Pastor Schneider received his Master of
Divinity degree from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Mo., in 1971 and was
ordained in the office of Holy Ministry at Trinity Lutheran Church in Niagara
Falls, N.Y.
In September 1971, he began serving his first
call ministering to the Cuban exile community in "Little Havana" at
St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Miami, Fla. In July 1973, he was called to
serve a dual parish (English/Spanish) in Wasco and Delano, Calif., ministering
with Mexican American and Filipino farm workers and Anglos.
In September 1977, Pastor Schneider was called to develop Hispanic Ministry in
Sacramento, Calif., working out of St. John's Lutheran Church, where he served
as Associate Pastor and Senior Pastor, until coming to Kountze Memorial
Lutheran Church in May 1998.
In June 2009, Schneider was appointed to the Board of Directors at Lutheran
Family Services of Nebraska, Inc.
"Over
the years, I have developed a strong affinity for mission and ministry in the
urban setting of historic, downtown churches. The blessings and challenges of
carrying out mission and ministry in this setting are a special privilege."
Dean W. Bard
Pastoral Associate
Pastor Dean Bard received his Bachelor of Arts in
history and German from Midland Lutheran College in Fremont and his Master of
Arts in modern European history from Creighton University. He received his
Master of Divinity from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He has also
received a diploma from the University of Munich German Program and
certificates from Syracuse University’s Defense Language Institute Russian
Program and the Goethe Institute in Munich.
Bard was an intern pastor in Cairo, Egypt, where
he served two English-speaking ecumenical congregations through the Division
for World Mission and Ecumenism of the Lutheran Church in America. He was also
a member of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod Ecumenism Committee from 1988-1991.
He served as Pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran
Church in Chicago before becoming Associate Vice President for Development at
the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. From 1991-1997, he was the Pastor
at the American Church in Berlin, Germany. From 1998-2000 he was the Founding
Director of the ELCA Wittenberg Center in Germany, where he established and
developed partnerships with various church and secular institutions throughout
east-central Germany. He also represented and promoted the Center’s work within
the German Protestant Church, as well as organizations in the Wittenberg area.
From 2000-2006, he served as Assistant to the Bishop
of the Delaware-Maryland Synod. In 2006-2007, he served as Vice President for
Institutional Advancement at Dana College in Blair, Neb., providing
transitional leadership for the new administration until a permanent vice
president was named in the Fall of 2007.
He retired from active ministry on Oct. 1, 2007.
He has served as an adjunct faculty member at Dana in the Fall of 2007. In both
2008 and 2009, he has served as Interim Senior Pastor of St. Michael Lutheran
Church in Omaha.
He joined Kountze as Interim Associate Pastor in
September 2009 and became Pastoral Associate in March 2010. Bard serves on a part-time, contractual basis.
David W. Zellmer
Pastoral Associate
Born and raised in Kansas City, David William Zellmer received his B.A. degree (1966) from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, and his Master of Theology (1970) at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.
He was ordanied in 1970 and served First Lutheran Church in Hobart, Okla., and then Immanuel Lutheran Church in Omaha.
After Immanuel, Zellmer was Interim Pastor at Grace Lutheran in West Point, Neb., and then Pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran in Fremont, Neb.
In the spring of 1980, Zellmer became Pastor-Developer for St. Michael Lutheran Church, a new mission in northwest Omaha.
In 1988, he was called to be Assistant to the Bishop of the Nebraska Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
His next two ministries took him out of Nebraska—Arndt's Lutheran Church in Easton, Pa., and Kingo Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wis.
In the Fall of 2001, Zellmer's desire for global mission work informed his decision to apply for a position in Northern Tanzania, resign from Kingo and become interim pastor at St. Luke Lutheran Church in suburban Milwaukee.
When the Tanzania position did not materialize, he sought a pastoral call in Nebraska and served at Messiah Lutheran in Grand Island until his retirement in the Spring of 2007.
Since retirement, Zellmer has worked part time for our "Feed the Roots, Grow the Forest" Synod-wide appeal for leadership and youth. Then, he served 16 months (until the end of October 2009) as interim pastor at Christ Lutheran Church in Louisville, Neb.
He became Pastoral Associate at Kountze in March 2010. Zellmer serves on a part-time, contractual basis.
H. Ashley Hall, Ph.D.
Vicar
Hall is Vicar at Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church and Resident Assistant Professor of Theology at Creighton University in Omaha. A native of Houston, Texas, he was raised in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and joined the ELCA when he was in college. Hall attended an all-boys Roman Catholic high school, St. Thomas, run by the Basilian Order of priests. He attended the University of the same name, run by the same Order, where he received his B.A. in history cum laude.
After college, he worked for three years at Christ the King Lutheran Church in
Houston, where he was Communications Director and Assistant to the Director of The
Melanchthon Institute (a center for adult theological education). During that
time, he developed his long-held sense of call to ordained ministry and as a
theologian of the Church. During his time at the congregation, he took three
church history courses with the Rev. Dr. Eric W. Gritsch, through an extension
program of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in historical theology from Fordham University in Bronx, N.Y. His dissertation dealt with the reception of early Christian
sources in the Reformation.
During that time, he was affiliated with the Lutheran Theological Seminary at
Philadelphia and completed an 11-week residential chaplaincy (CPE) at St. Luke’s
and Texas Children’s Hospitals in Houston. While in New York, he was
active at Immanuel Lutheran (Manhattan) and the Metropolitan New York Synod.
Throughout his education, Hall has been fortunate enough to travel to Germany
several times, not only to give scholarly papers but also: twice through
fellowship from the German Lutheran Church (VELK/EKD), once through Rotary
International, and once for a year-long stipend as a Research Fellow at the
Institute for European History in Mainz.
He met his wife, Anne Ozar, in graduate school. She is now Professor of Philosophy at Creighton University.
Hall is completing a part-time, 9-month Theological Education for Emerging Ministries (TEEM) internship at Kountze as he continues his path toward ordination. The internship is through the TEEM program at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.
