UPCOMING ACTIVITIES AND EVENTS

What is a Vicar?  A Vicar in the Lutheran church is an assistant to the Pastor.  It would be similar to a Student Teacher.  Vicar Winckler joined us in July of 2022 and will be leaving us in July of 2023.  Pastor Stuckwisch services congregations in Wymore and Harbine, and Vicar Winckler has been taking care of St Peter's - Wymore congregation and he resides in their parsonage.  Vicar is able to help at each service at Our Savior in Odell, taking turns with Pastor giving the sermons. 

Vicar's family includes his wife, Abby and son Thomas (TJ), and they expect another baby in August!  Here are some questions that Vicar has answered so you can get to know him better:

1.  Tell us about where you grew up and your parents:  I grew up in a medium-sized town in Nebraska called Fremont.  surrounded by hard work, factories, and cornfields. My grandparents, father, and uncles were farmers and laborers of the Midwest. Through their lives, they introduced me to honor and gumption. My father was a humble, kind, and relentlessly jovial man. He gave me his joy for work and people. Although not her profession, my mother was an artist in every sense. She could paint, draw, piece together mosaics, and make a home. Her most excellent artistry was in her cooking. She expressed love in every meal. She gave me her eyes and heart for others. Through her, I notice and see what is beautiful in the mundane. 

2. Where did you attend college and what degrees do you have: I went to school at Concordia university Nebraska, this magnificent institution where you know each and every teacher prays for you by name, is where I met my beautiful wife and earned two degrees. One was a general theology degree, and the other a Christian Educational Leadership degree. Both allowed me to be a certified Director of Christian Education. I am now earning my master of divinity to be a pastor. 

3.  Where are you on your journey to becoming a Pastor?: I am currently only about 18 months away from being a genuine certified pastor. I will be a part of the lives of the people of Odell and serve amongst them as I learn at their feet. Then I have one year of intensive classes focused on what I learned on vicarage. 

4.  What do you enjoy the most about being a Vicar so far?: By far, home and hospital visits! There is where the rubber meets the road in being a pastor. It is profoundly humbling and beautiful for people to let you in on their sufferings and bring a sweet word of hope. 

5.  What are you looking forward to most as a Pastor?: To plant deep roots in a community and walk alongside others as they live their lives. To deliver the hope of Christ Jesus' death and resurrection for you in every phase of life.  I truly believe being a pastor is the most incredible job in the entire world. 

6.  What do you expect will be the hardest part about being a Pastor for you personally?: I think maybe loneliness will be the most difficult. There will be moments when I am confident that I will long for someone to pastor me. But even if no one comes, which will most likely happen by virtue of being the pastor,  I will continue to be the one who does for others as I am called too. 

7.  Some wise words about faith shared by Vicar Winckler:  Of all the words about the Christian life, or simply life for that matter, that I have witnessed to be true in my almost but not quite 29yrs now, these may be the truest. They come from the writer (one of my favorites) Frederick Buechner: Here is the world. Terrible and beautiful things will happen. Don’t be afraid. While Buechner said Here is the world, he could have just as easily said Here is your life, and maybe that’s what he was really getting at because while most of us find the world somewhat interesting, what most of us are most interested in is ourselves. Call it selfish, if you will; I call it human. So yes, terrible things will happen cause of us humans being human. I have experienced it, you have experienced it, we all have experienced it. But also, and I believe Buechner was intentional in his word order, that beautiful is the last word in that phrase, that beautiful gets the final say, that somehow, in some way, the darkness cannot overcome the light, that after Ash Wednesday comes Easter. Yet it seems we experience a lot of that terrible, more so maybe than the beautiful, maybe not. So I implore you to do as I do and, as the church has done for hundreds of generations, seek out the final say of beauty. The beauty of Christ's death and resurrection for you. Read His word, meet together with other members regularly, listen to your pastor preach, and remind one another of this beauty. Fill your life with it so then, through the beauty of Christ, you can be empowered to confront the terrible of the world without fear, for you withhold the beauty. 

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