Pastor Kristen Schmid joined the Central/Southern Illinois Synod staff in 2025 on a five-year term call through a grant from The CaSTLE Project (Community and Small Town Lived Ecclesiology), an initiative designed to renew and strengthen life in small town and rural communities through a renewed focus on baptismal identity and ministry. Her primary responsibility is to build capacity for long-term vitality in communities of disciples located in small towns and rural communities across our synod.
From 2021 to 2025, Pastor Schmid served as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Logansport, Indiana, and St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Camden, Indiana, two small rural congregations north of Lafayette. Having grown up in California, Pastor Schmid graduated from Stanford University in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology. In 2001, she earned a Master of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. In 2021, she graduated from Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago (LSTC) with her Master of Divinity degree, having completed her internship at Salem Lutheran Church in Peoria. Prior to ordination, Kristen served as the Director of Spiritual Gifts Ministries at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Springfield and, for 17 years, worked as a photojournalist with an emphasis on documentary storytelling.
Pastor Schmid will begin her new role here in the synod on September 16 and will be present with us at our Fall Theological Conference at Pere Marquette. “I feel that God is calling me to take the exciting risk of paying attention to how the Holy Spirit is moving in our rural congregations,” Pastor Schmid says, “and to work with others to steward the gifts of what we find.”
Pastor Schmid is married to Ted Schurter, also a photographer and journalist. They have two sons: Samuel (19) and Eli (16).