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Volunteer work offers inspiration, opportunities for ministry Even though pastors Margo Peterson and Andrew Tengwall aren’t paid for their volunteer gigs, the satisfaction makes it worth their while.
Whether she is working as a volunteer animal handler or as pastor of St. Martin of Tours Lutheran Church, Mascoutah, Ill., Peterson sees her work as intertwined. Twice a week she volunteers with organizations that use animals as therapeutic tools.
“I really appreciate [Martin] Luther’s understanding that living the faith is in everything that you do,” Peterson said. “I best feel God’s calming, healing presence when alone in our congregation’s sanctuary, and when alone with my horse or dogs. I feel called to share that restorative peace with others by sharing my animals.”
By day Andrew Tengwall is pastor of Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo, Mich. His other gig? Volunteering as announcer for a local women’s roller derby team, which has inspired his ministry. “I think the church has a lot to learn from the derby community,” he said.
To read “Five things the church can learn from roller derby,” visit
LivingLutheran.org.
Tengwall, whose day job is pastor of Lutheran Church of the Savior, Kalamazoo, Mich., has a similar zest for his volunteer work. Most Saturday nights you’ll find him in his clerical collar and a pink suit jacket masquer- ading as “Reverend Killjoy,” announcer for the Killamazoo Derby Darlins of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association.
The sport allows him to meet people from all walks of life—“engineers and graphic designers and strip-club waitresses and hairdressers.”
“When I first started announcing roller derby I thought it would be a good way to meet people and invite them to be part of the church,” Tengwall said. But he was surprised to find that he inspired three women from a former congregation to join the roller derby league.
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A few months later, when a 19-year- old skater from their team returned home to find the grandfather who raised her dead in his chair, Tengwall witnessed the three “church ladies” spring into action. They supported their teammate during this difficult time, bringing her food, giving her rides to work and attending the memorial.
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“I realized [then] that my involve- ment in roller derby would not be about bringing roller derby people into the church but about bring- ing the church out into the world,” Tengwall said. “Over the years I’ve had many roller derby friends wor- ship in my congregation, but the important ministry has always hap- pened when the church went out to the derby.”
Strybis is an associate editor for Living Lutheran. She is a member of Resurrection Lutheran Church, Chicago.
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