Even in this time of limited worship attendance and extra precautions, it’s amazing to see how personal and celebratory ordination services can still be. This weekend, TEEM candidate Eric Saed was ordained to serve the congregation at Trinity in Clovis, NM where he is called, along with St. Paul in Levelland where he is contracted.

His worship service was a family affair as he had his nephew participate in the remembrance of baptism and his brother sang a contemporary version of the psalm. He also had his home pastor, Jeremy Ullrich, preach their sermon as he was ordained at his home congregation, Shepherd King in Lubbock.

Eric’s dad helped to place the stole on his shoulders, some of his mentors read the charges, and a member of the congregation arranged for a brass quintet from Texas Tech to enhance the worship.

The newly ordained reverend was also surrounded with the love and support of his Panhandle conference colleagues, who always show up for each other (only briefly unmasked for this photo op.)

Eric also got his start in ministry working alongside Synodically Authorized Worship Leader, Dan Lund. Dan leads the Church of the Damascus Road, a prison ministry that also leads recovery based ministries in a variety of settings. We are grateful for this start to Pr. Saed’s journey of ministry.