Pastor Nolan Astley Installed as Senior Pastor

On Sunday, September 6th, 2009, Reverend Nolan Astley was installed as Senior Pastor of Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Pastor Nolan Astley was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta the oldest of the three children of Douglas and Marlene Astley. He completed his undergraduate education at the University of Alberta, majoring in Western Canadian history. During his time at university he worked part-time as a news reporter for the university radio station and in his final year was president of the Student Union. During this time God was also leading him to consider the Holy Ministry as his vocation. Following graduation he enrolled at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. Upon completing seminary in 1985, he was placed at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Kamloops, BC. In the fall of 1990 he accepted the call to serve First Lutheran Church in Lloydminster, Alberta and also served Zion Lutheran Church in McLaughlin, Alberta. In March 2009, Pastor Astley accepted the call to serve as Senior Pastor at Holy Cross.

Service to the church-at-large has played a large role in Pastor Astley’s work for many years serving as a Circuit Counsellor, Chair of the LCC Commission on Constitutional Matters and Structure, Secretary of the Synod, Chair of the Board of Regents of Concordia Lutheran Seminary and Vice-President of the Synod. Presently he serves as Chair of the Synod’s Task Force on Seminary Education and was recently appointed to the editorial board of the Concordia Pulpit Resource. In 2006 he served as an instructor at the Lutheran School of Evangelism in Tanzania, Africa and this fall he will be a guest instructor at the Lutheran Institute of South Asia seminary programs in Thailand and Cambodia.

In April 1987 Pastor Astley married Susan (Kromm) at Connaught Hill Lutheran Church in Prince George, BC and they have been blessed by four children and two grandchildren. Belinda and her husband Kent live and work in Edmonton; Aaron is enrolled in his third year at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, majoring in History; Jonathan will be beginning his first year studying french horn at Wilfred Laurier University and Rebekah is entering grade 9 at Forest Heights Collegiate.