The Rev. Kimberly van Driel has taken over as pastor of First English Lutheran Church, 241 N. Main St.

She replaces the Rev. James Dollhopf who retired at the end of June.

Dollhopf had been First English's pastor for 27 years. He had been a minister for 40 years, serving churches in Sewickley and Erie before coming to First English.

Van Driel's first service at First English was April 26.

Van Driel is married to Edwin van Driel, a professor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

They have two children, Claudia, 4, and Christiaan, 7. Her husband is a native of The Netherlands. Van Driel said he is an ordained minster of the Presbyterian Church.

“I was raised Lutheran. Both grandfathers and an uncle are Lutheran pastors. I don't know if Lutherans believe in predestination, but ...” joked van Driel.

“My family's from Virginia. We're spread out all over the state.”

After graduating from the University of Virginia with a degree in religious study, van Driel went to Yale Divinity School where she received a master's of divinity in 2003.

After that, she said, “I did a lot of things. I got another master's degree in theology from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in preparation for ordination. I had a year of training as a hospital chaplain.

“I did a full-time internship at a congregation in New Jersey,” van Driel said.

Before coming to First English, van Driel said she was pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 1700 Bower Hill Road, in Scott Township, Allegheny County.

“We live in Mount Lebanon. We are going to be moving, but we don't know where yet,” said van Driel, saying she and her husband are still looking for the right house in the right location.

She is commuting to Butler at least four days a week.

“Right now, it's been so new that I don't have an established plan yet. Four days here, one day at home because I can write my sermons there,” she said.

Van Driel said she and the First English search, or call, committee met “prayerfully through the synod office. There is a discernment process that allows your name to go before the call committee.”

Sharon Heist Miller, the chairman of the call committee, said van Driel interviewed at the end of December.

A tryout, or call, sermon was March 1, van Driel said with the attending congregation voting on her employment immediately afterward.

“I think the job of a pastor is to preach the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen,” said van Driel when asked how she crafted her call sermon.

“The assigned text for that day was God's call to Sarah and Abraham, and so from there, I think the sermon was a way to reflect on God's call to each of us in ourselves,” she said.

“The congregation voted on whether to call her, and they voted overwhelmingly for her,” said Miller.

Miller said, “She has a lot of energy and talent. Her talent and call fits right into what we were looking for.”

Miller said the church had been using interim pastors during the four-month selection process.

First English has two services every Sunday at 8:30 and 11 a.m. attended by nearly 100 congregation members every weekend, vab Driel said.

When asked why she was making the move to a new church, van Driel said, “I think it works for all pastors to be always asking 'Where does the Lord want me at this time?'”

“Good Shepherd was a wonderful ministry, but the congregation needed a different leadership,” she said.

“There's such a wonderful sense of God's ministry already here,” she said of First English.

“I sense from the people here they have a sense of the grace of God in Jesus working with the congregation,” she said.

“I have a passion for communication. How do people see God working in their everyday lives?” she asked.

Van Driel's installation ceremony will be at 4:30 p.m. May 31 with the Rev. Heather Lubold, dean of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod Conference Two of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, officiating. Van Driel's uncle, the Rev. Marcus Miller, will give the sermon.

As for the installation ceremony, van Driel said, “I'm really looking forward to that. My parents and my sister are coming.”

Miller said, “We are going to have a strawberry social reception afterward.”