Dave Fremstad has taken over as the newest pastor at Journey Christian Church.
Fremstad was born in Rochester, Minnesota and met his wife Dori while in college at Minnesota Bible College, where he received his pastoral ministry training and degree. After college, Fremstad went to seminary in Illinois and started pastoring at churches at that time. They would continue to pastor at churches in Illinois, Wisconsin and Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Fremstad and his wife lived in Council Bluffs for 14 years until officially moving to Wayne in May. The previous pastor, Troy Reynolds, is now working at Fremstad's old church in Council Bluffs while Fremstad has taken over the pastor position here "I just love it," Fremstad said. "I love the community, love the size of Wayne and Journey Christian Church has just been a great church and I'm just really looking forward to being here and working here for a long time to come."
Fremstad became a Christian in his mid 20s and loved studying scripture and sharing what he had been learning and was taught. It grew into a realization that he could do this as his calling in life. "Being a pastor wasn't something that I set out to do as a career or job but as more of a calling where I can help people develop and strengthen their own faith which I think is very important," Fremstad said.
Fremstad believes that his own desire for his walk with God and to know him more led him down the path to encourage others to do the same and become a pastor. Fremstad has 20 years of pastoral ministry experience working in different churches in many different roles such as an associate role and lead pastor role. He has also done six years of nonprofit ministry doing fundraising work and church relations and he was most recently doing that before coming to Wayne.
"What led me back was I think just a real desire to be connected to one church family and to work with one group of people to encourage them in their faith and their walk, so that was a big deciding factor for me to come," Fremstad said.
Dave and Dori have two children, Josh and Sarah. Josh teaches in Curtis while Sarah lives in Iowa withe her husband and children. Fremstad and his wife also have a golden retriever named Stella. When their son was still in college, Fremstad and his wife would come to Wayne and watch his performances in the marching band. They would stay and attend the services at Journey Christian Church. Fremstad had heard that the current pastor was moving and this was also the same time that he felt he needed to go back in to pastoral ministry.
"I contacted the one person that I knew here just to ask about what was the timeline, what was the church's plan and I came to find out that that one person was the Chairman of the Pastor Search Team," Fremstad said. "So I think that was a God thing there. So it began a series of conversations that began in January and a series of interviews." He was voted on in the middle of March to become the next lead pastor. Fremstad is looking forward to the college ministry when the college students come back to see how God is working in their lives.
Fremstad has had pivotal moments in his ministry that have helped himself and the churches that he was a part of. Short term mission trips were the biggest moments for him. "What we found, in Haiti for example, we would go with the idea that we wanted to help the missionary and their organization but what we found was that we were blessed and it strengthened our return," Fremstad said.
He explained how the people that he brought worked hard in their mission work but their return and excitement blessed the whole church family. Fremstad believes that God leading him here was Him opening a door for them and given them an opportunity that neither of them could have planned.
Fremstad lives by three core values that guide what he does. The first is to cradle grace. He wants to embrace God's grace in his life and not try to please people or do work just to get accolades and pats on the back but to rest in God's grace instead. The second is to catalyze leadership. He tries to raise up leaders whereever he goes. Whether it be through training and empowering volunteers for ministry or church leadership, he hopes that he can be the catalyst for leadership. His third is to cultivate curiosity. Fremstad loves to learn and see the bigger picture of things and then gets to teach that to other people.
"I love it when I see people's faith become their own," Fremstad said. "For example, if a young person was raised up in the church, quite often they're there because their parents want them there or that's just what they do as their routine. But I love it when I can see they take that step where it's like 'okay, my faith is now my own and it's real for me, it's not somebody else's, I'm here because I want to be here.' So every now and then you see that light bulb go off in people and that just reminds me that this is why I do what I do."
Fremstad's main goal at the moment is getting to know both the community of Wayne and the church community at Journey Christian Church. He is focusing on building relationships and understanding how Journey fits into the bigger picture of the community.
