Courtesy of the Author
by Georgine Wallace
A new face now graces the altar at St. Matthew Lutheran Church each Sunday. Pastor Katherine Tuttle joined St. Matthew in August as the new interim pastor and will serve until next summer. Already popular in the congregation, many parishioners expressed hope that she can extend her stay.
Pastor Tuttle hails from Spokane, Washington. Her husband is a visiting professor at Georgetown University. The couple and their two young children reside in North Bethesda. A Minnesota native, Tuttle and her family have also lived in Indiana, Illinois, Los Angeles, and Spokane. Ordained in 2019, she is a graduate of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
Despite her stay in Southwest possibly being of short duration, Pastor Tuttle is committed to making her mark and enhancing the church’s commitment to the community. Her face changed into a posture of firm resolve as she talked about the church’s ten-year absence from the community during construction and how many new residents are unaware of the church’s history in the community. She looked at the sunlight streaming through the window, making the sanctuary glisten like a jewel, and said, “this beautiful building needs to be shared more with the community.”
One way in which St. Matthew is achieving this goal is by opening its doors to the Swahili Lutheran Church at 11 a.m. each Sunday. Pastor John Mbatta and his growing congregation welcomed the idea of a new location. Pastor Tuttle hopes to create a joint, bilingual Sunday School in between the two services at 10:00 a.m.
Pastor Tuttle conducts services at St. Matthew every Sunday at 9:00 a.m.
Editor’s note: The author is a member of the St. Matthew congregation.