Iconic A-frame-based congregation gets new leader in Rev. Irv Arnquist
Taking over a position long held by a beloved and involved member of the community takes a special person.
First Lutheran Church hopes to have found that person in their new pastor.
The Rev. Irving “Irv” Arnquist was last weekend installed as the new pastor at First Lutheran Church in International Falls and Bethany Lutheran Church in Loman.
Arnquist will take over the post held by Tom Aitken, who left the pastoral role in Borderland in August 2008 to become bishop of the Northeastern Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, based in Duluth. Aitken returned to International Falls last weekend to install Arnquist into the churches he once led.
Arnquist held his first Sunday services in the church Aug. 15, before his installation Aug. 22.
The position had been filled by temporary pastors in the two-year interim. From September 2008 until Feb. 14, 2010, The Rev. Glenn Leaf was the churches’ full-time interim pastor. From Feb. 17 until July 4, The Rev. Dorothy Sand was the pulpit supply on Sundays. Most recently, The Rev. Bruce Carlson led Sunday services July 11 through Aug. 8.
Arnquist is a self-professed extrovert who said he is excited for he and his wife, Marcia, to get involved in the community and find their niche in International Falls. The Arnquists have three grown children. Arnquist moved to International Falls from Evansville, Minn., where he was pastor.
“This is a peculiar church that called a 60-year-old man to come be its pastor,” he joked. “And I’m thankful for it and I’m looking forward to it.
“I wanted to start fresh,” he said. He had been pastor at the same church for 18 years, and felt he and the Evansville church needed a change.
Pastoring in a “mill town,” Arnquist said, will present a different type of congregation, one he is excited to learn about and embrace. Arnquist has mostly worked in rural, agriculture-based areas.
“You come here, there’s some differences because of the different background of the north here,” he said.
He joked that International Falls was a little “freaky” because of the perception about the Icebox of the Nation. When a call came in from a local call group asking if he would be interested in the position, “I heard her say Nineveh,” Arnquist joked, referring to the Biblical story of Jonah and the fish, where Jonah rejects God’s call to go to the city of Nineveh.
And even what he notes has been a beautiful summer each time he has visited has done little to dissuade his fears about the winter. “I expect the bottom’s going to fall out of this any minute,” he said, laughing.
“I wonder, if the people in compensation for that don’t have to intentionally make it a good place to live,” he said.
He said he understands the community-centered sentiments he’s already experienced here from other small towns, including Hoffman, Minn., where he was raised. He said his father ran a hardware store and always left his keys in a vehicle out front “in case anyone needed it.”
Arnquist said that the things he is excited about the First Lutheran Church are their rich worship and their welcoming policy and close community. He said that he will lead a traditional service with much congregation involvement.
Arnquist, who has been a pastor for 34 years, called First Lutheran “a place that uses all my gifts. I can do things with all ages of people in all different contexts. I can do funerals and baptisms and weddings and I find that to be rich. I like being pastor.”
Arnquist attended the Luther Seminary in St. Paul and University of Minnesota, Morris.
Arnquist, noting the controversy in the Lutheran religion over ordaining gay and lesbian clergy, said that his philosophy and that of the local church is very open.
“This congregation right here has a very simple kind of statement,” he said. “Everybody’s welcome. Wherever you are in your journey, you’re welcome to come here. And it makes it simple. You don’t have to be fine-filtering everybody through these measuring things — ‘Just how bad are they?’ ‘Can we let them come here?’ — Everybody that walks in the door is welcome.
“I’m excited about that kind of a mission statement. It saves you a lot of self-righteous analyzing of every person, including yourself.”
Arnquist said he has already played several rounds of golf at the Falls Country Club, and looks forward to more time on the course and also gardening.
“So far the course is ahead, but I’m going to bring it to its knees some day,” he joked of FCC.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting people and getting to be part of the community,” he said.
