Members of New Journey Lutheran Church gathered using Zoom recently to bid farewell to Pastor Adele Stiles Resmer, who is retiring.

Pastor Resmer has shepherded the Fountain Hills congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) since 2015.

The daughter of a Lutheran minister, she graduated from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1984, and then earned a Ph.D. in Ethics from Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. She took her first call in 1987 at a small congregation in the Washington Heights district of Manhattan, N.Y.

Over the span of 34 years, she has served the ELCA as a parish pastor, professor, synod staff person and consultant.

Pastor Resmer was called to New Journey in Fountain Hills when the congregation was only five years old and had only recently been recognized by the national church as an official ELCA congregation. It had earlier decided to meet in a storefront at 16748 E. Parkview Ave., rather than constructing a church building. That choice allowed the congregation to focus on mission and social ministry.

When Pastor Resmer arrived, she continued those emphases, including several hunger and food ministries, and ministry with homeless people and Native Americans in Phoenix. She became a member of the board of the Fountain Hills Interfaith Alliance (FHIA) that sponsored several interfaith activities each year. New Journey coordinates an annual community food-packing event, “Food for Kidz,” which involved hundreds of members of the Fountain Hills community each year (that effort has temporarily been suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Harry Vaughan, who was congregation president at the time Pastor Adele was called, remembers that she brought a lot of skills and experience from her past positions.

“We were very lucky to get her,” he said. “She was our first permanent pastor. Everybody else had been temporary. She urged us to expand the things we were doing,” and got everyone involved.

Also, he said, “She provided strong support to make the congregation welcoming. That’s one of the reasons the congregation grew from 40 to 85 members.”

The church has begun the process of calling a new pastor, and Pastor Resmer is making plans for retirement.

In September, she will hike a 100-kilometer section (62 miles) of the Camino de Santiago (a pilgrimage path in Spain and Portugal). Other retirement activities will include continuing lessons on the cello, reading and spending more time with her spouse Larry Resmer Stiles and family.