ABOUT OUR REDEEMER LUTHERAN CHURCH OF LAKE CITY, FLORIDA
On May 10, 1964, Pastor Besalski of First Lutheran along with a small group of pioneering individuals held the first congregational meeting at St James Episcopal Church. Forty-one worshipers attended that first service and Lake City Lutheran Church was born. It was later that year when the name "Our Redeemer Lutheran Church" was adopted. St James graciously provided their sanctuary to their Lutheran brothers and sisters in Christ until the spring of 1965. A church building was purchased with the help of the Church Extension Fund and Our Redeemer Lutheran Church moved to a location on U.S. 441 by Alligator Lake. The first service in our new building was held on May 16, 1965.
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Worship services continued there, by Alligator Lake, until May 3, 1987, when a new sanctuary was built at the current location of Our Redeemer Lutheran. This building is now our Fellowship Hall where we gather after our services and where Bible Study is held after Sunday Worship.
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"Our Fellowship Hall is our gathering place after Sunday service. We have fellowship followed by Bible Study. It is also where our Church office is located."
In 2008, a building committee was formed and it was decided that a new sanctuary would be built. Groundbreaking took place in September 2008 and the current Worship Hall was dedicated on October 25, 2009. Pastor Bruce Alkire was the liturgist for that dedicating service. In 2017, we welcomed our current Pastor Stephen Fair.
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Pastor Fair grew up in a small suburban town in central New Jersey. After high school, he joined the United States Air Force. He was awarded the 7th Weather Squadron and 2nd Weather Wing Airman of the Year in 1984 and was later discharged as a sergeant. He then attended Roosevelt University in Chicago and acheived a degree in Business Administration, with honors. He worked several years in sales and returned to Roosevelt University for an MBA with a concentration in Finance. He graduated with honors in 1992, worked at several fortune 500 companies in the Chicago area, and passed the CPA exam in 1997.
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In 2008, finding himself between jobs when the housing bubble burst, he trained for the Appalachian Trail and hiked its full length from Georgia to Maine in 2009. While on the trail, the calling which he had heard as a young man, to serve the Lord in ministry, began again. He overheard a conversation where a young man utterly denied the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ saying of Jesus, “I want nothing to do with that poor, tortured man!” This focused Pastor Fair’s desire to help proclaim the truth of salvation in Christ’s bitter suffering, death and resurrection and of the truth of the Bible above the secular narrative of emptiness and meaninglessness.
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​Pastor Fair met his future wife Karen in 2008 and they married in 2011. He attended Trinity Evangelical Seminary near Chicago for several semesters, but in 2013 transferred to Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He graduated in 2017 with honors and was called to be the sole-Pastor at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Lake City, Florida. He and his wife Karen enjoy Florida and have made many friends. His past-times are fishing, hunting, hiking, scuba diving and studying modern history.
