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Weekly Events
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 PASTOR’S PAGE
Greetings and welcome
to the Pastor's Page.
My name is Larry Sexe, and I'm the Pastor of Deerfield
Lutheran Church. My last name usually raises eyebrows so let me explain it
this way. Sexe is an anglicized form of the Norwegian place name Sekse. My
grandfather left the Hardanger Fjord and settled at Hegg which is near Blair, Wisconsin.
In coming to America
the spelling of his 'place name', which he used as a last name, was changed
from 'Sekse' to Sexe, and that's how I got my memorable name!
My wife Debbie and I were both raised in Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
Deb's grandfather Knute came to the US
from England by way of Shanghai, China,
where her father was born. I mention this bit of genealogy and geography
because although Deerfield
Lutheran Church
was founded by Norwegians, our present members trace their roots to many
places across the globe. We're becoming more and more a multicultural
community of faith. Deb and I also have two daughters, Elizabeth, who is a
graduate student at Mills College in Oakland, California pursuing her MFS in
Dance performance and choreography and Kari, a Senior at Gustavus Adolphus
College, is majoring in secondary education – social studies.
I began serving as Pastor of Deerfield Lutheran in 1993, and before that
served congregations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I'm a
graduate of St. Olaf
College and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. That's a little
bit about my background.
Besides my name the other thing that people ask about when they first meet me
is why I wear this funny collar. I often wear what is called a clerical
collar. Why? Our oldest daughter once drew a picture of me in my
"uniform" for a school assignment. She wrote this caption, "My
Dad the service worker!" I like that. Wearing this strange collar is a
way of reminding me that I serve Jesus Christ and his Body - made up of a
very diverse group of people. But I'm here to be a servant. I know some folks
see a collar and think something else (it's a power symbol - a reminder of
some bad experiences with church authority) - I can't change that. All I can
do is try and be the best servant I possibly can be. After 28 years as a
pastor I'm still learning what Jesus meant by servant leadership. Another
thing I'd say about ministry is this: Christians are called by Jesus Christ
to be living parables (or riddles) of Jesus and the Kingdom of God
to all the people we meet. Being a parable is not easy work. Sometimes you
are misunderstood and look foolish, even weird, to folks who judge us by
worldly standards.
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