It was a small group of about thirty, socially distanced in the nave, but many more watched online, as Morgan Gates became Pastor Morgan Gates, with a call to Houston Area Campus Ministry.

Many thanks to Pastor Erik Christiansen from The Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, who preached digitally when our guest preacher came down with COVID-19.

Photo credit: Br. Chris Markert

Morgan’s parents placed the stole.

I know the picture below looks like we are not properly social distancing during a pandemic, and maybe so, but here’s what we did. We held our breath, took off our masks, the photographer took the shot, then we put the masks back on. Did it work? Time will tell. We do have the names of everyone present, so we can do contact tracing if anyone comes down with the virus. I had a COVID test before the ordination. It came back negative. So on Thursday anyway, I was negative.

Photo credit: Pr. Ashley Dellagiacoma