Pastor Laura
I am Pastor Laura Leach Shreffler, and I have been the solo pastor at Evangelical Lutheran Peace Church since April 2018. This is my final call and a leap of faith after serving 26 years at my previous parish. I have been an ordained parish pastor almost 34 years and all of those years have been spent in rural ministry. I am married to Pastor Ron Shreffler, who is a retired pastor. He enjoys being able to worship at Peace and also leads the Adult Forum between services on Sundays. We have a daughter and son-in-law, Rebecca and Christian Babyak, who live in Murfreesboro, TN. Rebecca is a research assistant at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville and Christian works in education for the Tennessee Board of Regents. Rebecca is a faithful member of Christ Lutheran Church in Nashville, where she is involved in music and the women's board. They are the proud parents to our first grandchild, Seraphina Rosalyn. Both are graduates of Wittenberg University.
Evangelical Lutheran Peace Church -- or Peace Lutheran Church, as we shorten it -- is located in Arnheim, Brown County, Ohio, about seven miles from the county seat of Georgetown, childhood home of General Ulysses Grant, also our 18th president. What struck me both when I interviewed for this call, and once I started it, is how busy this church is! We are a smaller -- although not tiny -- church. As you read through our website, you will find that we have a number of committees and groups that are devoted not just to our church, our worship, and our members, but to our community, our country, and our world. I have been impressed with this church's outreach. We are a part of the Southern Ohio Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I also chair the synod's Candidacy Committee and serve on the Synod Council, so I keep busy, as do most of our people here. For close to 200 years now, people have gathered at Evangelical Lutheran Peace Church, faithful to the worship of God and also seeking that which is found in the church name, Friedens in German, or Peace. Arnheim was a bustling community by the turn of the century, with a hotel and a number of breweries, plus Peace Lutheran and St. Mary Roman Catholic Church. Now the hotel is gone, the general store is gone, the breweries... gone. Yet Peace Lutheran Church and St. Mary Catholic Church still remain, strong and dedicated to the worship of God. Peace is where I chose one last leap of faith. Peace has become my home. I hope we may always open our doors and our hearts to all so that they too may have a home.