Longtime La Cañada Congregational Church minister Skip Lindeman ending his service to await a new call
La Cañada Congregational Church pastor Skip Lindeman at the 118-year old church in La Cañada Flintridge on Tuesday, June 28, 2016.
To Skip Lindeman, outgoing minister at La Cañada Congregational Church, life is all about timing and heeding the call of one’s soul in those rare moments when it whispers its silent intelligence.
Lindeman’s own entrance into the ministerial fold at age 60 — three decades after he graduated from Berkeley’s Pacific School of Religion in 1970 — and his subsequent career heading La Cañada Congregational Church first as an interim minister for seven years, and then on a permanent basis, provide a perfect case in point.
“When I graduated from seminary I thought, this was a great education, but I didn’t feel called to minister,” he recalled in a recent interview.
I would hope people would think that at least I made them think.
— Skip Lindeman, outgoing minister at La Cañada Congregational Church
Instead, Lindeman entered the broadcasting industry and worked for several different radio stations. In 2000, he was working as a contributing reporter for KNX 1070 Newsradio, writing and delivering occasional sermons to fill in for a friend in Ventura County on the side, when he suddenly felt called in a different direction.
“I felt this need to be in the church,” he said. “The thought came through my mind I need to preach more. It occurred to me if there’s a God, this would be the way he’d reach a guy like me.”
Lindeman became ordained under the denomination of the United Church of Christ and soon found himself assigned as interim minister for La Cañada’s oldest church, founded in 1897. In the years immediately following the 1999 retirement of Rev. Philip Longfellow Anderson, the congregation was in need of new leadership after two other interim ministers had failed to grow roots there.
“I was lucky to fall into this — the people were just looking for a minister they could like, and I’m kind of a people person,” he said.
Pat Anderson, a member of La Cañada Congregational Church since 1972 and widow of Rev. Anderson, who passed in 2003, recalled the relative void left by her husband’s absence after 22 years at the pulpit.
“I was on the search committee. We looked for two years,” Anderson said, remembering a list of 40 significant attributes the congregation was seeking in a replacement. “We just couldn’t seem to find the right person.”
Minister Skip Lindeman is stepping down July 10 after 14 years at the helm of La Cañada Congregational Church.
Lindeman arrived in the fall of 2002, commuting more than an hour each way between La Cañada Flintridge and his home in Marina Del Rey. For the next seven years Lindeman served in the interim position and stayed there, as the church maintains a distinction between the roles and responsibilities of an interim minister and a permanent or “called” minister.
In 2009, a new leader at the Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ in Altadena made the decision that Lindeman was ready to be installed as the called minister, and in a March ceremony it became official.
Since then, the minister has made it a point to broker tough conversation with members of his congregation. He’s spoken openly, for better or worse, on the nation’s involvement in foreign wars and advocated for the rights of gays and lesbians to be recognized and embraced by the church. It’s part of a larger mission, he says, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
“Jesus spoke truth to power. He lived the faith that he believed in,” Lindeman said. “I would hope people would think that at least I made them think.”
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Dave Proctor, a longtime member and facilities manager for the local church, said he’s grateful for Lindeman’s long presence there.
“He really just seemed to be a good fit for us — the right guy at the right time,” Proctor said, sharing his appreciation for Lindeman’s willingness to pass along any and every joke he hears. “I think we will all miss him a great deal.”
Lindeman’s last day with the church is July 10. He simply believes the church is ready to hear the gospel through a new heart and mind and hopes the selection committee finds a replacement who will help grow church membership.
With no plans to retire anytime soon, the 74-year-old minister is waiting to hear where he will be called to next.
“I really like the work and would hope there would be an exactly right place for me and for my next congregation,” he said. “I feel like I have more sermons to give.”
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
