Meet Our Pastor:

Rev. Wendy Poch

Pastor Wendy, a cradle Lutheran, was born in Libertyville, IL, grew up on an apple orchard, and lived in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin before moving to Parker, Colorado in 2008. While she now calls Colorado home and will root for both the Rockies and the Broncos, she remains a loyal fan of the Chicago Cubs (Go-Cubs-Go!), Da Bears, and Chicago-style pizza.

Prior to marrying her husband, Glenn, in 1994, Pastor Wendy attended both Carthage College and the University of Wisconsin Whitewater as a music education major. After homeschooling her now adult children (Tiffany and Dylan) for 15 years, she earned her BA in Liberal Arts, with an emphasis on world religions, history, and social sciences, from Thomas Edison State University in 2017.  In 2016, while simultaneously finishing her BA, Pastor Wendy also began her seminary journey at the Institute of Lutheran Theology (www.ilt.edu).  At this time, after four years of service as our youth leader, she also began serving the congregation as Spirit of Hope’s pastoral intern.

In February 2019, Spirit of Hope called Wendy as our Associate Pastor on an LCMC contract call, serving under Rev. David Fisher, the founding pastor of Spirit of Hope. In May 2020, she graduated with her Masters of Divinity (MDiv.), was ordained at Spirit of Hope, and became a certified pastor for Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (www.lcmc.net).

In June of 2020, Rev. David R. Fisher announced his plan to retire and the congregation formally called Pastor Wendy to become their future full-time solo pastor. On July 1, 2020, Pastor Dave and Pastor Wendy entered into a ten-month-long pastoral succession. On April 30, 2021, Pastor Dave retired and on May 1, 2021, Pastor Wendy became our solo pastor.

In October of 2021, Pastor Wendy also received a call to serve a three-year term on the Ministry Board of Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, which is tasked with ensuring theological standards are upheld in our church association, oversees the certification process for pastoral ministry, and also provides ongoing support to congregations, pastors, seminarians, and seminaries.  In March of 2023, Pastor Wendy began work on her Doctor of Ministry (DMin) degree at Western Theological Seminary (www.wts.edu).

Pastor Wendy loves Lutheran liturgy and hymnody as well as contemporary praise and worship styles. As such, one of her favorite past-times is singing with the choir and praise team. She believes that children are not just the future of the Church, but are also part of the Church now and that adults learn as much from them as they do from us. As with nearly everyone at Spirit of Hope, Pastor Wendy is passionate about doing mission and ministry outside of the church walls…taking the church to the people, not waiting for people to come to the church.  Her favorite Bible verse is Psalm 37:5 “Commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him, and He will act”.

“JoyAnn Wanberg is our pastoral intern.  She graduated from Denver Seminary in May of 2022 with her M .Div. and began her internship here in

the fall immediately after. Joy is currently working toward certification in the LCMC and presently taking additional Lutheran course work at the Institute of Lutheran Theology. She is married to Devin and they are currently raising their first child. Devin and Joy have two cats and love to roadtrip, read, play video games, and hangout with their friends – like basic millennials.”