By Katie Kreis ’19

In May the Rev. Lydia Posselt ’07 laid bare her preaching talents in an international competition and won.

The pastor of Family of God Lutheran Church in Buckingham, Pa., was selected to deliver a sermon during closing worship of the Lutheran World Federation 12th Assembly in Namibia, Africa.

The contest, directed specifically at young pastors, commemorated Martin Luther, who was 33 years old when his Ninety-Five Theses triggered the Protestant Reformation in 1517. Posselt was a perfect candidate; she was 32.

“It’s sometimes a challenge being a woman in ministry, and I encouraged my women pastor colleagues to enter because I knew how important it would be for a woman to preach at this event,” Posselt said.

Each of the 10 finalists wrote sermons based on the same text from Galatians 5.

“I gave myself permission to be freed from worrying about sounding extraordinarily smart or having the exactly right phrase.”

Upon studying the text, praying, and reflecting on her life experiences, she named her sermon The Jesus Parade.

“Like the theme of the sermon itself, I felt liberated to write what Galatians was speaking to me. I preached to myself, as I do in most of my sermons, and left it in God’s hands,” she said. 

She submitted a video of her sermon to be voted on by the public. 

“The whole experience felt very dreamlike. I don’t think I realized then how much I was experiencing and learning at the time. Only later have I taken time to reflect and articulate how these experiences have become part of who I am now as a person and a pastor.”

Though Posselt always will remember preaching in front of an international audience, it was a moment during the Global Commemoration of the Reformation service, attended by about 10,000 people, that she counts as the most “moving.”

“I expected that singing A Mighty Fortress with these Lutherans from all over the world would be the most moving moment of the service … but it wasn’t,” Posselt. “The moment of unity I was hoping for did come, however, when we sang the closing song We are Marching in the Light of God. Men, women, pastors, children, Germans, Namibians, all of us were singing with our whole hearts in harmony, clapping, with tears streaming down our faces, in awe in being united in one shared heritage of God’s grace and celebrating our hope in the future, reformatting the nature of God that had brought us all together.”

It was a lifetime of experiences that brought Posselt to that moment in Namibia. Her calling to pastoral ministry first came while serving as a counselor at a Lutheran summer camp. 

“I didn’t so much discover it as was sort of chased down by God a bit,” she said. “I thought I was going to be a writer. Now I still do write, only mostly sermons.”

Posselt’s vocation became stronger at Wartburg, which instilled in her a passion for lifelong learning, service, and reaching for new opportunities, like being involved in campus ministry, playing in Symphonic Band, and singing in the chapel choir.

“I learned to stretch myself and seek out new adventures. I even preached my first sermon during one of the weekly chapel services,” she said.

Posselt said her network of support pushes her to continue her service in greater capacities.

“I could not have accomplished all that I have been able to in the last few years without being surrounded by the love and support of my friends and family,” Posselt said. “It is through these relationships that I have most directly felt the presence and grace of God. I feel like I am a living embodiment of ‘there but by the grace of God go I.’”