It’s a new pastor for the new year at Grace@Calvary Church, 123 E. Diamond St.

The Rev. Tara Lynn took over Jan. 1 at the Lutheran church.

Lynn said she found out about the opening at Grace@Calvary through the “Lutheran grapevine.”

“It was sort of serendipitous,” she said. “I had been working a couple of years in case management when someone said I should consider Grace@Calvary.”

She said the church had been without a full-time pastor since the Rev. Don Short left in 2012. The Rev. Bev Banyay had been filling in as interim pastor running the 10 a.m. Sunday worship service.

Lynn said the interview process was a lengthy one.

First, she met with the call committee, then the church council and finally one Sunday, the whole congregation.

“You are before the congregation, leading and preaching. It is a tradition that people can ask whatever they want,” said Lynn, adding “everybody was nice.”

“We are very excited that Pastor Tara is now our pastor,” said Todd Garcia-Bish of Butler who was president of the six-member call committee tasked with finding a new pastor.

“We started in November of 2013 and we called her (offered her the pastorage) in November 2014.

Garcia-Bish said the committee looked at three potential pastors but “hands down she was the best candidate.”

“What struck a lot of us was her compassion and her desire to bring the Gospel to everyone,” he said. “She is comfortable reaching out to people who may have become disenchanted with the church in general.”

Citing her experience with young adult ministries, Garcia-Bish said, “I think she is going to lead some great ministries in our congregation.”

“There are more pulpits than pastors in Butler County right now,” said Chuck McMichael, the church council president. “So we feel especially blessed that Pastor Tara is joining us.”

“I think for me what attracted me was Grace@Calvary was feeding people with their community dinners and running the Grace’s Closet clothing bank. I really thought that was pretty neat,” said Lynn.

“I really have a passion for the people and the ministry in this place,” she said.

“I really like Butler. I moved to Western Pennsylvania, and it’s fun getting to know more about it; where the candy shop is and where to find good coffee and a lot of the one-way streets,” she said. “There’s a rich history that I am just finding out about, and I find it fascinating.”

“My installation here is coming up on the 15th of February. There will be a service at 3 p.m. and then the installation service and a catered dinner after. This sort of makes it official,” she said.

She is living in the North Hills with her husband, J.J. Lynn, who is a pastor at First English Lutheran Church in Sharpsburg, and her 15-month-old son Andrew.

Lynn was born and raised in Lancaster County.

“Actually, the only church background I had as a child was from my paternal grandparents who were Mennonites,” said Lynn.

She said she began to attend churches in her senior year of high school.

Lynn graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in social work. While working with teenage girls and intellectually and physically challenged children in Pittsburgh, “I felt a strong calling to be a Lutheran minister,” she said.

“While I was an undergrad at Pitt I became aware of the Lutheran campus ministry,” she said. “I don’t know how I found them but I got connected to them.”

“I felt a calling, an interest. I wanted to kind of investigate,” she said.

“I was lucky enough to have a couple of pastors around me that were able to tell me what a day in the life of a Lutheran pastor was like and give me an idea as to what it was all about,” Lynn said.

Lynn attended Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, for three years of course work and one year of internship in Fort Worth, Texas.

She graduated in 2008, but her husband, whom she met at Camp Lutherlyn in Connoquenessing Township, (“It’s a small world, right?” Lynn said.) had to do his own internship and served a church in Portland, Ore.

“Now, he is a full-time tow truck driver and part-time pastor,” she said.

She plans to keep commuting the 25 miles from the North Hills to Butler five or six days a week for the near future.

“Thank goodness for grandparents,” she said, saying her in-laws help with child care.