By ANNA GILGOFF

Special to The Press

When Wally Frisch was hired as interim pastor at Ebenezer United Church of Christ on Oct. 3, his new position was in many ways like coming home for him.

The 1981 Northwestern Lehigh alumnus, who spent his early years in view of Ebenezer’s iconic spires in New Tripoli, was now as a pastor ready to learn more about the congregants even as they helped him learn more about himself.

“The consistory has hired me for six months and an extended six months, if it feels this is working for them,” said Pastor Wally, as he likes to be called. “I thought it would be very interesting to work with a church that’s been in this area for so long.”

The relationship the pastor has had with Ebenezer UCC has been decades in the making.

“They knew me for a long time,” he said. “I used to play baseball behind the church and knee hi football.”

One of his earliest memories is walking in the Halloween parade with the team, tossing out candy to the people watching.

“They let me play football and walk in the parade, even though I wasn’t a member,” he said. “I knew then that they cared.”

Pastor Wally lives close to the church.

“I’m only 6 miles away,” he said.

The father of three and grandfather of seven lives with his wife, who was his high school sweetheart.

“I just feel honored by the folks at Ebenezer and honored to engage in their faith in this way,” said the pastor. “They’re allowing me the invitation to see how we can learn together and be there for each other.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected worship services.

“We have a steady group who do come in, but we also have people who are compromised,” Pastor Wally said. “You can tell people are concerned with each other, so we use FaceTime Live.”

Pastor Wally has committed to a 25-hour workweek.

“At Ebenezer, I will do the worship service on Sunday at 10:15 a.m. and, if I am asked, officiate at events like funerals and baptisms.”

The pastor spends an additional 25 hours working at Jordan United Church of Christ, South Whitehall.

“I’ve been there for 13 years as their fill-in pastor, so to speak,” he said. “So I’m part time at Jordan and part time at Ebenezer.”

Sharing a pastor is a practice many churches have adopted, in part because church membership has been declining.

At Jordan, Pastor Wally works with another pastor.

“I mainly work in spiritual development, and that includes Sunday School and confirmation classes, with small groups of five to 10 people throughout the week,” he explained. “We talk about faith, how to live our faith, how to forgive and how we can be kinder to people.”

Pastor Wally is in the process of being ordained in the United Church of Christ.

“I do everything at Jordan, and I could be a lead pastor there,” Pastor Wally said. “I just can’t do it at another church until I’m ordained.

“I have a Bachelor of Science in agronomy but I did take classes for licensing.

“Every year I have to renew my license.”

Pastor Wally has also worked with “Family Promise of Lehigh Valley, a nonprofit organization serving the homeless in the Lehigh Valley.”

Two years ago, a group of some 13 interfaith clergy members banded together to create Family Promise committed to working with this underserved segment of the population, but the pandemic has arrested their activities in recent months.

In addition, the pastor has worked at The Neighborhood Center in Allentown.

“For four years I was a teacher in an after-school program,” he explained. “Children would come to the center which was a safe area until parents could pick them up.”

The center includes programs for teens as well as those for preschool and elementary aged children.

“I worked for these different groups and now I occasionally volunteer,” he said. “I’ve even taken people from the Jordan congregation to work there and some of my brothers and sisters in Christ got hired.

“We put our faith into action but after four or five years of doing this, I’m moving on.”

The pastor’s ties to this community are rooted in the very soil.

“I was a potato farmer with my grandfather and Gene Handwerk, my uncle,” he said. “My cousin Tony Danner was the third member of the group.

“We raised potatoes on the Handwerk farm for many years.

“I’m the ninth-generation farmer on that land since back in the 1740s when they first started farming after buying the land from William Penn.

“I still have potato dust between my fingers,” he said, smiling under his mask.