Florida Bishop To Attend Local Church To Install Permanent Pastor

Lord of Life Lutheran Church has been without a permanent pastor for well over a decade but that’s about to change.

Pedro Suarez, the Bishop of the Florida-Bahamas Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), will conduct the formal installation of Karen Biggerstaff as the permanent Pastor at Lord of Life, located at 276 N. Roscoe Blvd., on August 2, 2026 at 9:45 a.m. The public is welcome to attend this milestone.

The Bishop is responsible for 169 ELCA churches and this will be his first time to see Lord of Life Lutheran Church. He is one of 65 Bishops who lead the geographical regions (called synods) of the ELCA.

Pastor Biggerstaff has been the interim pastor here for 2.5 years. She has previously served at four Lutheran Churches including Our Savior's Church and St. Luke’s Church in Muskegon, MI; First Lutheran Church in Strasburg, OH; and Spirit of Life in Jacksonville, FL.

“I wanted to be a pastor since I was 12 years old and blurted it out at a summer Christian camp I was attending,” said Pastor Biggerstaff.Her spiritual path eventually took her there after a career as an intensive care and coronary care nurse.

“We are delighted to have Pastor Karen here on a permanent basis,” said Fred Oberkehr, the church council President. “We have been energized with her candid, wise, warm and fun preaching style and understanding of God’s Word.”

Lord of Life Lutheran Church is celebrating their 40^th year as a church – first on Solana Road and for 26 years now on N. Roscoe Blvd. They will be holding a celebratory event on September 20^th which the public is welcome to attend.