Our Ebenezer Staff...here to serve you.

Senior Pastor: Rev. Dr. Paul F. Koch
Associate Pastor: Rev. Carla Thompson Powell
Parish Administrator: Andy Halvorson
Music Director: Dr. John Elmquist
Office Clerk: Nathan Tolzmann
Parish Nurse: Michelle Knapp

Please read the following for more information on our staff
and how they can assist you at Ebenezer

Paul Koch; Senior Pastor
My original home is New York - Long Island to be precise. I attended Concordia Junior College, Bronxville, NY and Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, IN (no longer in existence). After a year with Richard John Neuhaus (1965) in Brooklyn, I enrolled at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO. I received an M.Div. from the seminary in 1970 (the pre-exile years). I was ordained in that year and began a five year pastorate at Transfiguration Lutheran Church (LCMS), St. Louis.

Transfiguration is the oldest African-American Lutheran congregation in St. Louis. The parish was located in a public housing community and was a partner in Central City Lutheran Elementary School. The upper grades met at Transfiguration. In 1976, I accepted the call to Grace Lutheran Church, Detroit (now Genesis Lutheran Church). At that time, I transferred my roster status to the American Lutheran Church. Grace was also an African-American congregation. It was and is located in the lower income section of Detroit's eastside.

In 1981, I accepted the call of Black Hawk Lutheran Ministry, Waterloo/Cedar Falls, IA. This was a new cooperative ministry of five ALC congregations. The thrust was to engage Lutherans in community ministry and issues. While I was there (eight years), we expanded to include LCA congregations and grew to eleven members. We helped to establish regional food banking and build bridges between the white and African-American communities. As I left Waterloo, the ELCA was forming and BHLM was transforming into an official cluster unit of the new synod.

Ebenezer called me in 1989 to be the senior pastor. The stated goals of the leadership was to find a pastor who would connect the congregation more effectively with its community. During these past eleven years, our strategy has been to position Ebenezer as a spiritual and community center for those who live in Andersonville and the northside of Chicago. To our delight, the building's constituency includes Latinos, African-Americans, Africans, gays, lesbians, seniors, youth, families, and those with special needs seeking support.

I am married to Sharon and together we live in the parsonage, 5215 N. Paulina. We have two grown sons, Jeremy and Philip. I enjoy movies, reading, cycling, and creating art glass projects.

Rev. Carla Thompson Powell
Ebenezer called me to be their associate pastor in February of 2005. My call includes primary priorities of Youth & Family Ministry and Outreach Ministries.

For me, this call to Chicago meant a return to "home". I grew up in Hyde Park (until age 11) and Northbrook (6th-12th grade). As a young child, I was not raised in the church. When we moved to Northbrook, I was baptized, and we joined Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. In the years that followed, I became very active in the church leadership, becoming the first youth to hold the position of Gloria Dei's Youth Committee chairperson.

I graduated from Wittenberg University (Springfield, OH) in 1991 with a double major in psychology and religion. I also met my husband at Wittenberg, and we were married in 1992. While in college, I worked at Camp Mowana (Mansfield, OH) where I learned many leadership and life skills.

After Wittenberg, I attended Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, OH and during the 1994-1995 school year, I interned at St. Andrew Lutheran Church in west Los Angeles, CA. During seminary, I worked with a food pantry, a social service agency, local congregations' youth/children programs, and international seminary students. In June 1996, I graduated from Trinity Seminary and was ordained in September 1996.

We moved to Chicago from Michigan, where I served Stony Lake Lutheran Camp in New Era for two years (2003-2005) and Timothy Lutheran Church in Livonia for more than 6 years (1996-2003).

My heart is and always has been with the city (not just the city of Chicago, but metropolises in general). The buzz and pace of the city energizes me (though traffic just as quickly can drain me!). As the parent of young children, much of my non-church time is consumed with childcare and family time. I cherish the time I can spend with my three children (Dion, Maya, and Evan) and my husband. My hobbies include movies, theatre/ballet, and going to museums with my family.

Michelle Knapp; Parish Nurse
I am a registered nurse and during the past 30+ years have worked in the hospital, a doctor's office and in the community. For the past 11 years I have been on the staff of Ebenezer as a parish nurse. I work part-time at Ebenezer and part-time also at a sister Lutheran church in the area. Parish nursing is a relatively new nursing specialty, only in existence for 20 years. It began at Lutheran General Hospital, and now there are thousands of us around the country. For many of us whose journeys have led us to this unique ministry, we have come to feel that this is the type of nursing we were trained to do: caring for others as whole people.

The roles of the parish nurse have been identified as: health educator, personal health counselor, referral source, facilitator of small groups and integrator of faith and health. Working in these roles, I also visit our members at church, at home, in the hospital and at other health care facilities. I also attend worship on the first and third Sundays of each month, and on one Sunday a month I check blood pressures during the coffee hour. I work with a committee called "the Health Cabinet" which consists of members of the congregation. The mission of the Ebenezer Parish Nurse Program is to: encourage and promote the development of wellness and the healing ministry within the congregation and to bring wellness concerns and needs to the attention of the church leadership and the congregation membership.

I am married and we live in the neighborhood. My husband and I have two young adult sons. My outside interest include reading, writing and watercolor painting.

John Elmquist; Music Director
I have been the music director at Ebenezer since the spring of 1994. Prior to that I was playing for services and directing the choir at a small Lutheran church in a Chicago suburb. My musical background and education casts a fairly wide net. As a young person I was a chorister in the Washington National Cathedral choir of men and boys. This gave me significant exposure to Anglican church music and provided me with the beginnings of a solid general music education. My undergraduate and graduate degrees in piano and composition come from state schools in Richmond, Virginia and Memphis, Tennessee.

While in Richmond I was lucky enough to work with some very excellent jazz musicians and achieved some competence as a bass player. While in Memphis, I devoted a considerable amount of energy to directing the contemporary music group at what is now the University of Memphis. After leaving Memphis I taught at an exclusively African-American junior college in Mississippi before coming to Chicago. I have just finished a six-year stint playing in the weekend house band at the Pump Room, and last May formed my own performance ensemble called HardArt Groop with which I do concerts several times a year. I also teach privately and at a free music school in Uptown called the People’s Music School.

The cornerstone of the music program at Ebenezer is the choir. It has been my great privilege to lead a group of dedicated and able singers. We work hard and have a good time and we strive to do an ambitious amount of material that is an even mixture of standard repertoire and newer material including many things that I compose for the group.

It is my goal and desire to bring as much stylistic diversity as possible into leading worship. At the same time, it is extremely important to me that the music in worship be reflective of who we are as a community and who I am as a musician. Through the warm, engaging nature of this worshipping community and the ease and patience of the pastors, I now identify Ebenezer as one of the foundation blocks upon which I am building my life as a Christian.