This morning we honor our own Pastor Miller with a special message from District President Johnson (and some secret footage from the Grace archives.)
Pastor Miller, thank you for everything you have done for Grace. We very much look forward to the years to come. We pray that the Lord continues to bless your time at Grace Lutheran Church.
Rev. Wayne J. Miller – Grace Lutheran Church
Today we celebrate the 5th anniversary of the installation of the Rev. Wayne J. Miller as the 16th Pastor of Grace Lutheran Church. While we are unable to celebrate together at Grace, we still celebrate the day and the man. We will have a formal recognition once we are back together.
The Rev. Wayne John Miller, is the son of Warren Jr. and Linda (Wagner) Miller, born on April 11, 1986 in Palos Heights, Illinois. He was baptized on May 4th, 1986 at Peace Lutheran Church in Chicago, Illinois. After 10 years of Lutheran School education, and confirmation classes he was confirmed at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Oak Lawn, Illinois in the year 2000.
In 2009, he graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago with a Bachelor of Science degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management. After much prayer and guidance from his family and friends, he enrolled into Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He served his Vicarage year at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Elberta, Alabama from 2013 to 2014 and was known as “Vicar Wayne”. Wayne J. Miller graduated from Concordia Seminary in 2015 with his Master of Divinity Degree and was awarded with a theological diploma.
He was ordained on June 21, 2015 at St. Paul Lutheran in Oak Lawn by his home Pastor, Rev. John Moeller who had confirmed him 15 years prior. He was called and installed as Pastor of Grace Lutheran on July 12, 2015.
Pastor Miller met the love of his life, Ashley (Middleton) here at Grace shortly after his arrival and they were married at Grace in 2017. Despite one controversial sermon about animals, Pastor and Ashley have one golden shepherd by the name of Bella and he loves her too.
Pastor Miller has pastored us through many new beginnings for Grace, including fellowship events like movie nights and chili cookoffs, Lenten Dramas, new Christmas decorations and the Wandering Nativity, Constitution and Bylaws update, our 150th Anniversary, our changes/improvements to our facilities and the ongoing challenges we face and most recently improving Grace’s presence and ministry online due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. Pastor Miller’s favorite aspect of being a pastor is preaching God’s Word in every season. We look forward to hearing him for many seasons to come.
Happy Anniversary from Grace Lutheran Church!
Dear Pastor Miller, Congratulations on your first five years with us at Grace Lutheran Church. I hope you are as happy about that as all of us are. We love you and hope you are with us for a long, long time. I can’t wait until this virus is contained and we can all be together again face to face. In the meantime, keep up your hard work with your online services. We do appreciate it. Yours in Christ, JoAnne
How blessed we are to have Pastor Wayne at Grace Mobile!! His talents are endless, and his love for his “flock” is so evidently sincere.
We feel especially blessed to have been at the St. Louis Seminary on the occasion of his call to Grace-Mobile, having no idea this was going to happen. We were so excited to meet him after the service! We were not even living in Alabama at the time, but were still in the Atlanta,GA area. We were building a new home in Fairhope and always had a special place in our hearts for Grace having been married here in 1979, and I (Karin) was baptized from the font at Grace in 1939.
I remember telling Pastor Miller that maybe he would find a pretty Southern wife in Mobile too! God found Ashley for him, just as I had hoped!
So, even though we had automatically joined the Fairhope LCMS church upon arrival in Fairhope, we kept being drawn to Grace where we began our life as man and wife. After many visits, lots of prayer and sincere soul searching, we joined this wonderful congregation, having been away from this area for many years. We know that we belong here and could not be more content to be in this church again with such a wonderful, caring and sincere pastor, faithfully bringing us the Word and Sacrament.
Congratulations on your 5 yr. anniversary! It has truly been a blessing to have you as our pastor. Congratulations on marrying a southern hottie bear like mine. I pray for the day when we can congregate and worship together and celebrate with a big meal afterward. We hope you stay here for many years to come. We love you.
Kevin and Kathy Hanson (Brokaw)
Thank you Pastor Miller for all you have meant to our family over the past year. This time last year we were attending your Lutheran catechism classes every week and looking forward to all the joy and peace there is knowing we are saved ‘by Grace alone’. No one could have predicted this pandemic last year; but I certainly could have predicted who the right man would be to help us get through it spiritually…Rev. Wayne Miller!:)
Thank you so much for continuing the Bible studies, for streaming the services and helping us stay connected and blessed through this unusual time; and thank you for welcoming us so graciously to Grace Lutheran. Jerry and I missed your first four years at Grace but You can be sure we will be lookIng forward to every one of your future years there.
God bless you & Ashley forever!