Greetings to our Interim Pastor! Rev. Roger Prehn
Pastor Roger Prehn recently finished serving for almost two years as the interim pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church and School, Kissimmee. Before that he served as pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church and chaplain of Orlando Lutheran Towers retirement center from August, 1999, through June, 2008. Before that, he served as pastor of a congregation in Durham, NC; as an assistant to the Bishop of the North/West Lower Michigan Synod of the ELCA; and he has served congregations in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Greensburg, Pennsylvania; and Smicksburg, Pennsylvania.
Pastor Prehn is originally from the Madison, Wisconsin area. He graduated from Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa, in 1966, with a degree in Philosophy. He then attended and graduated with a Master of Divinity Degree in 1970 from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He has also done graduate study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
In addition to his pastoral duties at St. Paul’s, Pastor Prehn was instrumental in introducing the catechumenal process to the congregation; this is a process of preparing adults for baptism and discipleship. He served the ELCA as a member of the Catechumenal Team and as a Partner in Worship. He has served as a convener, worship leader and workshop leader at several Lutheran and ecumenical conferences on the catechumenate around the country. For his efforts in resettling refugees from Viet Nam, Poland, and Ethiopia, the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops recognized Pastor Prehn in 1987 with a special award.
Pastor Prehn has served the Evangelical Church in America as the coordinator of worship at its Churchwide Assembly in 2005 and as chairperson of worship planning of the Florida-Bahamas Synod Assembly on two different occasions.
He has written devotional material for Light for Today and Commonweal magazine, and has had articles published in Taproot (theological journal of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Columbia, SC), Sunday & Seasons, Cycle A, 1999 (Augsburg Fortress), and Lutheran Forum. Roger wrote an article on funeral planning for “Worship ’99, published by the ELCA Office of Worship. He authored a leader's guide for an adult study course on worship (Gathered and Sent: An Introduction to Worship, Augsburg Fortress Press, 1999) and published twenty one “Images for Preaching” in Sundays & Seasons, Cycle A, 2005, Augsburg Press.
Pastor Prehn enjoys listening to classical and jazz music, reading mystery novels and has traveled extensively in Europe and Israel. He and his wife, Andrea, have two daughters living in Orlando, Florida, and have three granddaughters and one grandson.