Pastor Roger Gillming Retiring

In a few weeks, Pastor Roger Gillming from the Trinity United Methodist Church in Kimball and the Calvary United Methodist Church of Bushnell will have completed a 48-year ministry journey that has taken him through 16 churches in Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado.

"That is all I have done," Gillming said. "It is the only job I have ever had."

Pastor Gillming has tried this retirement thing twice before. He retired from Callaway in 2010 and again after three years in Peetz, Colo. Perhaps the third time is a charm.

"I am looking forward to not having so much to do," he said. "That is the one thing I am not going to miss, having to go to meetings all the time."

The best part of the job, according to Gillming: "I have enjoyed the people, I have been very blessed having congregations filled with very good people."

And on a personal level, Pastor Gillming said that "the most challenging part of all of it was, I lost two wives. My first wife, Sid died in 2002, then in 2020, Schatzie died. "My own perspective of doing funerals was a whole lot different."

In addition to giving two sermons a week for 48 years, the pastor said, "A lot of the ministry is doing funerals and weddings." Most recently, Pastor Gillming has done lots of weddings for the courthouse because clerk magistrates in many Nebraska counties have given up doing weddings.

"So I have been doing lots of weddings," he said. "I've had some wonderful experiences. It has been a lot of fun."

He has even married a Jewish couple.

Lots of changes have occurred over the last 48 years. Pastor Gillming pointed out that the biggest change has been the use of technology. Email, computers and zoom meetings were welcome changes from the ancient mimeograph machine and typing stencils.

"I was quite happy to see the mimeograph go away," he said.

Ministry is just part of the Roger Gillming personna. He was an EMT for 25 years and a Red Cross volunteer for 40 years, and he started Salvation Army bell ringing during the Christmas season in Kimball to help people with their utilities. During the pandemic, the pastor's church ran a successful Farm to Table program for over a year.

He has plans after retirement, which include Operation Christmas Child and the Red Cross. He has accepted a volunteer position with Operation Christmas Child and will continue spiritual care with the Red Cross.

Pastor Gillming won't be leaving town as he retires because he owns his own house here in town. Although he was looking forward to visiting his 18 grandkids and two great-grandkids, who are spread throughout many states, as for now he is rethinking that plan due to the price of gas.

Pastor Gillming's ministerial journey began after graduating from Kearney High School. He attended and graduated from Kearney State College. While in college and initially studying accounting, he finally asked the question, "What am I going to do? That is when I realized the Lord was calling me to be a minister. He had been doing it over the years, and I kept saying 'No. I don't want to stand up in front of people.'"

So instead of accounting, the soon-to-be Pastor Gillming earned a teaching degree in sociology. Then in 1974, his ministerial journey started, and he headed off to St. Paul's School of Theology in Kansas City. His journey has brought him to Kimball, which he considers home, on two separate assignments.

Don't be alarmed if you don't see Pastor Gillming in church on Sundays - he is required to stay out of the two churches he has served for a year. This is so the congregation goes to the new pastor and gets to know the new pastor.

"I can't do funerals," Pastor Gillming said. "I can't do weddings. It will be different, but we will survive. I will be around. I will be in town."

One upside is – for the first time in 48 years Pastor Gillming will be able to sleep in on Sunday mornings.