Meet the Staff

  Roger Black, Bridge Pastor
   All Saints welcomes Roger Black as our Bridge Pastor to lead us through the final stages of
   the call process for finding our new, permanent pastor. Pastor Black led worship on
   Sunday, February 10th. He will officially begin this position on Sunday, March 17th, 2019.

   FROM THE PASTOR
   I am glad to serve as your new bridge interim pastor, officially beginning the middle of
March. I have served fourteen congregations as transition pastor during thirteen interims. I
   was pastor of four interim congregations from 1994 through 2000 and then have served ten
   more interims since the summer of 2006 when I concluded my work at my last regular parish,
   St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Antioch. This will be the second time serving as any kind of
   interim at All Saints, since I served All Saints in Wales during parts of 2010 and 2011.

   Let me share with you a little bit about my background. I grew up as the middle son of three
   on a farm in central Illinois. I attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, graduating in
   1974. In addition to receiving a wonderful liberal arts education I met and married my life partner, Pamela Johnson, whose parents lived in the suburban Chicago area at that time in Glen Ellyn. During my sophomore year of college through a number of situations of helping people I heard the call to pastoral ministry and, following graduation, attended Luther Seminary in St. Paul, graduating in 1978. We chose to come to what was at that time the Southern Wisconsin District of the American Lutheran Church because of the large number of colleges in the area, since Pam was going to enter a masters program. I began my ministry as an associate pastor at Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Milwaukee (Brown Deer). During our time there (1978-1984) Pam completed a masters in special education at Cardinal Stritch. At the same time we began our family with the birth of Christy one month before graduation from seminary and the birth of Kari three years later.

After six years of youth and education ministry as an associate pastor in Milwaukee I took my own parish at West Koshkonong Lutheran Church in rural Stoughton, where I served from 1984 to 1994. Since my younger daughter, Kari, was still in high school and I was ready to move on, I began interim ministry to the south and north, serving in four sites (Edgerton, Beloit, La Crosse, and Viroqua). Also during that time I completed a Ph.D. degree in historical theology at Marquette, something I worked at from 1986 to 1996. I came to like interim ministry, but still sought a permanent call, which I received to St. Stephen in Antioch in 2000. When in 2006 the Greater Milwaukee Synod invited me to do an interim as a way of going back to the place of my original ministry, I took the opportunity. In 2016 interim opportunities in that area started to lessen and I took an interim at Hope Lutheran in Milton, where I served from April 2017 through June 2018 from which I retired as a full-time interim pastor. During that time (in July 2017) we moved to our home in Windsor. Our move was in part because in June 2015 Pam retired from special education administration in Kenosha and started her own business as a coach, instructor, and writer in Trauma Sensitive Education. Since July I have been serving as visitation/bridge pastor at Bethel in Madison. When I begin my regular bridge pastor work at All Saints, I will most likely still do some visitation at Bethel, since they do not have a newly called lead pastor at this time.
My daughters, Christy and Kari, both are married, and each has three children. Christy and her husband Doug, Nora (12), Colin (9), and Ella (6) live in Wausau, Wisconsin where he is an orthopedic surgeon and she practices “social purpose” law, serves as CEO of an organization, while being a very busy wife and mother. Kari and her husband Andy, Julia (11), Brynn (9), and Cameron (6) live in Sun Prairie, WI where she is a clinical nurse specialist at University Hospital, and he serves as assistant engineer at Sun Prairie Utilities. We are also big Packer, Brewer, and Badger fans. I have actually been a Packer fan since before the Ice Bowl and a Brewer and Badger fan since shortly after our arrival in Milwaukee in 1978. I enjoy working out, jogging, and golfing as well as spectator sports of all types. Pam and I love going to the movies or watching movies at home. We also enjoy travel as often as we can and connecting with and spending time with long-time college and pastor friends who are stretched out across the country.

I look forward to getting to know you and your family. I am excited about the opportunity to serve All Saints as your bridge pastor.

Phone: (608) 276-7729, ext 102
Email: pastor@allsaints-madison.org

Heather Quartaro
Church Secretary
Monday - Thursday, 8:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
(church is closed on Fridays) ● 608-276-7729
Email: office@allsaints-madison.org