LTSS installation service scheduled for new rector and dean

The Rev. Dr. Chad Rimmer will be officially installed as rector and dean of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (LTSS) during a special service in Columbia on November 9, 2023. Rimmer joined LTSS at Lenoir-Rhyne University on April 1, 2023. 

The service, which starts at 5 p.m. in Christ Chapel on the LTSS campus, is open to the community, alumni, academic and church leaders. Rostered leaders, Bishops, and other judicatory leaders are invited to vest and process. The liturgical color of the day is green. Those representing academic institutions are invited to process in academic regalia.

The Rev. Timothy Smith, Bishop of the North Carolina Synod of The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will be presiding. The Rev. Dr. Francisco Javier Goitía Padilla, Director for Theological Formation, Seminaries and Schools for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, will be the installation officiant, and Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Professor of Theological and Social Ethics at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, will preach.

In his previous role as Program Executive for Theology and Practice at the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Department for Theology, Mission and Justice in Geneva, Switzerland, Rimmer taught across the seven regions of the LWF communion and formed the Global Network for Theological Education and Formation. He also played a key role in planning the Thirteenth Assembly of the LWF, which took place in Krakow, Poland this September. Rimmer has served congregations in Copenhagen Denmark and York, Pennsylvania, been an adjunct lecturer at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and at United Lutheran Seminary, and has published a number of books and journal articles.

Rimmer has a doctorate in theological ethics from the University of Edinburgh Divinity School, a master of theology in theological ethics from the University of Edinburgh, a master of divinity from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and a bachelor of science in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rimmer has two sons with his wife Natalie, an elementary educator who died in August 2023 after a long battle with cancer. His son Paul Michael is a student at the American College Dublin, Ireland and his son Luke is a high school senior in the International Baccalaureate program at the Institut International de Lancy, Geneva, Switzerland.