November, 2005 - Nr. 11
Toronto’s First Evangelical Lutheran Church welcomes their new pastor from Germany
With Pastor Christian Schweter (41) taking up office at First Evangelical Lutheran church, a new chapter in the over 155 year long history of this inner-city congregation opens. Pastor Schweter’s arrival marks the end of the longest vacancy in the history of this church that to this day celebrates one
English
and one German language service every Sunday. The difficult search for a
successor for Pastor Wolf-Rüdiger Belzing who died prematurely on New Year’s
Day 2004 after 18 years at First ended up in Germany where the EKD
(Evangelical Church in Germany) helped screen potential candidates for the
bilingual congregation. Pastor Schweter was chosen among 11 applicants and
accepted the call. For the past 9 years, he had been Pastor in Northern
Hesse in the vicinity of Kassel where he specialized in working with
families. Pastor Schweter and his wife have 4 children between 13 and 18
years of age. In his private life, Pastor Schweter is also a track and field
master and enjoys mountain hiking. He will be officially installed as First
Lutheran’s new pastor on Sunday, October 30th, at 3 p.m. at the
church. This service will be conducted by Rev. Günter Dahle (Kitchener). The
historic, oldest Lutheran congregation in Toronto expects many incentives
for growth from their new leader.
For further information please contact:
First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 116 Bond Street (2 blocks East of the Eaton Centre), Toronto ON M5B 1X8, e-mail: flc@interlog.com, Tel.: (416) 977-4786
