Saying hello -- and good bye -- to a new friend

MICHELE MARR

More than once I’ve met someone I would like to have gotten to know

better just as either he or she or I was about to move away. Last

week, it happened again.

Somehow, during the past three years I have written this column as

well as religious features here in Huntington Beach, I never managed

to meet Bill Duerr, who has been senior pastor at Redeemer Lutheran

Church, scarcely two blocks from where I live, since Feb. 1, 1991.

Last Thursday, 12 days before his retirement, I got to sit down in

his office and talk to this man who is about to leave Surf City for

Sun City.

A member of his congregation, Bernie Hadeler, had told me that

Duerr was a “down to earth man,” and “fun to talk with.” I can now

vouch for that.

Sitting across from me behind his desk -- which was covered with

scattered papers, books and, in one corner, a plush Eeyore that was

larger than either of my cats -- he not only looked relaxed, he

looked at ease with everything in this world.

Duerr laughed easily and often. It seemed almost beyond him not to

smile, even when talking about difficult things such as why God

allows something like the recent tsunami in Southeast Asia to happen,

his father’s death or a member of his congregation suffering with

cancer.

“Time and chance happen to all of us,” he said, referring to

Ecclesiastes 9:11.

The bottom line for him, even in the face of events he does not

like and doesn’t understand, is that God is -- always has been and

always will be -- loving, good and trustworthy.

On one of eight bookcases in his office sat a white teddy-bear

angel that recites what Duerr tells me is an old Lutheran prayer.

Though there are no Lutherans in my family that I know of, I learned

the prayer as a child.

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I

should die before I wake; I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

When I told Duerr I’ve met many a parent who cringes at the idea

of teaching children that prayer because they think it will cause

them to fear dying in their sleep, he smiled and explained how

they’re missing the point. The prayer, he said, is meant to teach,

“You’re safe in the arms of the Lord.”

Duerr was born in a small town in Missouri but has spent most of

his life in California. Until his early twenties, he lived in Santa

Ana where his father, William Louis Duerr Sr. was pastor of Trinity

Lutheran Church.

The son is in the middle of three generations of Duerr pastors

that include his father, an uncle, his brother and his brother’s son.

But when I ask him if he knew he was destined to be a pastor, he

said, “No. I didn’t think I was going to be a pastor. That’s the last

thing I thought I would be.”

But as a young man, he was drawn to the ministry. He attended and

graduated from Santa Ana College and Concordia Seminary, then in

Springfield, Ill. His first church was in Florida, his second in

Barstow.

He came to Redeemer Lutheran while his father, after leaving

Trinity Lutheran, was a pastor there. Like his son, he served at the

church for 14 years.

Duerr turned any attempt to talk about his accomplishments into an

opportunity to give accolades to his now 350-member congregation or

his wife Lynda, who he calls his “partner in ministry” and one of the

church’s greatest assets. The church council recently presented her

with a resolution acknowledging that.

About his goals when he came to the church, Duerr said, “My hopes

really were that we could meet together to do the Lord’s work,

[which] is kind of two-pronged, to preach the Gospel to bring people

in and to grow in faith.”

Of the accomplishment of those goals he said, “The Lord has

blessed me with tremendous people. I do not think I really do that

much. I don’t think I’m that effective or anything. I think God has

blessed me with tremendous people. I have people who have vision. I

have people who understand ministry, who want to do ministry, who

want to do the best they can for the Lord.”

They are not divisive, he said, and they don’t take [disagreeable]

things personally. They don’t fight.

It doesn’t take much time spent with Duerr to glimpse why he is so

beloved by the members of his congregation who, while they find it

hard to see him go, are throwing him a retirement bash Saturday. His

faith is as solid as his grasp of Scripture is deep. Together they

form and air of joy and hope, comfort and peace.

And like Hadeler told me, he’s fun to talk with. On my way out he

introduced me to his counseling partner -- Eeyore.

“He talks,” Duerr said as he pulled a cord under Eeyore’s chin.

Sure enough, “Go ahead, ask me a question if you want,” the purple

donkey said.

Duerr is giving away most of his books, but when he leaves for Sun

City, Eeyore’s going with him.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].