Welcome to Bethlehem Lutheran Church

 

Pastor Mark H. Larson
Senior Pastor

Mark H. Larson was born in 1962 to Ross and Letty Larson while they were serving Lebanon Lutheran Church on the southeast side of Chicago, Illinois. The family moved to St. Louis, Missouri,where Mark's two sisters were born. In 1969 they moved to the northwest side of Chicago, Illinois, where Ross was called as pastor of Irving Park Lutheran Church.

Mark attended Lane Technical High School and Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. He went to seminary at the Divinity School at Harvard University where he also worked in campus ministry at University Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After serving an internship in inner-city Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mark was ordained in 1988 and called as pastor to Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Riverdale, Illinois.

Cindy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to a family of three girls and two boys. The family soon moved to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, outside of Akron. Cindy graduated from Kent State University, served a year as a Jesuit Volunteer, and then started community organizing in Camden and Trenton, New Jersey. She earned her Master's in Community Planning from Pratt Institute in New York, New York, and then joined the Archdiocese of Brooklyn, New York, operating its housing development programs.

Mark and Cindy met while Mark was pastor in Riverdale, Illinois. He was the President of New Cities Community Development Corporation, a non-profit organization which was rehabbing abandoned homes in the south suburbs to create affordable housing for their community. New Cities hired Cindy to develop multi-family housing for low-income families in the area. The first project she worked on was helping Mark's congregation build a senior citizen housing complex. They were married in 1994.

Mark was called as senior pastor to Messiah Lutheran Church in Park Ridge, Illinois, in 1997. Cindy joined ShoreBank Development Company and then Fannie Mae. She is presently the Regional President of Mercy Housing Lakefront in Chicago, Illinois, a not-for-profit affordable housing provider. Mark and Cindy don't have children, so they really enjoy doting on their two godchildren and seven nieces and nephews, the youngest just being born last year. Their dog, Padre, is also spoiled rotten.

Mark and Cindy feel that they share a ministry, both having been called by God to help re-create communities of hope, service, and justice, filled with people who live their lives in thanksgiving to God for the blessings they have received.