Augustana Lutheran Church of Hyde Park

On November 10 and 17, we will lift up stewardship in worship and, on November 24, collect pledges for 2025.  For the next three weeks, we will feature stewardship profiles on Augustana members.  We begin with Nola and Dave Roth.  

Nola and Dave Roth have an unusual profile among people at Augustana: they are both lifelong Lutherans. Nola’s parents joined the Methodists of Osage, Kansas, for awhile before moving to the Baptists and finally the Lutherans. So Nola grew up going to the Swedish Lutheran church with her parents and five siblings most weeks. It was a small congregation, with about 75 worshiping on a Sunday. Her dad was a mechanic, so while he always put something in the plate, Nola guessed he was not a top giver. “We never talked about it,” she said. But, she and her siblings knew there was a clear expectation that they would also put something in the plate. Nola’s allowance included a quarter to give on every Sunday.

Nola said that she didn’t remember the pastor talking about money during her childhood. Dave didn’t remember that either, even though he grew up in a very large Missouri Synod congregation in a suburb of St. Louis, and his dad was the pastor of the 1600-member church. “We did learn about the Extension Fund,” Dave said, the LCMS version of our national church’s Mission Investment Fund – Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) (MIF was Augustana’s mortgage lender). In the 1960s, Dave’s dad was doing what most pastors of big congregations were doing, leading building project after building project as church attendance reached its peak of the century. 

In 1982, Dave was a graduate student at University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and Nola was working at the university when the two met at Augustana, and married here. “After marriage, to get on board with this giving was a very big deal,” Dave said. Both agreed that as their relationship with a congregation grew, their commitment as stewards grew. Eventually, Dave became the leader of their congregation’s stewardship effort. Over the years, he heard a few things about stewardship that rang true for him. He remembers listening as Bishop Paul Landahl answered a question someone posed about what kinds of churches he saw thriving. “He said, ‘I think those churches that talk about Jesus do pretty well,'” said Dave. He’s come to appreciate churches that return again and again to the basics, solid preaching, good liturgy, and he’s come to a deeper sense that God is with us and cares for us through all the ups and downs of congregational life. 

Both Nola and Dave believe that God calls them to be generous, and that’s been a given in their life together. “It feels great to give at this point in life.”