Redevelopment Pastor
Ele Clay
When Pastor Ele Clay accepted the call to serve as redevelopment pastor at Augustana, she was walking alongside the Saint James Santiago Apóstol congregation, learning to navigate the complex bilingual-multicultural environment, and providing the English-language sermon component each Sunday. She had first come in contact with St James when she arrived in the Gulf Coast Synod as disaster recovery coordinator, following the 2017 Hurricane Harvey. The focused concern for the ministries of several disaster-affected congregations in our synod took center stage. Collaborating with pastoral staffs as they juggled clean-up, appraisals, financial concerns, scores of volunteers, not to mention the welfare of every parishioner they could contact, became a priority that left an indelible mark on her arrival into day-to-day parish ministry on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. It was not difficult for her to say yes to serving with another congregation that had been shouldering the burden of two major concurrent set-backs, the 2020 winter freeze and the pandemic quarantine.
Pastor Clay is delighted that the 95th anniversary committee chose the theme "Blazing Paths to the Future!" It seems right for Augustana at this point in this beautiful history, and she is well aware of the challenges that will come as our congregation continues to live out that intent in real time. Pastor Clay’s favorite motto is Watch for God! meaning, watch for what awe-inspiring thing God will do in and through us as we work together to share God’s love in purposeful and meaningful ways.