Pastor marks one-year anniversary at Christ's Lutheran Church

Published: Wednesday, March 10, 2010

By Amanda Glensky
Staff Writer

Relocating to Oreland last year was so perfect for the Rev. Kay Braun that it felt like divine intervention.

Braun became the pastor of Christ’s Lutheran Church in Oreland in March 2009 after moving to town from Northeast Philadelphia. This month she is celebrating her one-year anniversary with the congregation of 650, more than half of whom are from Oreland.

“The bottom line is I really strongly believe that this is where God wants me and my family,” she said Wednesday at her office. “From the first moment it felt like home.”

Before moving to the suburbs, Braun and her husband, John, considered settling in the Fort Washington area because of its central location. After an extensive search, her husband got a job in Malvern — a hint they should stay in the area — and then Braun was offered the chance to be pastor at Christ’s Lutheran Church. Everything fell into place for them and their two sons Mike, 19, and Tom, 14.

“I could not have asked for a more perfect fit,” she said.

Self-described as “mission-minded” and a “team player,” Braun said the congregation reaches out in the community through donating funds and of themselves.

The Sunday school works with the organization Charity: Water, which builds wells in Africa. In June members are going to the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia to repair homes for those in need of help.

“To me, the church is people taking God’s love into the world and that’s why Christ Lutheran is such a great fit for me,” she said.

The church’s nursery school, which opened in 1957, is also a huge reason why Christ’s feels like home. The church where Braun worked previously in Philadelphia had to close its nursery of 30 years because too many people needed full-time day care.

“To be here with a vibrant school felt like coming home,” she said.

While she might feel like an Oreland native, Braun has maintained her slow, southern speech, the product of growing up in the Carolinas, first in South Carolina and later in its northern counterpart.

Braun began her career as a newspaper reporter and a freelance writer for the magazine of the Charlotte Hornets — great for a girl who was raised on Atlantic Coast Conference basketball.

Later she worked in medical public relations for 10 years, which led her to her calling.

While working at a community hospital in North Carolina asking patients to complete satisfaction surveys, she was reprimanded on a few occasions because she lost track of time listening to those who were sad and alone.

The experience helped her decide to be a hospital chaplain, and in 1996, she relocated to Philadelphia, where she participated in an intensive summer of training in clinical pastoral education at Hahnemann Hospital.

But a yearning for more balance attracted her to parish ministry.

“I had so many intensive care units assigned to me that I felt like I was the pastor of death,” she said.

A parish ministry would balance the sorrow and suffering with mission trips, baptisms, congregation dinners and celebrations, she reasoned.

Braun was ordained in 2000 and served as pastor of St. Petri Lutheran Church in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. In 2004 she helped organize a merger between her church and another, and she continued to serve St. Petri-Hope.

“It’s both profound and humbling to be a part of the crossroads in people’s lives,” she said.

When she gives a sermon, her primary charge is to be relevant. Sometimes she’s funny and uses the rainbow-colored clown wig in her office. Other times she and the congregation cry together.

“I think a lecture from the pulpit is deadly so I try to use some variety,” she said.

In the future, her personal goal is to remain faithful and effective for her immediate family and as a part of her church family.

“I consider myself profoundly blessed to work with that staff and volunteers here,” she said.

She also wishes to strengthen her congregation’s ties to the immediate community, she said.