Pastor Robert A. Rimbo
The Reverend Robert Alan Rimbo serves as Pastor of The Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in the City of New York. Prior to coming to Holy Trinity he served as Bishop of the Southeast Michigan Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, since June of 1998.
Pastor Rimbo is a 1972 graduate of Concordia Senior College, Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his studies concentrated on theology and music literature and theory. He is a 1976 graduate of Christ Seminary - Seminex, St. Louis, Missouri, where his area of concentration was liturgical theology. He is married to Lois, an elementary school Reading and Language Arts Specialist. They are the parents of two adult children, Deborah and Justin (who is married to Angela).
Pastor Rimbo has served the Church in a variety of capacities: pastorates in Michigan, New York and New Jersey; Assistant to the Bishop, Southeast Michigan Synod; Director of Music in several parishes; and Executive Assistant to the Project Director for the publication of the Lutheran Book of Worship. He has also served as chaplain, editor, advisor, and coordinator for a number of boards and projects relating to worship and parish ministry.
Pastor Rimbo has provided additional leadership to the larger Church at various levels. He has served on the Board of Directors of Lutheran Social Services of Michigan and the Board of Directors of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio. He has been a member of the Board of The Liturgical Conference, an ecumenical organization devoted to renewing worship. He is a member of The Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. He is a participant in the Preaching Seminar of the North American Academy of Liturgy and serves on the Advisory Council of the Institute of Liturgical Studies, Valparaiso University. Pastor Rimbo is the newly-appointed representative of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the ecumenical Consultation on Common Texts. He has also been recently elected to the Board of the Lutheran Music Program, an organizations that provides a month-long summer camp experience for talented high school musicians.
He is a frequent preacher and essayist at various events including the Pastoral Liturgy Institute of Notre Dame University, the Leadership Conference of Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, conferences of the American Guild of Organists and various meetings of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. He has published essays (in CrossAccent, Currents in Theology and Mission and Sundays and Seasons), sermons (for Homily Service and The American Organist) and numerous other articles relating to liturgy and worship. He is the author of Why Worship Matters (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2004), the first in a multi-volume series entitled Worship Matters featuring various authors. He was part of the Consultation on Preaching and the Resource Proposal Team for the Renewing Worship project of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
