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Services Planned Thursday for George Schermer
MOLINE, IL (June 29, 2004) - Memorial services are being held at 11 a.m. on
Thursday at First Covenant Church for retired Covenant pastor and
administrator George H. Schermer, who died Monday from complications of
cancer at Genesis West Medical Center in nearby Davenport, Iowa. He was 87.
Visitation is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Pastor Randall Surey of
First Covenant Church, retired Covenant pastor James R. Lundell, and
Bernard Windmiller, interim pastor of the Evangelical Covenant Church of
Princeton, Illinois, will participate in the service.
A longtime Covenant pastor who ministered in seven different
congregations, Schermer later served the Evangelical Covenant Church
(ECC) in its Department of Christian Education (now Christian Formation)
from 1963 to 1970.
Schermer was born in Crookston, Minnesota, and graduated from North Park
College with an A.A. degree. He then attended North Park Theological
Seminary in Chicago, receiving his educational diploma in 1941. He was
ordained in 1944. His first pastorate after seminary was the Evangelical
Covenant Church in Kewanee, Illinois. He married Maxine A. Nelson on
November 29, 1941.
After leaving Kewanee, he served congregations in Foley, Minnesota
(1942-45); Stromsburg, Nebraska (1945-51) and Lanyon, Iowa (1951-53)
before accepting a position as youth secretary with the Northwest
Conference.
While serving the Northwest Conference, Rev. Schermer also pursued his
B.A. in Christian Education from Macalester College in St. Paul,
Minnesota, graduating in 1962. He was active in establishing three Bible
camps including Covenant Cedars near Stromsburg, Nebraska; Covenant
Pines, near McGregor, Minnesota, (which he also managed during its
initial year) and Lake Beauty Bible Camp in Long Prairie, Minnesota. He
also helped establish the retirement center that is now Midwest Covenant
Home in Stromsburg.
Some of his most notable achievements were organizing training
institutes for Sunday-school teachers, held at Minnehaha Academy and
First Covenant Church in Minneapolis. Those institutes were attended by
as many as 1,200 Sunday-school teachers. In addition, he worked with
High League leaders to organize statewide workshops and events. At the
denominational level, his responsibilities included organizing CHIC
(known then as Covenant High Congress) for high-school students every
four years, and coordinating trips to the International Youth
Assembly/European Tour for college students. He also played a key role
in the Covenant Youth Caravan for Christ, which brought teams of youth
to serve local churches and provided a training ground for future church
leaders.
In the 1970s, he returned to the pastorate, serving First Covenant
Church in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, from 1970 to 74 and the Evangelical Covenant
Church of Aurora, Nebraska, from 1974 to 1978. He was associate pastor
at First Covenant Church in Omaha, Nebraska, from 1978 to 1981. In
retirement, the Schermers moved to retired in Bettendorf, Iowa, where
they had family.
Survivors include his wife, Maxine; two sons, Douglas (Shirley) of
Wayland, Iowa; and Timothy (Martha) of Bettendorf; one daughter,
Kristine (Bruce) Metcalf of Hilmar, California; eight grandchildren and
two great-grandchildren.
Memorials may be sent to North Park Theological Seminary; the Department
of Christian Formation for the ECC; the Department of Christian
Formation for the Northwest Covenant Conference; First Covenant Church
of Moline, and the American Cancer Society.
Peace to his memory.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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