When Eric Zellner was coming out of seminary several years ago, he and his wife Susan identified two things they did not want to do in the ministry.
One was for Zellner to become a military chaplain, and the other was to plant a church.
Now in his sixth year of pastoring First Presbyterian Church in Indianola, Zellner is not joining the military, but he and his family have been called to plant a church in Auburn, Alabama.
The Zellner’s, along with their four children Olivia, Emma Frances, Cord and Lucy, have been as active in the Indianola community as any other family during their time here.
Susan Zellner has served as a Spanish teacher at Indianola Academy, while the children have had major parts in several plays at the Brindley Theater. And Eric Zellner is currently vice president of the Indianola Rotary Club.
It’s safe to say the family will leave a void when they depart for Alabama next week.
Zellner will deliver his final sermon on Sunday morning.
Before coming to Indianola, he was an associate pastor at a church in Huntsville. It wasn’t until he came to the Delta that he realized his love for his gift.
“I love preaching, and I didn’t know I loved preaching when I got here,” he said. “I knew that was part of the job, but I didn’t know I loved it.”
Both graduates of Auburn, it is only a bit of irony and God’s planning that has led them to go back to the college town to start a church. A friend in the Presbyterian Church of America placed Eric’s name in the hat to lead this plant.
His former church in Huntsville also asked him to submit his name for the lead pastor position.
“It actually came down to the church in Huntsville and the church plant in Auburn,” Zellner said. “On paper, everything in Huntsville looked like the best choice, because it would be people we knew, a place we knew and school tuition was taken care of. It is a big church that’s already established, and over here (Auburn), everything is unknown.”
As the couple weighed the options, the unique potential of the college town church plant began to become clear, and so did their decision.
“I began to get a sense of how cool it would be to preach to young and old and to preach to people who would not be there forever, but would be leaving,” Zellner said. “You have the potential to plant a seed that could be carried to another part of the world.”
As for the family of six, they will be leaving behind a place the children have known as home for a good portion of their lives.
“When I moved here, my oldest was in fifth grade, and my youngest had just turned 4,” Zellner said. “For my youngest two, this is really the only place they remember growing up. They’ve enjoyed their growing up here, and this has provided some opportunities they would not have had in a bigger town. For instance, at the Little Theater, my kids have been able to be in plays, and you just can’t get that in a bigger city.”
They have also been active in youth and high school sports, as well as other activities.
If there’s one thing he will miss, Zellner said that the pace of life in Indianola has been positive for his family.
“When we moved here from Huntsville, we were able to deliberately slow some things down,” Zellner said. “I look back on this, and I think this has been really good for me. I’ve gotten two or three times more active dad time with my kids than I would have had in Huntsville. It’s actually given me more than I ever would have planned.”
When it comes to First Presbyterian Church, Zellner said God has provided an experience that has been better than he or his wife envisioned six years ago.
“We might have planned things differently, but God’s way was far better and certainly more glorifying to him,” Zellner said.
First Presbyterian Church is currently seeking its next pastor.
