Looking back on her 30 years as a minister, New Journey Lutheran Church pastor Adele Stiles Resmer believes she was blessed.

“I’ve been very lucky. The whole thing of being able to look back gives you a different perspective,” said Resner.

Thirty years ago when she entered the ministry, women pastors were scarce. Even now, she is the only female clergy in Fountain Hills.

New Journey Lutheran Church is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Membership totals about 70.

“When I look at the doors that opened and even the doors that closed, I’m grateful for it all,” she said.

The daughter of a Lutheran minister, her early years were spent in the steel belt north of Pittsburgh. She said her parents, members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), strong impacted her.

“Everyone was invited to their table,” she recalled. “They would discuss civic rights and talked about what was going on in the world and what could be done to bring peace in the streets.”

“When I am part of a mix of people, this is to me what the kingdom of God looks like. …it’s that promise that nothing separates us from the love of God.”

She graduated in 1984 from Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

“I knew that if I went right into the parish, I thought I would not go on to school.”

Encouraged to become a teacher, she attended Emory University in Atlanta, where she completed required courses for a Ph.D. in ethics.

“Once I had that under my belt, I was ordained.”

She taught at the seminary until she realized that she “missed being closer to the ground.”

“I wanted to get back to it myself,” said Resmer. In 1987, her first call and location of her ordination was a small Lutheran church of about 100 members in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. A large Orthodox Jewish community bordered on one side and a strong Dominican neighborhood was on the other. The senior minister was female.

“We were the only female team in that branch of the Lutheran Church at that time,” recalled Resmer.

“She was a wonderful mentor to me and we had fun working together. I felt we were on the cutting edge.”

Dr. Barbara Lundblad participated in the April 2 ordination anniversary service.

Resmer and her husband, Larry Stiles, moved to Arizona without either having a job. He received a call from a congregation; initially, she joined the bishop’s staff and later served as pastor of two Tucson parishes.

She answered the call from New Journey’s congregation in 2015 to become its minister.

“What I liked about them is the idea of being open to everyone. It was very important to me to be with a group of people who have this commitment of being open and affirmative of all people.”

The congregation welcomes African Americans, Lesbian, gay and transgenders.

“My take is that as people who follow the way of Jesus, how can we not include everybody at the table?”

The church’s welcome on its website explicit states that it seeks to “model Jesus’ radical hospitality be welcoming and affirming all people regardless of age, sex, race, ability, sexual orientation or gender identity.”

“Everyone, regardless of the designations that we put on people, when they come here, they can feel that this is a safe place to worship and they will not be ostracized,” she said.

New Journey’s congregation organizes Food for Kidz, a volunteer meal distribution program for needy locally, in Arizona and internationally. Global missions are a priority.

The church is linked to the Fountain Hills Interfaith Alliance that includes The Fountains Methodist Church, Church of the Ascension, Beth Havigot, Baha’i, Mormons and Islamic Speakers Bureau of Arizona.

Worship service is 10 a.m., Sundays, followed by fellowship at 11 a.m. at 16748 Parkview Ave., suite B.

Resmer can be contacted at 480-383-9193 or email pastoradele@njlc-fh.org.