Zion Lutheran’s new pastor hopes to revive congregation

Published 11:42 pm Friday, July 23, 2010

EVERETT — The Rev. Jeannine Daggett wasn’t discouraged when no one showed up for the first day of the summer lunch program hosted at Zion Lutheran Church earlier this month.

She didn’t rethink having summer game nights when families didn’t come to play a day later either.

The two new programs started slowly, she said, but eventually people started attending both. Now Daggett has several more ideas she hopes will both revitalize the small church congregation and remind the community that Zion Lutheran Church is a part of the neighborhood.

“We had a recommissioning of our church on June 13, and the language I used in that was we are no longer a remnant of what has been, but we are a mustard seed group of what will be and what is now as we focus on loving the neighbor and serving the neighbor,” Daggett said.

A nurse for 30 years, Daggett in March began her role as the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, 4634 Alger Ave. The congregation of 15 is the first congregation Daggett, 53, has led.

After graduating from Lutheran Deaconess School of Nursing in Minneapolis, Minn. in 1980, Daggett called Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. She was told she needed a bachelor’s degree before she could attend seminary.

Daggett received a bachelor of science degree in nursing in 1987 from the University of Phoenix in Phoenix, Ariz. She continued working as a nurse while she and her husband, Dave, raised their son, Jenson.

Her family moved to Washington from Indianapolis, Ind., in December 1997 and moved to Snohomish County in 2001 where she worked as a public health nurse for the Snohomish Health District. She was still thinking about attending seminary, and in 2003, began attending the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University.

Daggett graduated from Seattle University in June 2008 and was ordained on March 27. She said she was interested in start up ministry work and was happy to be offered the position of pastor at Zion Lutheran Church.

“In a way this is a start-up ministry,” she said. “This is a 110-year-old congregation, but in a way it is a new start because we have a different direction to move out into the community.”

The congregation is getting a fresh start under Daggett’s leadership, Bernice Bell, a member of the church for the past 41 years, said. Programs such as the summer lunch program, sponsored by the South Everett Neighborhood Center and the Everett Public School District, and Wednesday game nights organized by the church, South Everett Neighborhood Center, South Forest Park Neighborhood Association, Changes Parenting Support and Campfire USA, help bring new faces to Zion Lutheran.

“We haven’t had a Sunday School in over 14 years and it’s nice to see little kids faces and hear those little kids voices,” Bell said.

Daggett wants to see the church congregation move forward, church member Mary Colwell said.

“I think she’s very dynamic,” she said. “She came in with a really great attitude.”

Zion Lutheran Church Vacation Bible School will be 9 to 11:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. Sunday School and a church youth group is scheduled to begin again in September. The church and neighborhood association are working together to plan a community garden for next spring and ideas about a food ministry have also been circulating, according to Daggett.

“I think some of the neighbors have wondered if we’re still here, if we’re still Zion Lutheran Church,” she said. “We call ourselves a new Zion Lutheran of Everett. It mimics the old and the new.”

Amy Daybert: 425-339-3491; adaybert@heraldnet.com.