Trinity Lutheran Church welcomes new pastor

HARTINGTON — The congregation at Trinity Lutheran Church has welcomed the arrival of their new pastor.
An installation service for Pastor Amanda Jertson was held June 8 at Trinity Lutheran Church.
It was a special blessing for Jertson to have Pastor Mark Urlaub from her home church and her parents all attend the installation service.
Jertson was recently ordained at her home church in Vinton, Iowa, where she grew up and graduated from high school.

“I was baptized, confirmed and ordained at the church in Vinton. I have had the same pastor since I was five years old,” Jertson said. “It has been a blessing. He has been my mentor.”
Trinity Lutheran will be the first church for Jertson to serve in, although a year’s internship involved serving eight congregations in the Keenan, Minn., area.
Jertson first felt the call into the ministry when she was a young girl attending confirmation class in her home church in Iowa.
“My pastor talked to me about going into the ministry — it didn’t seem strange as I had always felt at home in church,” Jertson said. “I thought about it off and on through high school. I thought about doing other things but nothing else felt right.”
Jertson attended the University of Northern Iowa and then went on to the Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., graduating in May of this year.
Jertson is looking forward to serving and working with the people at Trinity Lutheran Church in Hartington.
She plans on finding out what the church is all about.
“I will listen to what the people have to say. I want to find out what they want to see happen – what they need,” Jertson said. “Then we will pool our ideas together.”
Some of Jertson’s favorite scriptures are in the 15th chapter of John where it talks about the vine and the branches.
Verse five says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Another favorite scripture of Jertson’s is found in Romans, Chapter eight.
Romans 8:38 states  “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“I like the scriptures on abiding and living in Christ. It’s about Christ living in us. It isn’t about us striving – it is about God living in us,” Jertson said.

Pastor Jertson, and her cat, Sami, are getting settled into the parsonage across the street from the church but she is looking forward to meeting people in the community.
“I am excited to be here. I want to get out in the community and meet people,” she said.
Trinity Lutheran Church has been searching for a pastor since Pastor Bob Bryan left almost a year and half ago to move to Lincoln and be involved in a prison ministry and help inmates in Nebraska Dept. of Corrections across the state.