and prayers.”
Vogel retired last February as pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in the San Antonio, Texas, area, where he had served for 18 years.
Vogel, who graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Ill., in 1947, has also pastored churches in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wyoming.
He was the first resident Lutheran pastor to work among the Dakota Sioux people of Sisseton and served as first chairman of the Citizens Advisory Committee working with the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribal Council and chairman of the first Community Workshop on Alcoholism.
He has helped to organize groups and efforts to combat alcoholism in North Dakota and Texas as well as in Wyoming as the protestant chaplain in the Wyoming State Penitentiary.
Vogel is married to Rachel Mealey Vogel. They live in the century-old Mealey House overlooking Foster Lake, outside Sweet Home.
For more information about Bethel Lutheran Church, call 367-4838 or visit http://www.bethel-lmcs.us