New pastor joins First Baptist Church in Vermilion

VERMILION — In the Christian church world, it's hard to top Easter as the biggest day on the calendar. And that's precisely the first day the Rev. Shawn Salada started his new job as incoming pastor of First Baptist Church of Vermilion. "My first three services were Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter. Nothing like starting with the Super Bowl, right?" Salada joked. The position is his first full-time pastorate position, but he's served on the church staff for the past eight years at H2O Church in Bowling Green, where he teaches the Bible to high schoolers at Bowling Green Christian Academy. Salada, his wife, Jessica, and toddler son, Rowan, will be moving to a new home this summer in Lorain near the Vermilion border. In the interim, the family has been staying in Linwood Park, the historic lakeside community where his wife's family has a summer cottage. "I love preaching and I love explaining and applying God's word, but with our mission statement being 'Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples' it's all about how do we love our community in practical ways. How do we identify the needs and hurts here? I'm ready to be a student of the town." He describes his congregation as "small but mighty," maybe 25 to 30 in attendance on Sundays. But like every church, judging numbers over the past year has been tricky as services shifted online during the pandemic. "COVID has been a real challenge," and continues to be, he said. "How do we innovate and still make it so people can be in fellowship and worship God with livestream and other options?" Salada said the church will probably try a repeat of some of last year's strategies, like parking lot services transmitted over car radios, or — like the church says — to be "physically distant, socially engaged and spiritually challenged." Some things — like a monthly free meal served up to anyone in the community needing it — have already been adapted, served as drive-thru. The church also frequently serves at Lighthouse Ministries in Lorain, an inner-city church that hosts a weekly meal for the homeless and disadvantaged. Salada grew up on the south side of Columbus and attended Ohio State University, hoping to be a pharmacist "but the Lord had other ideas about that. I had this compelling sense of this is what I should do." He met his wife at a church camp and later moved to Bowling Green while she finished her degrees in reading and middle school education. One of his priorities is to get the children's ministry up and running again. "I think that can be a good game-changer, having a place where kids are safe and being engaged." Being a pastor is a challenge under the best of circumstances, but adding in a pandemic, a tumultuous political climate and a country seemingly divided on matters of social justice can make it all the more daunting. Salada acknowledges the challenges before him. "I think what the Church (big 'C') is wrestling with is we have all these beliefs and positions and preferences and now we're starting to sort out which are these found in scripture and which of these are preferences," he said. "We have seen some good intentions in political activities of the Church in the last four years but we have also seen some people be turned off by the Church's interaction with the political system." "Frankly at the end of the day my task as a pastor is my flock and presenting to people who are coming in and have questions and are checking things out, I would love to engage with you and hear what you've heard and here's what scripture says," he said. "I want to be a vibrant and loving teacher of the church and we want to be a church that is representing Jesus to people well." First Baptist Church of Vermilion is at 6716 W. River Road. For information, visit facebook.com/FirstBaptistChurchofVermilion or fbcvermilion.wixsite.com/lovevermilion. Services are at 10:30 a.m. Sundays.