MEET PASTOR ROGER YODER
Roger Yoder Ordained March 23, 2019
At age 74, Roger Yoder did something he never would have dreamed he would do in his younger years: he was ordained as a Christian pastor.
Yoder has been the Deacon at Messiah Lutheran Church in Parker since 2004. On March 23, 2019, he was officially ordained a Pastor in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The Ordination service was held at 3 p.m. at the church, located at 800 Mohave Avenue. The Rite of Ordination was performed by the Rev. Dr. Jamison Hardy, the President of the English District of the LCMS.
“I never in my life thought of being a minister,” Yoder said. “This is the work of the Holy Spirit and my good sense in following His lead.”
Yoder was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1944. At the time, his father was in the U.S. Army Air Corps and his mother worked at Boeing Aircraft. When his father was discharged in 1945, the family moved to Ellis, Kansas, where his father worked as a mechanic at a Ford dealership.
The family moved to Bristol, Indiana in 1949, where Roger’s father found work in construction. He was a welder and pipe-fitter. His father heard there was a lot of construction work in Flint, Michigan, and the family moved there in 1952.
Yoder graduated from high school in 1962 and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. They sent him to Syracuse University to learn Russian, and he worked in processing intelligence intercepts. He was discharged in 1966.
Later in 1966, he went to work for General Motors in Flint. He worked for GM for 31 years before he retired in 1997.
It was while he was working at GM that he became a Christian. He noticed one of his co-workers read the Bible on his breaks. One day, Yoder approached him and said he wanted to learn about Jesus. The man opened his Bible to the Gospel of John, and told Yoder that would tell him everything he needed to know.
Yoder said he doesn’t know why he asked his co-worker about Jesus. He added it was the Holy Spirit guiding him.
After he retired from GM, Yoder came out to the Parker area and didn’t do much for a couple of years.
“The Lord let me play around for a while,” he said.
In 1999, Dennis Froeming, who was then a member at Messiah Lutheran, was commissioned a Deacon in the LCMS. This led to Yoder asking Duane Romahlec, who was director of off-campus studies for Concordia University in Irvine, Calif., about becoming a Deacon.
Yoder explained the difference between a Pastor and a Deacon. Pastors, for the most part, have attended a four-year seminary. Deacons take the first 10 classes they would’ve taken at the seminary and serve under the supervision of an ordained pastor. In Yoder’s case, it was the Rev. Harold Kallio of Lake Havasu City.
Yoder was commissioned a Deacon in 2004. In 2016, the LCMS decided to no longer license Deacons for pastoral work. It was in 2017 that English District President Jamison Hardy asked Yoder if he was interested in becoming ordained. Hardy said he would help Yoder get through the process and be prepared for the four-hour interview in front of synod officials.
“I told him, ‘What do I need to do?’” Yoder said.
Yoder said Hardy’s assistance was invaluable in getting through the process. He added that the only reason he qualified for this was because he had been at Messiah Lutheran for more than a decade.
Yoder said his ordination is site-specific, which means he can only serve in Parker. He added he has no plans to retire, and wants to continue doing what he’s been doing.
“I just want to be here serving the Lord as long as I can,” he said.
By John Gutekunst, Parker Pioneer