Meet Pastor Claire

Pastor Claire Repsholdt is glad to be digitally introduced to you! If you’d like to arrange a meeting, a coffeeshop conversation, or a home visit, please write to office@lcospatchogue.org to find a time on Pastor Claire’s calendar.   
Pastor Claire (she/her/hers) is delighted to be serving in her first call at the Lutheran Church of Our Savior. Pastor Claire was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, where both sides of her family live. Her faith was shaped by Zion Lutheran Church in Deerfield, IL, where her parents were married, she was baptized, and her grandparents are buried. She discerned a call to ministry during her senior year at Indiana University, where her studies in English and History led her to theological questions, and her leadership at church and in a Lutheran sorority kept her energized. She enrolled at Yale Divinity School to pursue theological education in a diverse ecumenical environment. 
 
Graduating seminary during the height of COVID in spring 2020, Pastor Claire began her work on the front lines. For a year, she served as a chaplain resident at Yale New Haven Hospital. Managing a wide variety of on-call shifts, she saw the full spectrum of life and death, from prayers in COVID rooms to celebrations in maternity rooms. To continue growing in her ministry to diverse urban settings, she next worked as a vicar at St. Mark’s Lutheran and Dreams and Visions, partnered churches in downtown Baltimore, MD with hearts for LTBTQ+ ministry. There, she got to fulfill a dream of learning about church redevelopment and church planting from the brilliant Pastor Emily Scott. 

Throughout all of her experiences, Pastor Claire has been drawn to curious and creative communities. She loves the history and festivity of worship services, but she most enjoys church when she finds herself helping others explore the pesky mysteries lurking at the edges of their spiritual maps. Pastor Claire aspires to incorporate trauma-informed practice to create inviting communities, where everyone has as much freedom to be who they are now as they do to grow into who they are becoming next

Pastor Claire most often finds that the Holy Spirit reaches her in poetry books, yoga classes, delicious meals, and live performances.