There’s been a lot going on at St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church over the last few years. With COVID, two Pastors becoming former Pastors and turmoil in the Methodist Church, the members of the Sanborn congregation have had a lot on their plate. Through it all, they have continued to remain the same friendly church body.
“They’re an extremely welcoming congregation,” noted Kris Lien, who has been serving as Interim Pastor at St. Andrew’s since November. Lien was Methodist years ago but is now a member of Living Water Reformed Church in Sheldon. “I will be here until July 30 of this year and then my wife and I are moving to South Carolina,” Lien explained. “I just started seminary last fall. I’m studying to get my Master in Arts and Spiritual Formation.” Lien’s Seminary study is done online through Kairos University, a part of Sioux Falls Seminary. “It’s a very unique seminary program,” he said. “Certainly this job experience is very suitable to help me in that endeavor.”
It was through a mutual friend of Lien and St. Andrew’s church member Rod Rath that Lien arrived at his current service opportunity. “Back in 2017 they had a turnover of Pastor, kind of unexpectedly,” noted Lien. Rath discussed this with the mutual friend who mentioned that Lien had done Lay Preaching since 2014. “My friend said, ‘I may know a guy who can help you out’ so that’s how we got connected originally,” related Lien. “Then through the years, I’ve just filled in here and there. Then last summer, Rod reached out to me and said, ‘Our Pastor is taking a new position. Could you come and do some pulpit fill?’ I was at a little change in career plans and was just starting seminary, so I said ‘Sure.’ So it started out as pulpit fill and in November they said, ‘Could you just come on as Interim Pastor and be in the church one day a week and so forth.’ So that’s how we got to where we are. My role has kind of been to stabilize and help them to get prepared for a new Pastor.”
Lien said the experience of serving St. Andrew’s has been a very good one. “Of course, they knew me from pulpit fill,” he noted. “It kind of felt like changing to more of a formal role. They’re an extremely welcoming congregation. When visitors come, they’re not visitors very long because they are made to feel like they’re a part of the family.”
His time as Interim Pastor has been anything but boring. “There have been lots of different experiences as different needs come up in the church as they do,” offered Lien. “And then certainly, as I mentioned, stabilizing and trying to put things in place so that whoever comes next can come in and really just kind of take the reins and not have to build things. Coming out of COVID, even though that’s two or three years removed now, it really was tough on this congregation, as with a lot of churches.”
Lien touched on the process of being assigned a new Pastor. “In the Methodist Church they make appointments,” explained Lien. “Typically that happens in June. At the end of May, your current Pastor will leave. They’ll preach their last service and on the next Sunday you get a new Pastor. Of course, you know who’s coming, and so forth, but it’s very much like everybody on this day in June, throughout the whole region, the trades take place, so to speak. The challenge of course, now this is a small congregation, and I’m currently just one day a week, so it’s kind of a unique fit and so we’ll see how that turns out. We’re praying that the Lord’s going to find the right person that suits their needs and so forth. We’ve had lots of conversations.”
The Interim Pastor mentioned something else that is unique about the St. Andrew’s opportunity. “The Methodist Church in Sheldon has disaffiliated from the denomination,” noted Lien. “This church has chosen not to go that route. They plan to stay within the Methodist denomination. So, as a result, we have become a little bit of a unique commodity in the area. There have been people coming from Sheldon, kind of checking it out. There have been people from other communities reaching out asking ‘What are your plans?’ We’ve just taken an approach that we plan to stay in the Methodist denomination, and when I say we, I mean the Ad (Administrative) Council. And in terms of the issues that have caused that division, our philosophy is we welcome everyone but we are a scripturally-based teaching church. So we may have difficult conversations from time to time if people’s views are maybe a little bit more moderate to liberal than Biblical views. But we’re okay with that. We will welcome everybody, we just won’t compromise on what we believe.”
Lien shared how the St. Andrew’s congregation arrived at its decision to remain with the United Methodist Church. “I started pulpit fill last July and I was peripherally aware of what was going on with the Methodist denomination at large and specifically Sheldon because I live there,” he explained. “I just asked (the members of St. Andrew’s) informally ‘Are you aware of what’s going on?’ They kind of were, kind of weren’t. They were just doing their own thing. When the vote in Sheldon happened in October, the next time we had an Ad Council meeting I said ‘I think we need to be aware and prepared, because I think this is going to start to trickle with people asking “What are you going to do?”’ So I gathered some information of what the issue is and what’s happening and then we, as a leadership team, went to a meeting that was held in Sibley at the Methodist Church. It was very well done. They presented where this division is occurring and here’s the options that you have to either stay with the status quo or to disaffiliate. At that point we had some conversations and prayer and they said ‘We’re going to stay put. We feel that that’s where we want to be.’ As their Pastor I just said that’s a leadership/Ad Council decision and my role is to just present scripture to you and give you spiritual guidance and say ‘Hey, here’s what the Bible says’ and then let you pray and discern how you want to respond. I never took a role of saying they should do this or that, simply pray and discern together.”
St. Andrew’s has indeed drawn interest from the surrounding area and Lien reports he has received feedback from those visitors. “The theme I hear a lot is ‘very welcoming,’” said the Interim Pastor. “I have gotten some phone calls saying, ‘Hey, we may come and check you out,’ and I tell them they’re welcome to come. One Sunday, unbeknownst to me, about 20 people came. We were right around 15 or 20 on a Sunday and all of a sudden we doubled it. I knew a lot of these folks because I was a member of Sheldon Methodist years back. I said, ‘Welcome, but what’s going on?’ They shared that ‘We want to stay in the Methodist denomination and we know you’re an option.’”
That was just the beginning of the story. “The following Sunday they said, ‘Well, there’s more coming,’” shared Lien. “So that Sunday I changed my sermon plan and I preached on unity and the title was ‘Unity in a Divided World.’ There was a lot of positive feedback that the message was very soothing and helped them heal. And that’s really been our attitude. They have a desire that they’d like to start another Methodist Church in Sheldon, but that’s a process. It takes time and it takes money. So we’ve said, ‘If you’re here to join, that’s great. If you’re here as a stopping point in your faith journey, that’s great, too. We just want to walk with you and wherever you end up, we’ll walk with you till the point comes where maybe we separate again.’ And I think that has been a healing message to them. There are people who have shared with me that they grew up in that church and married and stayed 50-plus years of their life as a member of that church. Wherever they stand on it is not the point. They felt like they had that taken away from them. We just try to walk with each one in the way that helps them.”
That loving attitude is available to all. “The message we want to convey to the community of Sanborn specifically is that we’re open,” stated Lien. “Due to turnover of Pastors, I think people wondered ‘Are they closed?’ We have one service on Sunday at 9:00 a.m. It is a traditional service but we’re always exploring different worship approaches so I’m not saying that’s set in stone forever. With the new Pastor, who knows? They may want to try some new things.”
Lien is at St. Andrew’s every Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. He is also available by appointment. “If somebody has a need or if they happen to work during that time and they want to visit, we can set up an evening appointment,” said Lien. “We’ll find a way to talk.” Lien can be reached at the Church’s phone number (712) 729-3700 or by email at krislien1@gmail.com .
“We welcome everyone, whatever denomination,” stressed Lien. “You want to visit, you want to check us out, please come and do so. Speaking specifically to people who have been kind of disenfranchised from their home church, if you need a place to come seek some time to heal, I think we’re a great place to do that until you figure out your next steps. We really want to get the message out that we welcome people.”