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Pastor Dave Schilling is retiring from his ministry at Crown of Life Church in Rigby on September 1. | Courtesy of the Eastern Idaho Pastors Coalition Facebook page
RIGBY – A local pastor retires after 20 years of service.
Dave Schilling, the pastor of Crown of Life Church in Rigby, told EastIdahoNews.com he will retire on September 1.
“It’s my 20th birthday and I thought it was a good time to (retire),” says Schilling. “It’s amazing. It looks like it was only a year or two.
The 75-year-old pastor says he and his wife, Naomi, have always wanted to travel and are planning to travel across America in their trailer while they still can. Although they look forward to spending this time together, Schilling says he will miss serving as a pastor and associating with members of his congregation each week.
“It’s been 20 wonderful years. I wouldn’t change a minute. Jefferson County is a great place to live and work, ”he says.
As Schilling looks back on his days with Crown of Life, he says it took “a pretty tough start.” He began his ministry on September 1, 2001, 10 days before the attack on the World Trade Center in New York.
In a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com last year, Schilling said he remembered half of the worship service spent in prayer that first Sunday after the terror attack. No one in the congregation was directly affected, but Schilling said it had a huge effect on the way people worship and the responses to the tragedy made it an important moment in people’s lives.
“Jefferson County is so generous when it comes to serving people in need,” he said in April 2020. “All we have to do is ask the community and her responds overwhelmingly. “
Serving those in need has been his mission and passion throughout his 20 year ministry. It was this love of serving others that led him to become a pastor.
“I love the Lord and I love to serve and I just felt like God wanted me and prepared me to go and do more than just worship on a Sunday morning,” Schilling explains.
Schilling’s faith and conversion to the Lord began long before he thought of becoming a pastor.
Pastor Dave Schilling in the pulpit during a worship service at Crown of Life in January 2020. | Photo taken from a live feed of the service on Facebook
The path of ministry
Being a pastor is the third career he has had in his life. He started in the US Air Force while attending the Air Force Academy in the 1960s. He and Naomi met and started dating during this time and she had been a long-time member of the Lutheran Church. .
“She invited me to church and I resisted for a while, but I finally decided that was the time I could spend with her. So my real motivation (going to church) was initially because I wanted to spend time with my girlfriend. It wasn’t because I wanted to meet God, ”Schilling recalls.
His church attendance turned out to have a great influence on his life and he was finally baptized on December 7, 1968.
“The course to become a Lutheran was Sunday evening at 7 o’clock. The curfew was Sunday evening at 7 a.m. at the academy. I had to go to the cadet commander and ask permission to be late. He never gave a cadet permission to be late. I said to Naomi, ‘He’ll never approve of this, but I’ll ask.’ I went to ask him and he said, “Of course you can (be late). “God really wanted me to be in this class, that’s what I took away from it,” says Schilling.
After 10 years of active service, Schilling spent another 18 years in the Air Force reserves before retiring as a lieutenant colonel.
During the 1980s, he began his second career as Director of Engineering in what is now Idaho National Laboratory.
After retiring from INL, Schilling says he had the opportunity to go to school to become a pastor. He was comfortable with Lutheran doctrine and had taught it all his adult life in various capacities, so it seemed like a natural next step.
“I was able to study at Concordia University in Portland. I attended what is called a (pastoral) colloquium program in our church. It’s an oral exam after graduation and leads to ordination, ”he says.
Highlights of his career and what he will miss the most
During his tenure as pastor, Schilling said it was rewarding to work with the community to help others in different ways. One of her highlights was giving families in need gifts and food for Christmas. Church members help provide Christmas stockings to foster children in eastern Idaho each year, and dozens of children whose parents are incarcerated benefit from the Angel Tree program.
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Schilling also speaks fondly of the church’s partnership with Teton House in Menan to provide a free Thanksgiving meal to those in need and Easter baskets for children in need each spring.
“This stuff is where my heart is (and I’ll miss it),” he says.
In a world of so much political turmoil and many different faiths, Schilling says that “walking at the same pace” with others in service to people unites us in ways that nothing else can.
“We can go and help people who need help and I don’t care about your religion. This is what we have been doing for 20 years, ”he says. “It’s a good partnership when we can go and help people together and that’s what I’m most proud of in my ministry.”
Schilling’s replacement has not yet been determined, but several people will fill his role until a permanent pastor is found.
He will be leading his final worship service at Crown of Life on Sunday, August 29 at 11 a.m. The community is invited to attend. An open house will take place immediately after noon to 3 p.m. Lunch will be provided.
Crown of Life is at 3856 East 300 North next to Rigby High School.
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