After 20 months serving as interim pastor, the congregation of Rock of Ages Lutheran Church will vote on Sunday to officially make Rev. Don Erickson the pastor of their congregation.
In existence for 10 years, Rock of Ages is a small and growing church. Of the current 130 members about 70 percent are Villages residents.
Rev. Erickson has specific goals for the next few years. First he would like to double the size of the congregation in five years in order to serve the greater community of those in need. Also, he wants to see the congregation in their first building. The church has land on County Road 462 with plans to break ground in two years.
He wants to continue building on the fundamental doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which is the grace and unconditional love of God.
It will take a lot of involvement to accomplish these goals. Rev. Erickson says what some might see as pushy, he prefers to call “persistently nudging” his church members to be diligent disciples of Christ.
Rev. Erickson didn’t come to ministry in the usual way.
A life-long Lutheran he had a very successful career in the corporate world. The thought of ministry was always there in the back of his mind. It was during his time assisting with a start-up congregation in Kansas City that it became very clear to him that he was meant to devote his life to church instead of the corporate world. After a 23-year career with Hallmark he retired in February 1997 to attend seminary at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in Hyde Park.
Rev. Erickson graduated with a Master of Divinity degree in December 2000 and was immediately called to serve as Senior Pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in suburban St. Louis. During his leadership there the church reversed a long trend of decline and became one of the top ten growth churches in the Central States Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
In August of 2004 Wycliffe Bible Translators offered the opportunity to serve as President/CEO of the newly formed Wycliffe Foundation. Rev. Erickson was the first executive recruited from outside the organization as well as the first ordained minister to serve in senior leadership.
After his eight-year tenure with the Wycliffe Foundation, Rev. Erickson began serving as a supply pastor in several Central Florida churches. In February 2014, he agreed to serve as interim pastor at Rock of Ages Lutheran Church. This began as a four-month assignment. At this church he said he found a wonderfully loving community.
