The Admiral Congregational United Church of Christ, 4320 Southwest Hill Street, welcomes the Rev. Dr. Donald Schmidt as its new pastor. Formerly the West Seattle Congregational, the church was founded in 1899 and is among West Seattle’s oldest churches. (Since this article was written, we found that, according to the book "West Side Story" published by the West Seattle Herald, St. John's Episcopal Church is the oldest and had its beginning in West Seattle in 1892.)

And now Donald Schmidt is West Seattle’s newest pastor. While the church’s search committee did an exhaustive searched nationwide, Schmidt was just across Lake Washington, finishing up his two-year interim as pastor at the 500-member Bellevue First Congregational Church, also a United Church of Christ. Admiral Congregational currently has 103 members.

“Donald's great energy, musical abilities, and his ‘Aloha’ way of being is what made him a great match for us,” said Lisa Hemmert, search chair who revealed that he was chosen among 70 candidates. Schmidt lived in rural Oahu, and some of its culture has stayed with him. He plays the ukulele (and guitar) and often greets people with a hearty “Aloha” welcome.

“His sermons are amazing,” Hemmert continued. “He brings his extensive knowledge of scripture and weaves it with current events. The outcome is a vibrant, intellectual, progressive, and often-humorous sermon, which leaves one feeling spiritually, fulfilled. The sermons have an intergenerational appeal. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have found such a gift.”

Schmidt, 50, was born on Vancouver Island and acknowledges that while he is not a big jock he loves the Olympics.

“When I was a pastor in Waterbury, Connecticut I cross-country skied,” he said.
“But I don’t do downhill.

“I think were going to grow some,” said Schmidt with a sparkle in his eyes. “Churches often subside in an interim period. Folks don’t know what the future holds. Some here wandered off. Some didn’t. We have a real potential to grow.”

He wants music to play a large role in his ministry.

“The family doesn’t sit around the piano and sing the way they did a hundred years ago,” he said. “It’s a wonderful way to get out of yourself to glorify God. Traditionally, since biblical times, people of faith sang. It was in the Jewish and Christian traditions. There are few places where people now sing. The Church and the shower is it.

“The United Church of Christ is generally, and certainly in the Northwest, very much on the progressive edge which I’m proud of,” he said. “There are an incredible number of people craving the theology we have, which encourages people to take their own faith journey.

While Schmidt is openly gay, he said, “I am not a ‘gay pastor.’ I am a pastor who happens to be gay. I’m a pastor first and foremost. The other aspects of my life are secondary. My partner Donald Osmer and I were married in Canada. Here we have a domestic partnership. We’re ‘the two Donald’s.’”

Osmer is a student who will become certified in substance abuse counseling. They have six adopted adult children and seven grandchildren, and are buying a house in the Pigeon Point neighborhood.

Rev. Schmidt spoke of three religious books he published, including “Emerging Word.”

“This was my doctoral dissertation based on ‘creation spirituality,’ which celebrates not original sin but original blessing. I think it’s far more biblical, but less popular. Also ‘Bible Wanderings’ about Bible stories in different settings, and ‘In the Beginning,’ also about ‘Creation Spirituality.’”

He explained, “’Creation spirituality’ developed with a lot of mystics in the Middle Ages, such as Meister Eckhart, Hildegard, and St. Francis of Assisi. Assisi’s writings were amazingly profound, amazingly cutting edge and nobody ever reads those. The Catholic Church suppressed them for years and left him ‘in the garden for birds. The whole thing is that he was a nice man who loved animals.

“In the beginning we are recognizing we’re blessed,” he said speaking in the context of creation spirituality. “Original sin is very popular,” he added. “It sells. It’s not biblical.

“When people say they think the Bible tells us how the world was created and it happened in a few thousand years, I think that’s just immature. There’s no conflict between recognizing that the earth is 15 billion years old and that God was involved. The energy force that created the universe and the big bang is divinely planned. The god I worship is the god that cared enough to create that, and love us. To me that’s an amazing miracle.”

The Rev. Dr. Schmidt was the unanimous choice of the church’s Search Committee, a seven-member group that has been meeting weekly for the past year to process and rank the more than seventy applications of those who were interested in the position. Lisa Hemmert, Search Chair, said, “Pastor Donald was the best match when we looked at his talents and compared them with our needs. He is progressive in social justice issues, and has a deep grounding in Scriptural work. We’re delighted that the congregation has agreed with our recommendation.”

Schmidt has served in churches in Canada and Hawaii, and is just completing two years as the Interim Pastor at Bellevue First Congregational UCC. Most of his post-secondary education occurred in Montreal, Quebec, where he earned a BA in comparative religion, a Bachelor of Theology, and Master of Divinity degree. More recently, he earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Wisdom University in San Francisco. He has published many articles, several books, and curricula, and is involved with a new Bible translation project being undertaken by the United Methodist Publishing House.

The Rev. Dr. Schmidt and his partner, Don Osmer, have 6 adult children and 7 grandchildren. They anticipate relocating from the Eastside to West Seattle in mid-March. Schmidt will officially begin his ministry at Admiral on March 1.