35 Years with Hope – Our Spiritual Leaders Throughout the Years

This Sunday, February 23, we will celebrate 35 years as an ELCA chartered church! We have been fortunate to have had 12 deeply committed spiritual leaders walking alongside us through the years, and several of them will be with us on Sunday. Here are their stories.

By Elizabeth Farquhar

Founding Pastor David Risendal

In 1988, when Ahwatukee was still building out, Pastor David Risendal planted the seed that became Esperanza. That year, he accepted the assignment to be pastor developer in the new neighborhoods, going door-to-door making friends and inviting residents to join the congregation he was forming. Learn here how Pastor Dave and his wife Betsy came up with the name Esperanza.

Memories of those days include Pastor Dave playing his banjo and leading the congregation in “This Little Light of Mine.”  The membership grew and a capital campaign to fund a third building met its goal. The Youth and Family Life center, where the Children of Hope Child Development Center is located, opened a few years later. Then in 1998, with the new church on firm footing, he accepted a call from a church in Colorado.

Stepping into the space left by Pastor Dave’s departure was Pastor Maynard Nelson. Retired from a large church in Minnesota, Pastor Maynard’s kindness and wisdom left a deep mark on the Esperanza community. Member Jayne Person said that Pastor Maynard “showed us how to be a true servant to others.” In that spirit, he introduced the congregation to a mission church in Mazahua, Mexico where his daughter and son-in-law were leading a congregation. Our youth and some of our adults traveled there to help improve the property and present a vacation bible school.

Pastor Jeff Ruby

In 1999 we called Pastor Jeff Ruby, now senior pastor at La Casa de Cristo Lutheran Church in Scottsdale. When he arrived he was struck by the friendliness of the congregation: he and his wife Susan fondly remember the annual progressive dinner.

Pastor Ruby said that when he arrived at Esperanza he was relatively young in his journey as a pastor. The mentorship of Pastor Maynard was a blessing, he said. “One piece of advice he gave me that I have applied is this: ‘When people complain about the church, the pastors or the leaders, tell them to read the Book of Acts.’ He also said to remember that we are all human.”

“The essential quality of Esperanza is in the name – Hope,” he said. “It is a church where joy is multiplied, and sorrows are divided and shared.”

Steve Hammer had been on staff in a lay position when Pastor Jeff came aboard. In 2000 he was called to be the associate pastor and continued in the leadership of our church until his retirement in 2019.

Transition

After Pastor Jeff left, we were led by two interim pastors, Dale Hallberg (now deceased) and Tony Danielson. Pastor Danielson is retired now, living in Tucson and leading an active life that includes climbing the mountains in Southern Arizona.

Transitions are uneasy times for congregations, but Pastor Tony calmed our nerves and lifted our spirits with his humor and obvious pleasure in being among us. He remembers fondly one Sunday in particular. The text for the day was Matthew  25:14-30 – the parable of the rich master who entrusts his wealth to three servants during his absence. Two of the servants double the value of what they’ve received. The third servant buries the wealth.

“I went to the bank and purchased 20 Susan B. Anthony gold dollars expecting no more than that many children for the Children’s Sermon at the two services,” he said. “At the first hour, I handed each child a gold dollar while telling the story of the text. I then told each child they could do as this liked with their dollar—save it, spend it, or share it—and perhaps one day I might come back to ask each child what they had done with their gift,” he said.

“Word got out and when it came time for the Children’s Sermon during the second service, eight to 10 members of the adult choir came forward and seated themselves amidst the children,” he laughed.

Pastor Pam Challis

In October 2007 we ended our transition and called Pam Challis as our new pastor. She came to us from Ashburn Lutheran Church and School in Chicago’s southwest side, where the school and the church worked closely together. After leaving Esperanza in 2010, she was pastor-developer for Living Faith Lutheran Church in Santa Clarita, Calif. Later she was an interim pastor at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Granada Hills, Calif. In 2013 she became pastor at Christ Lutheran Church in Long Beach Calif. before being called in 2022 to Trinity Lutheran Church in Boulder, Colo.

“I completed my Doctor of Ministry (DMin) degree while at Esperanza thanks to a faithful, dedicated committee who assisted me with the last part of the journey,” she said. “I also remember with great fondness arranging the worship space for each liturgical season. Some arrangements were awesome, and some were not so great!  It was always an adventure.”

