Rick Malivuk

Pastor

All Saint’s Lutheran Church

Lutz, Florida

“It was a dark and stormy night…” is usually right up there with the most disastrous first lines of novels. My call story, while not disastrous, is pretty boring. I’ve described it as resembling a switch clicking on, a logical decision.

Church, particularly a career in the church was never a part of my dreams. My family was not religious and I didn’t attend one until I was in college (and then it was one of the conditions to date my soon to be wife). Born in Ohio, grew up in Michigan and never wanting to experience winter again helped me decide on the University of Miami and Marine Biology (plus a desire to become the next Jacques Cousteau).

Funny things happen at school. The very first day, at the President’s reception for incoming Freshmen, I met Molly, who would teach me that church was not “the opiate of the people,” and who would become my wife in three years. Since she was a “commuter” and I lived in the dorms, in order to see her on the weekends, I was supposed to attend church with her. The seed had been planted.

After graduation and service in Viet Nam we began our family and Molly demanded that our son be Baptized. Since we had been attending a Lutheran Church she suggested we join so that he could be Baptized there. The thing was, I had never been Baptized either, so Pastor Ludder “did” us both. No lightning, no thunder, not very much theology either, yet.

As time passed we all grew more active in the congregation. One day, I reflected with the pastor that I was spending as much time at church as I was at work and I liked what was happening at church but was unfulfilled at my job. I wasn’t getting paid for what I liked to do but was being paid to do what I didn’t like. How could that be changed? That’s the “click” mentioned above. A logical decision.

It was years later that I understood that the “seed had been planted” much earlier. My family had always emphasized education, equality, justice, human rights and the dignity of all people. The process of discernment begins early and matures as we mature. I was being prepared for the gifts of word and sacrament.

Project Connect is an initiative of the Eastern Cluster of Lutheran Seminaries. Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, and the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Funded by a generous grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc.