Meet our pastors

1. Pastor John R. Pederson
2. Pastor John W. Bengston

John R. Pederson, Senior Pastor

Pastor Pederson began his education as a chemistry major. He finally saw the light, switched majors, and graduated cum laude from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, with departmental honors in philosophy. Not yet ready to choose, his first year of graduate study was divided between studying philosophy at Harvard University and theology at Andover Newton Theological School. Finally settling on theology he obtained his M.Div. from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Recently, Pastor Pederson completed a sabbatical experience as a registered graduate student at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He has been invited to Oxford University three times in the last ten years where he read his paper on religion and the state in 2006. An avid reader of almost anything he especially enjoys the fiction and essays of Flannery O’Connor, Saul Bellow, Richard Ford, and Cynthia Ozick.

After serving congregations in Minnesota and Fort Collins, Colorado, Pastor John was installed as senior pastor of Augustana in March of 1999.

Pastor John is married to Ruth who is Executive Director of Colorado Aids Project. They have two adult children. Kirsten and Marc are parents of Olivia Rose (2004) and Siri May (2007) Anderson. Son Aaron works for a Lehman Brothers loan servicing company and is newly wedded to Jen. All of these extended family live in the Denver-Boulder area.

Pastor Pederson is convinced he is called to Augustana to help with a faithful transition to new generations of the Augustana community. He claims to be having more fun in ministry than almost every other Lutheran clergy-type he knows.

Contact Pastor Pederson (pederson@augustanadenver.org or 303-388-4678 ext. 105).

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John W. Bengston, Pastor

Pastor John W. Bengston, born in Joliet, Illinois, a graduate of Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois and of seminary in Rock Island. His wife is Kay A. Lundeen, also of Joliet, Illinois and an Augustana College graduate; they were married in 1963. John also earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in 1983.

Ordained on May 20, 1964, Pastor John and Kay moved to Aurora, Colorado, in August of 1964 where he began serving a call from the Rocky Mountain Synod of the Lutheran Church in America as a Mission Developer. He was the founding pastor of Christ the Savior Lutheran Church, Aurora. In 1965 their first child, Carlene was born and in 1967 their son, Loren was born. Carlene unexpectedly died on April 2, 2008 of a pulmonary embolism. Loren lives in Parker, CO.

Pastor Bengston was called to St. Luke Lutheran Church, Richmond, Virginia in 1989, then to St. Luke Lutheran Church, Silver Spring, Maryland in 1997 where he served until 2001. His next place of service was Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Falls Church, VA as Interim Pastor and in June of 2002 became Interim Pastor of All Saints, Lutheran Church, Bowie, MD, from which place he retired in 2005.

Kay and John returned to Colorado in 2005 upon both retiring, Kay as Director of Domestic Policy Advocacy for the Lutheran Office of Governmental Affairs in Washington DC. Pastor Bengston began his service with Augustana Lutheran Church, Denver, as part time pastoral staff in December 2005.

He is a long-time jogger who had to give up that practice after a knee injury and surgery in 2008. Both Kay and John enjoy seeing the world and have taken annual trips since their retirements.

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