Assembly

Judith E.B. Roberts serves as Sr. Director for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) within the ELCA churchwide office.  The Sr. Director for DEI is responsible for articulating and championing a comprehensive approach and vision for diversity, equity, inclusion within the ELCA.

Judith is the former ELCA, Director for Racial Justice and co-convener for the National Council of Churches (NCC), Joint Action and Advocacy working group and a task force member of the NCC’s Truth and Racial Justice Task Force.

Judith is an alum of Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a graduate of the University of Mississippi. She was raised in the Lutheran faith and worships at Our Saviour’s Lutheran in Naperville, IL.

In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, visiting museums, cooking and travel.

Pastor Joanna Gragg serves at Ebenezer Lutheran Church in downtown Columbia, South Carolina.  She is a graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne College, class of ‘99; and graduate of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, class of 2018. 

She and her husband Nathan, who serves as pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Lexington, have three sons – Jonathan, James, and David. 

Being a minister of word and sacrament (and loving it) is her second career.  She also spends time dabbling in painting, is a lover of history, books, and anything that grows in dirt.

Pastor Mike Shackelford has been an ELCA pastor for 26 years. He has served two congregations in Florida, did a year chaplain residency at Tampa General Hospital, served two congregations in South Carolina, served as a chaplain for Lutheran Hospice. Currently Pastor Mike most recently served as the chaplain for Affinity Hospice in Greenville, and as the Interim Pastor for St. Matthew Lutheran in Pomaria. Pastor Mike is married to his college sweetheart, Carolyn who is an elementary school teacher. They both reside in Moore, SC. They have two young adult children. Megan, an elementary school teacher who lives in Tampa, FL and Nathan, a 3^rd year student at Lenoir-Rhyne University.

Pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Greenwood.

I was born in Burlington NC to a single mother, and put up for adoption when I was 2 years old.  In case you are wondering, my first name was already Christopher, and I was, two years later, adopted by the Christophers.  Ha!

During my school years, my greatest joy was playing trumpet (I still play some). My closest friend was my maternal grandmother.  She raised me in the faith, and taught me about unconditional, steadfast love through our relationship.  My college years at Elon College are my “wilderness years”, as I was lost completely in everything the 70’s were about.  I dropped out my Senior year and enlisted in the USMC.  Later I was able to finish my degree and was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant.  In the following 3 years, I served as a Combat Engineer platoon commander in Okinawa, being deployed to mainland Japan, South Korea, and to Tinian/Guam USA. I grew up some and learned a lot about myself.

My wife, Theresa, and I met during my last year of active duty, and were married 4 months after our blind date! That was 39 years ago in March!  She has helped me to continue to grow up. We have 2 adult children and 3 grandsons. What a joy those boys are!

Since graduating LTSS in 1994, I have served in 3 parishes in western NC, served the Metro NY Synod as Executive Director of Koinonia Outdoor Ministries, and the Texas Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod in New Orleans.  We retired in July 2021 and moved back to NC to be closer to the 2 younger grandsons. I never got around to submitting my retirement paperwork, and 8 weeks into my “retirement” I was invited to interview with Immanuel in Greenwood, SC.  What a God Thing that was!  I have now been serving alongside them as their pastor since October 2021.

Here at Immanuel, we operate a weekly Soup Kitchen, and a twice weekly Food Bank. We have a team to visit the Greenwood County Jail every Thursday night providing Bible Study for the inmates, and are now in the process of developing a weekly meeting with those inmates, after they are released, to help them create a new future. 

     For the past couple of years, we provide support, community, and love through Restoration Chapel, for Kinard Manor Women’s Addiction Recovery House.  I serve as their Chaplain.  And beginning in April, we will also be housing at Immanuel, Trinity Recovery Services (a ministry of Lutheran Services of the Carolinas) to provide additional recovery resources for Greenwood County. 

     We just completed raising the funds, painting, purchasing furnishings and other necessities 2 rooms a our Greenwood DSS office to provide a space for children caught in the foster care system.  It is a kid-friendly, comfortable place for them to have some privacy, away from the hustle and bustle of the DSS office.  We are continuing to support with clothing, snack food, and gift cards for restaurants for the staff to feed the children as they await their foster parents. 

     For now, I am loving it, but I am still not sure what I want to do when I finish growing up!  Peace – Chris