New pastor for SA’s far west

More than 200 people gathered to witness and celebrate the ordination of Lindsay Thomas as a Specific Ministry Pastor at Yalata in South Australia’s far west last week.

Ordained on 26 February by LCA Bishop John Henderson and installed into his role by SA–NT District Bishop David Altus at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Yalata, approximately 200 kilometres west of Ceduna, Lindsay was presented for ordination by his sister, Sharon. The Yalata church Lindsay helped build during the service of the late Pastor Keith Peters was ‘bursting at the seams’ with visitors and locals keen to be a part of the joyful occasion.

Pastor Lindsay moved to Yalata in the 1970s, when the Cundalee Mission at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, where his family had been living, closed. Confirmed by Pastor Keith, he was commissioned as an evangelist in 2016, working with the Yalata community alongside Pastor Russell Bryant.

Pastor Russell began the ordination service with an Invocation spoken in the local Aboriginal language and led the meditation, based on the ‘Good Shepherd’ text in John 10:11–18.

Lindsay’s first official duty as an ordained pastor was to lead and distribute Holy Communion to his community and the assembled congregation.

Pastor David Kuss from Birdwood Lutheran Parish in the Adelaide Hills mentored Lindsay during his pastoral ministry study and was present at the service to support the new pastor. Birdwood members provided Lindsay’s ordination vestments, including a special stole, finished with the colours of the Aboriginal flag at each end.

Pastor Rob Schubert, of the Port Lincoln Lutheran Parish, presented Pastor Lindsay with Holy Communion vessels on behalf of the family of the late Pastor Edmund Bilney.