Unity in worship

It is unusual for ministers of one denomination to serve in a church of another denomination. <br/><br/>The Reverend Joseph Alsay is the first Lutheran Pastor to serve in an Episcopal church in Oklahoma,

Monday, October 31st 2005, 10:58 am

By: News On 6

It is unusual for ministers of one denomination to serve in a church of another denomination.

The Reverend Joseph Alsay is the first Lutheran Pastor to serve in an Episcopal church in Oklahoma, and it's happening in Tulsa. The News on 6's Rick Wells went to Tulsa's Trinity Episcopal Church and came back with a story full of firsts.

Father Joseph Alsay: "Whatâ€™s' the Deal?" Well, he pulled out one my old lines on me, but that's kind of it. An African American who grew up in a Baptist church in north Tulsa, where his father was the assistant pastor, now the first black minister in Trinity Episcopal Church's one hundred year history and a Lutheran to boot.

It is kind of a savory Christian stew. "Brothers and sisters can unite, can worship, serve our Lord together."

A few years ago the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Episcopal Church agreed to share ministers; clergy from one denomination can serve the other. "This is the first example of that in Oklahoma and one of the first examples in the nation."

And more firsts, Father Joseph Alsay was married at 10 AM in the Episcopal Cathedral in Philadelphia and ordained a Lutheran pastor in the same Episcopal Cathedral at noon that same day. "I was the first Lutheran ordained there." Many of the ministers who had influenced his life were invited and most of them showed up. "There was a menagerie of other clergy, Baptists, a Pentecostal, Catholics, there was a whole mix."

While in junior high school in Tulsa he visited Trinity with a friend and fell in love with the church and its service.

He went to Lutheran Seminary because he felt that was his calling, now he's back at Trinity and is having the time of his life. "I told my wife if I was to die tomorrow, I couldn't ask for any more in my life, this is the pinnacle.â€ How many of us can say that.