Pastor Steve Hammer

After Pastor Pam left we promoted Pastor Steve Hammer, who led us for more than nine years. During that time, Esperanza developed our thriving preschool, Children of Hope Preschool and Child Development Center and the Garden of Eatin’. He retired in 2019 and has since settled happily in Ohio.

Pastor Steve was working at East Valley Interfaith Counseling and at Esperanza when Pastor Jeff was called in 1999. Soon after, in 2000, Pastor Steve was called as an associate pastor.  Esperanza was still relatively young and “there was no talk of ‘the way we’ve always done things,’” he recalled. And though Esperanza was growing up, he still found our congregation willing to try things.

Reflecting on the years, he said “a highlight for me was working with mostly young people and adults on creative things like making movies and playing music from blues to bluegrass,” he recalled. “Dave Coste was a big part of both of those things, and I really do miss sitting with him and brainstorming.”

He added: “I think it was that same willingness that transformed the Thursday bible study from a group taught by the pastor to a conversation where participants were encouraged to do their own critical thinking.”

When Pastor Steve retired in October 2019 he had no idea that the COVID-19 pandemic would shock the world, leaving organizations like churches strained. But even then cultural changes were challenging the norm. “The larger church began to embrace two very dangerous companions: certainty and nationalism. These have intensified into the cultural norm and I am not sure that either the church or the culture will recover any time soon,” he said. “We need only look at what happened when Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the empire. That and other lessons of history we have failed to learn and will likely repeat.”

Pastor Steve Holm 

Pastor Steve Holm has been a friend of Esperanza since the beginning. He was pastor at Desert Cross Church in 1990 when he met a young pastor-developer who was gathering a church in Ahwatukee. That was Pastor Dave Risendal, of course, and the two began playing racquetball together. As Bogey would say, it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship with our church.

Pastor Holm was part of the team at Campfirmation in Prescott, a program for confirmands run by a group of churches. There he admired Past Risendal’s music abilities and how he captured the attention of the kids with his playing. In the evenings at camp, he would be part of John Gemma’s poker group, which was fueled by Kathy Gemma’s cookies.

He met Pastor Ruby at the pastor’s scripture study group. And he was a friend of the Knopf family, who left Desert Cross to join Esperanza early on.

Pastor Steve Hammer was a member of Desert Cross before he started attending and then working at Esperanza. In 2012, when Pastor Holm retired, he deliberately chose to be a member at Esperanza because of Pastor Steve’s “carefully crafted” sermons. “Steve Hammer is so kind,” Pastor Holm said. “He let me teach adult classes, which I enjoyed so much.”

“That’s where I got to learn about the progressive approach to scripture of many Esperanza members. They were willing to discuss any topic – I like that” he said.

When Pastor Holm’s wife, Cherie, died in December 2015 he asked Pastor Steve to do the service.

Pastor Holm has been our visiting pastor many times over the years, including a brief “mini interim” stint. He is a natural storyteller, preaching without notes. Members look forward to these occasions and watch the services online if for some reason they cannot be in church that day.

He noted that Esperanza has been consistently generous with food donations and our commitment to Habitat for Humanity is admirable. And, he said, the music programs are excellent, singling out the choir and Dave Coste’s band and young performers.

The people of Esperanza have “exceptionally kind hearts,” he said.

Pandemic and rapid change  

Pastor Carol Breimeier, our interim minister from January  to March 2020, was witness to the first chaotic months of the pandemic.

“The congregation had just said farewell and Godspeed to Pastor Hammer after his long tenure, and then, within months, Covid shut the church doors,” she said. “It’s a testimony to the openness of the people of Esperanza that I was welcomed and made to feel a part of things, even in the short time that I was physically on the scene.”

In those first few months, Pastor Carol tackled some of our organizational issues, which paid off handsomely.  When the federal government offered assistance to houses of worship, Esperanza was ready to secure and track that support. And, “thanks to people’s readiness and willingness to go virtual, Covid didn’t stop us from holding meetings and worship, and even an online coffee hour.”

Pastor Paul Campbell stepped in when Pastor Carol accepted an interim position in Tucson nearer to her home. We had already stopped meeting in person except for the Christmas Eve service, which he remembers setting up with Michael Paradise. With related broadcast experience, Pastor Paul was comfortable videorecording the sermon at home, then coming to church to record the music. That was when he got to know some of the youth and the other musicians.

