Our Savior Lutheran Church of Stevensville will host a celebration dinner on Sunday, August 30, to honor the 40th anniversary of the ordination of Reverend Ray Larson, a former pastor of the congregation and now a member.
Reverend Larson is now retired, but since a Lutheran minister in Montana never really retires, he is serving the Montana District of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) in several capacities. Presently several congregations are awaiting new pastors and need an ordained minister to preach and perform sacraments on a regular basis. Reverend Larson, accompanied by his wife Roseann, often travels to serve these congregations. In 2014 he preached about half the Sundays of the year.
He continues to develop a new District program to target communities not currently served by LCMS ministry, the basis for starting new LCMS Lutheran churches in Montana and nationwide. This is a leftover duty from his days as Montana District Mission Coordinator. He promotes a program to encourage and support small struggling rural congregations to stronger congregations in the Montana District. Larson is also active in promoting congregations in Montana to join the Barnabas program, a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod plan which provides active support and service to military families across the nation. Despite his retirement, Larson has retained the position of Circuit Visitor in which he visits the eight congregations of our area, from Salmon, Idaho to Thompson Falls. He makes certain the District office in Billings is aware of the needs of those pastors and congregations and leads them through issues that arise, such as the loss or severe illness of a congregation’s pastor. For a retiree, Ray Larson is a very busy man.
Reverend Larson served for ten years in the Marine Corps, including two tours in Vietnam. During that second tour he realized he had been called to serve in another capacity—that of a called and ordained “servant of the Word.” He “recognized that God had chosen him to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ, the truth that the salvation won for us by His life, death and resurrection has brought peace to mankind through God’s grace and mercy.”
Upon his return to the United States, he resigned from the Marine Corps and began the long road toward reaching that goal of ordination. He and his wife worked their way through his college and seminary years while raising their children. There were six by the time he was settled in his first congregation in small dairy farm town in Wisconsin.
Reverend Larson enjoyed congregational ministry, but a chance meeting—and everyone knows there is no such thing as a chance meeting—brought him in contact with a member of the Armed Forces Committee of the LCMS. After discovering more about Synod’s chaplaincy program he recognized yet again that the Spirit was calling him in another direction. He trained and then joined the Army as a Lutheran chaplain.
Larson served in many capacities, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. During nearly all that time, at his request, Larson worked specifically with troops. He felt his service in the Marines as both an enlisted man and as an officer had developed talents and strengths to reach men in the field which would have been neglected had he served in more administrative positions.
The year 2001 found Reverend Larson and Roseann in Germany where he was serving congregations for 4 military communities. Just as he had reached the twenty year mark in the military and was pondering a decision to retire, he was again “called by the Spirit to serve God” in still another way. He received a call by a small Montana congregation with a long pastoral absence and a real need for healing. Larson and his wife, after considerable prayer, then accepted “the decision God had urged them to make.”
Reverend Larson served the Our Savior congregation in Stevensville from 2001-2008 when he retired from the ministry, but as noted above, he “will never stop preaching the Word and administering the sacraments as long as God brings him opportunities to serve both God and His people and provides Larson the strength to fulfill them.”
The community is invited to join the congregation in praise of God and in thanks for Larson’s long ministry. The dinner will be served at 12 noon in the church fellowship hall, following worship at 9 a.m. and Bible study at 10:15. All are welcome.
Our Savior Lutheran Church, a member congregation of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, is located at 184 Pine Hollow Road. About a mile south of the intersection of Middle Burnt Fork Road and the Eastside Highway, turn east onto Pine Hollow. Cross the tracks and the canal and the church will be on the left, marked by three crosses. Call 239-5573 for further information.