A beloved retired pastor who went ice skating after sharing the Gospel at his church in Minnesota on Sunday is now being remembered as a dedicated and active believer after he was found dead on Monday.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said the body of the late retired pastor, Greg Garmer, 78, was found around 4 p.m. Monday near Woodstock Bay, where he fell through the ice, KNOP News 2 reported. His wife had reported him missing when he didn’t return home on Sunday.
Garmer was a member of the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, which is affiliated with the progressive ELCA denomination, where he was an active member.
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“The Church is stunned, as you can imagine, devastated [and] heartbroken, but also filled with gratitude for his witness, for his ministry, his friendship, his collegiality and his faith,” the Rev. David Carlson, pastor at Gloria Dei, told WDIO on Tuesday. He had known Garmer for nearly 25 years.
“I think Greg really lived life to the fullest,” Carlson continued. “Greg really gifted us [and] helped us think about important matters, and he was involved in different book discussion groups and different outreach ministries. He was always there when there was some kind of ministry of accompanying people who were on the margins, whether it was our neighborhood breakfast or whether it was speaking for Lutheran Social Service or Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light.”
On Sunday, he was recorded reading a number of Scriptures to the congregation for the first Sunday of Advent, including 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13.
“How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith,” Garmer read in part. “Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.”
Carlson described Garmer as a forward-looking man who was always thinking about what else the church could do.
“Whether he was discussing racial justice or religion and science or was helping us to think through installing solar panels, he was excited about the ways that we could live more fully into our calling as people of faith,” Carlson said.
Garmer had served as pastor at other churches, including interim pastor at the First Lutheran Church and pastor at the French River Lutheran.
“He was a beloved member of the church and wider community, dedicated to the care and service of all. He was an avid outdoors person, the first and last of the season to be out cross-country skiing. He will be deeply missed,” officials with the First Lutheran Church said in a statement to Northern News Now.
Kathryn Tiede, associate vice president of philanthropy at Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, also told the publication that Garmer was one of the “most congenial, most sincere, most generous people I have ever met.”
“You couldn’t slow him down,” Tiede said. “He was always doing something. In fact, just last night a friend of mine texted me that, she’s maybe 35, and she was out last winter cross country skiing, and he passed her on the tracks.”
Garmer’s memorial service is scheduled for Dec. 28 at 11 a.m. at First Lutheran Church in Duluth. Visitations will be held at 10 a.m. that day.
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