One thing he enjoyed was the Zoom coffee hour after worship.  ”That was one of the highlights of the week, he said. “You knew each other, and I had the opportunity to parachute in. You wouldn’t be able to do that in every congregation.”

During this time, Esperanza invited Deacon Connie Rose-Kamprath to serve our church. She has been a rostered leader in the ELCA for over 33 years, focusing on youth and family ministry, worship, and pastoral care.

Throughout the pandemic and the transitions in leadership, Deacon Connie has been a constant source of energy and smiles. She is the family ministry coordinator for the church, and teaches in the preschool and in Sunday Funday School.  The PRAY-GROUND in the sanctuary was her creation, much to the delight of parents of young children!

Pastor Annemarie Burke

Annemarie Burke became our pastor in January 2021, at the height of the pandemic. She was with us through the restrictions that dramatically altered the practice of church life, from worship in the parking lot, to spread-out seating when we finally came indoors, to seemingly never-ending masking. The pandemic even overshadowed her installation: the bishop performed the ceremony on Zoom, and parishioners welcomed her after the service in-person, but in-car.

“So much of what we did was getting out of COVID,” she said. She said she was “a lightning rod” for frustration, but she realizes that this was part of leadership. Those pandemic months also presented opportunities to be creative. For example, “we made those Holy Week recordings when members read the psalms in various locations like back yards.” She also recalled fondly the worship services in the parking lot, in full view of tennis players in the park and dog-walkers passing by on the sidewalk. We’ll never forget her smile, which she wore throughout this video.

Pastor Annemarie resigned to become a hospice chaplain at Noble Hospice. “It’s a deeply good thing to be doing,” she said. “At times it can be difficult, but it’s a privilege to be with people at this time of life.” When meeting with a patient or a family, she sees her role as one who listens and comforts, and she does not try to fix. With dementia patients, she uses her intuition to pick up non-verbal cues to what the person is feeling. “Sometimes it’s there in their eyes,” she said. She has a binder where she keeps a list of all the patients and families she has helped. She remembers one man in particular – he has no one at the end – no family or friends. Just her.

When she’s not working she spends time gardening and learning how to weave. And she joined Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chandler, where she just finished leading a six-week Bible study.

Transitioning to the present

Pastor Sarah Stadler filled in as our interim shortly after Pastor Annemarie’s departure. “We were interims for each other, you and I,” she said. In a note to the congregation, Pastor Sarah reflected on the ways we supported each other.

“During those 14 months, I walked with you during a time of transition.  Together, we put our faith in motion, clarified God’s mission among us, and served the community.  Together, we grew in gratitude and faith, hope and joy.

“During those 14 months, you also walked with me during a time of transition.  I had just sprinted for 12 years at Grace Lutheran Church in downtown Phoenix and was about to be called by the Spirit of God to a completely different setting in rural Minnesota.

“Though an interim pastor, you embraced me.  At Mary Circle and Thursday Matters, in council and at staff meetings, in outreach and finance and worship team meetings, in Children of Hope classrooms and monthly chapel, in hospital rooms and in your living rooms, and of course, in Sunday morning worship, you let me know you.  You let me lead you.  What a gift, to share in community with you!”

And now, the future!  Pastor Chris Heller

Born on a farm in northwest Illinois, Pastor Chris Heller attended Wartburg College in Iowa and continued to Wartburg Theological Seminary. He felt the call to serve God in some capacity, but was unsure what that would look like, even after applying to attend seminary. “I honestly was surprised to realize that God was calling me to serve in active ministry,” he laughed. “One day I realized seminary education and ordained ministry wasn’t a path to something else – it was the path that God was calling me to follow for the foreseeable future.”

Pastor Heller and his family were comfortably settled in Ahwatukee when Esperanza called him because his last position was in the ministry ay Mountainview Lutheran.

“I love being able to examine God’s word and see how it calls us to respond to the unique challenges of our lives today,” he said. “I believe that one of the greatest joys of ministry is supporting and celebrating how a congregation lives out serving the neighbor.”

We are looking forward to seeing you this Sunday! For more information, see myesperanza.org/35th/.

Ahwatukee Foothills News Featuring Esperanza’s 35th Anniversary Pages 1 and 16&18

Esperanza’s 35^th Anniversary Page Including Event Guide, Timeline & Event Diagram