Religiously Speaking
Now that Bishop Bob Humphrey has been in place since September, Lutherans who are members of parishes affiliated with the Virginia Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) are preparing for some changes in the governance of the regional body of their church.
For the first time since the headquarters of the synod was moved to Salem in 1982, the bishop will not be living nearby. He will remain in the Northern Shenandoah Valley with an office in Harrisonburg. Most of his career as a pastor has been centered there.
The synod office, however, will remain in Bittle Hall on the campus of Roanoke College. The school is affiliated with the ELCA, and Salem has long been regarded as the center of church ministries in the area. Lutherans were among the earliest settlers of the area having migrated south through the Great Valley from Pennsylvania. Earlier, the synod office was in downtown Roanoke near historic St. Mark’s Church.
The new bishop’s plans reflect the growth of the denomination east of the Blue Ridge where many new congregations have been started since World War II in the expanding metro crescent of Northern Virginia, Richmond and the Tidewater cities. For several decades an Eastern Virginia office has functioned in Norfolk. The pastor, who has been in charge there, the Rev. Chris Price, is retiring at the end of this year. Humphrey will get a new assistant there.
To maintain close contact with Lutherans in and west of Roanoke, the Salem office will be headed by Humphrey’s full-time assistant, the Rev. Kelly Bayer Derrick. Ordained 11 years ago, she was Humphrey’s major opponent in the election in which he succeeded retiring Salemite Bishop Jim Mauney last summer.
Bayer Derrick is the wife of the Rev. David Derrick and has been his part-time assistant at St. Philip Lutheran Church in Hollins. She also has been a part-time faculty member at nearby Hollins University and will continue to teach in the religion department there. David Derrick has been pastor at St. Philip since 2000 soon after the congregation relocated there around 20 years ago.
Kelly Bayer Derrick comes from a church-connected family. She grew up in the Richmond area and is a graduate of the University of Virginia and the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg, Pa. She and her husband have three sons, one in Roanoke College and the others at Northside High School.
Of the staff in Salem Mindy Reynolds, a deacon who has worked notably with special programs related to health and insurance will be leaving. Also losing her job in the shifts is Lisa Allagas.
Remaining based in the Salem office will be the Rev. David Delaney, a long-time worker with youth and young adults, who will continue to be available throughout the synod which covers most of Virginia. Others who will stay in Salem are Becky Walls, Emily Pilat, Tammy Kasper, Richard Hoffman and Skip Zubrod.
Although ELCA congregations predominate in the Roanoke Valley, three other conservatively-oriented Lutheran groups also have parishes nearby. They are St. John Church in Southwest County, Good Shepherd- Missouri Synod at Oak Grove and Our Savior-Wisconsin Synod at Bonsack.