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Holy Cross Lutheran in Spring Hill is young pastor's first assignment

 
Pastor Peter Morey, shown with his wife, Megan, recently started an ultimate Frisbee group and has plans to utilize Facebook.
Pastor Peter Morey, shown with his wife, Megan, recently started an ultimate Frisbee group and has plans to utilize Facebook.
Published Oct. 22, 2014

SPRING HILL — After more than two years without a full-time pastor, members of Holy Cross Lutheran Church recently welcomed the Rev. Peter Morey as their new spiritual leader.

The assignment by the Florida-Bahamas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is the first for the recently ordained pastor.

Members think Morey's youth and vitality will help take the church in a positive direction.

"We are blessed to have them," Lynn Applegate, former church council secretary, said about Morey, 27, and his wife of three years, Megan. "This is a retirement community, so it's unusual to have someone so young. He's really taking charge, getting things in order and enjoying his first church."

The president of the church council, Linda Lorenz, agrees that the young pastor brings new life to the congregation.

"Pastor Morey brings energy and a vital outlook to our church and the community," said Lorenz. "Holy Cross Lutheran's future is boundless with him as our spiritual leader."

The admiration is mutual.

"The people are wonderful; I've enjoyed them," Morey said. "They have a lot to offer anyone who comes."

"To know, love and share the love of Christ" is the motto used by the nearly 250-member church, and Morey hopes to perpetuate that commitment.

"Holy Cross Lutheran Church has so much potential," he said. "My vision is for the people to be motivated, the church to grow in number and in faithful living, and for our ministry to connect with and touch lives that we had never even thought possible before."

"Connection" is a word Morey has been using a lot with his new congregation.

"We're trying to seek people and help them find the connection they desire," the pastor said. "When people come to church, they come to worship, but the reason they come to worship is to connect to God. We're trying to help them connect not only to the Divine, but also to others, to their neighbor."

One method is through an ultimate Frisbee group recently begun by Morey.

"I'm interested in breaking the old mold of the church offering programs and instead focus on going to where the people are," Morey said.

The group meets from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at Anderson Snow Park.

"The group has grown, and over time I am hoping to become close to them and begin fostering conversations of faith and relational connection," Morey said. "This is just one of many ideas I have formulated over my years of study and practice."

He also hopes to update the church with resources such as a Facebook page.

"We're trying to expand what we've been offering in terms of our digital presence," he said. "But it's secondary to the relationship element that we're trying to rebuild."

As a child, Morey attended a Lutheran church in Sarasota with his grandparents. He grew to love being at church, he said. And while he never thought it would happen, eventually he felt a calling to become a pastor.

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Having graduated from Sarasota Military Academy, he attended Florida Southern College in Lakeland with an ROTC scholarship. He was commissioned by the Army as a 2nd lieutenant and graduated with a bachelor's degree in religion.

After four years at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., which included a year of internship at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Killeen, Texas, he graduated with a master of divinity degree in May 2013. While waiting for his assignment from the synod, he took part in a one-year clinical pastoral education course at Providence Hospital in Columbia as a student chaplain.

Morey was ordained as a Lutheran minister on Sept. 12 of this year and began his duties as pastor at Holy Cross the following week. He will also be serving as a chaplain to an Army reserve unit in Orlando.

Morey wants people in the community to know his new church is vibrant and has a lot to offer.

"We are going to be expanding our ministry and including ministries to younger families as well as singles and couples," he said. "We want to be as inclusive as possible and give everyone access to God through our church."