by Garrick Moritz, Gazette

Pastor Steve Moberg is retiring this summer after being the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church for the last decade and change.

“It’s been very personally rewarding and spiritually fulfilling, but it it’s time to retire,” he said. “It’s the people that matter most, and that is what I will miss most, worshipping with and sharing the lives of my brothers and sisters in faith.”

Pastor Moberg has served as a Pastor for 33 years. After schooling and ordination, he spent 22 of those years doing the job as Pastor, not just for a Lutheran congregation in Peever, SD, but doing double duty for other congregations in the area.

Moberg first visited Zion Lutheran in Garretson in 2010, and immediately he felt it was a good fit. He started as the new pastor in January of 2011.

You can see Pastor Steve almost every day, walking about town with his wife Teri. Near daily walks both keep them in shape and allow them to see even more people in the community on a regular basis.

“We do it for the social aspect just as much or more than for the exercise,” he said. “Lots of times, we have to tack an extra hour or two onto the walk just because we have so many people we run into, and we want to converse with them. It’s just one of the joys and benefits of living and working in Garretson.”

When asked what the most rewarding parts of his job are, he said it’s the people.

“I love weddings,” Pastor Moberg said. “The counseling beforehand, getting to know two people who want to make a commitment to each other and to spend their lives together, and then the ceremony itself, which is a celebration of life and love. Then watching them grow together, later on having a baptism or two from the union you helped forge. Sharing the joy of a whole community. I’ve never had a bridezilla. Only once did I have a couple not show up, and that I expected because they’d stopped coming to counseling and hadn’t been returning my calls, so I could guess that something hadn’t worked out.”

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