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A LEAP OF FAITH . . .
Peace Lutheran Calls Pastor Michael Bonham
by Esther Nance

Not long ago, Peace Lutheran Church in Gulf Shores, Alabama, was at a Crossroads.

Guided by the Holy Spirit, Peace took a leap of faith and called Rev. Michael Bonham to be their pastor.

Our journey to this crossroad actually began in Silverhill, Alabama, with Zion Lutheran Church. Around thirteen years ago, some Snowbirds drove those 30 or so miles from Gulf Shores to Silverhill for an Easter worship service. The lay pastor who led Zion, Charles Jolliff, decided that if a few drove that far to worship, how many more would come to a place at the Gulf! He canvassed Gulf Shores and found a place to hold a Saturday afternoon worship. Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Gulf Shores welcomed the Lutherans. This mission was named Zion By The Sea.

We began as a cozy little church ... six of us and a couple from Zion that always came with Pastor Jolliff, our organist, lector, and preacher. We started in the spring so only a few people came, but in the winter the Snowbirds came and we flourished.

A few years into this mission, the people at Zion decided to pull out of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The ELCA Bishop allowed the people at the Gulf to keep their little mission start by the sea.

With a new beginning, the church was renamed Grace. The small group of six held on with help from our "Northern Lights" for over four years. Then a small chapel was found in Foley for Sunday worship. A pastor still had to be found, as well as an organist. Pastor Jim Hansen answered the call, Deidre Cowart became our organist, and Grace grew. Pastor Hansen stayed thirteen months until we received a Mission Developer pastor from the ELCA. There were about thirty seven resident members at Grace when he left.

Devastation immediately set in when the mission developer arrived. Within two years the same number that had joined the church, had left. We also lost many of the Snowbirds. The warm and caring church in Gulf Shores and Foley was no longer. It had vanished.

A few of us felt lost. We could not accept another denomination as our home church. We are Lutheran and that is what we wanted to stay–but we had no place to go. We had been driven out of our own church!

Pastor Jolliff stopped by to check on my husband and me one day in September 2000. I told him I was virtually unchurched. I also told him that I was thinking that maybe the few of us who could not bring ourselves to become a Baptist, Presbyterian or Methodist, should get together for our own little church in the form of a Sunday school or Bible study.

Shortly after that Peace became a reality - just in time for our winter family's arrival. Her doors were opened in January 2001 in a little beach house in Orange Beach where a group of Baptist shared their "church" with us on Sunday mornings. Pastor Jolliff lead us in worship for a year, then we called Pastor Hansen again. Peace continued growing, and we moved our services to the heart of the resident community in Gulf Shores.

Last fall, Pastor Hansen announced that he was retiring. To reach out to the resident community and grow, he recommended that we call a younger pastor who would live in the area, not 65 miles away as he does. That will make a big difference, he said. And so, we accepted that concept and called Pastor Michael Bonham, with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit, to lead us in building God's Kingdom at Peace.

We, at Peace, are very excited. We face a huge task in developing a Lutheran church in an area where most people do not know what a Lutheran is, let alone what the differences are between Lutheran churches. We trust, however, that Pastor Bonham has God's help, and our support and determination to bring Christ's church into being here along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Lead on O'Holy Spirit.

Esther Nance

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