Mike Wolanin | The Republic Josiah Fitch is the new pastor of Faith Lutheran Church. He is pictured in the sanctuary at the church in Columbus, Ind., Monday, Dec. 30, 2024.
Faith Lutheran Church recently concluded its year-long search for a new pastor, welcoming Josiah Fitch to the community with an Installation Service Dec. 15.
A pastor for nine years, Fitch comes to Columbus from Wisconsin with his wife and their five children.
Born in Denver, Colorado, Fitch said he grew up steeped in the Lutheran church, with his father being a Director of Christian Education. He has lived in several states throughout his life, including Michigan, South Dakota, Missouri and Illinois, but completed his high school career in Plymouth.
Fitch graduated from Indiana University South Bend where he received an undergraduate degree in Theatre: Lighting and Scenic Design, before attending Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from the seminary in 2016 and received his Certification for Ordination and a Master’s of Divinity.
“… from an early age, I believed that the Lord was going to lead me into ministry. And then it was sometime, I want to say sometime in like seventh or eighth grade, that through the encouragement of family members and friends of the family and things like that, I felt like the Lord was going to be calling me into pastoral ministry in particular,” Fitch said. “And so, everything that I was doing from then on was kind of angling that direction, if you will.”
Before coming to Columbus, Fitch served at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Aberdeen, South Dakota and then Peace Lutheran in Neenah, Wisconsin. In March of 2023, previous Pastor Todd Riordan announced his retirement from Faith Lutheran Church after 17 years, beginning the call process for a new pastor. Within the church body, Fitch said churches have the right to call their own pastors, which led to Faith Lutheran contacting him.
“They had actually called a few different pastors who then went through a process of prayerfully considering it, that in the end ended up declining the call,” Fitch said. “And so, through all of that, then eventually they ended up extending a call to me and my wife and I very much felt that the Lord was leading us to move here to Columbus to take up that call here at Faith.”
Fitch said it was a wonderful surprise and blessing to receive the call to serve at Faith, as he has family in Columbus. So far, president of the congregation Tom Rafferty said Fitch has been in the pulpit and has preached a couple of sermons, and Fitch said he has led chapels for the preschool. Rafferty said he is looking forward to working with Fitch and they are excited to have him.
“(He has been) welcomed with warm and open arms. He’s got a young family of five children,” Rafferty said. “I have had many congregational members approach him, saying how enthusiastic and energetic he is, and so those are really the… words that I’ve heard most from the congregation is describing him (as) young, enthusiastic, energetic.”
The Fitch family have enjoyed Columbus, with Fitch saying they have received a warm welcome from not only the church, but from the community as a whole. He said he is looking forward to having discussions with the church’s various boards and leaders on plans going forward in the new year.
“My grandparents lived in the Columbus area, I know a number of different things about the area, although there’s a lot of it that didn’t really reach into kind of the ministerial side of things,” Fitch said. “And so I’m excited to learn what some of the needs are in the community here in Columbus and the surrounding area so that we can be able to serve people in the community well and serve one another and just really love on people.”
