The new pastor at Sharon Lutheran Church, one of Grand Forks' largest congregations, preached his first sermon Sunday.
The Rev. Nate Sutton spoke about Martha, Jesus' friend who griped about her sister, Mary, not helping enough around the house.
Martha's problem, and ours, Sutton said, "is not the kind of work you are doing, it's about whether you are distracted."
Sutton's work will be to focus on young adults, in their 20s and 30s, especially young families with small, often distracting and distracted, children.
It's a new pastoral effort at Sharon, which has 4,000 baptized members, but like many congregations, sees fewer young adults showing up, said lead pastor, the Rev. Lynn Ronsberg. "That's an age group we are missing," she said. "We were looking for someone in that age group to reach and connect with them."
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After several years of change and interim ministers, Sharon finally is back at three full-time pastors, including the Rev. John Fick who is in his 32nd year with the congregation, said Ronsberg, who has been with the church about 18 months, she said.
Sutton, 31, taught sixth-graders in southern California for a couple of years, then worked for the Fargo-Moorhead community theatre from 2007 to 2009 while his wife, Bethany, finished a bachelor's degree at Concordia College.
They grew up in Oregon and finished master's degrees this year in Chicago.
He was ordained June 29 at the Lutheran School of Theology there by Bishop Bill Rindy, head of the Eastern North Dakota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. With her new degree in marriage and family therapy, Bethany Sutton is looking for a new job, too.
His first sermon at his first "call" went about 11 minutes, Sutton said.
"Someone once told me if Abraham Lincoln could change the course of history in eight minutes (during his second inaugural address), I should be able to say something significant in nine or 10 minutes."
