Pastor Helland was born and raised in Fergus Falls, MN. He was raised in a Christian home and has believed in Christ alone for forgiveness and salvation from his earliest memories. He graduated from Fergus Falls High School in 1976. In 1989, due to a drought and inflation in the 80's, Helland was forced to give up his dairy operation and faced head-on a calling that God had begun in his life as a teenager - the call to ministry....Pastor Helland was born and raised in Fergus Falls, MN. He was raised in a Christian home and has believed in Christ alone for forgiveness and salvation from his earliest memories. He graduated from Fergus Falls High School in 1976. In 1989, due to a drought and inflation in the 80's, Helland was forced to give up his dairy operation and faced head-on a calling that God had begun in his life as a teenager - the call to ministry. He enrolled in the Lutheran Brethren Seminary in Fergus Falls, MN in the fall of 1989. In that same year, he was called by his home congregation, Stavanger Lutheran Church, rural Fergus Falls, MN, to serve as a lay/student pastor. He graduated from Seminary in 1996 and was ordained in 1997.
In the summer of 1997 he accepted a call to serve the Lutheran Brethren Church in Watertown, SD. While there, he also became involved in a ministry to inmates at the Codington County Detention Center. In addition to serving the church in Watertown, he also served part-time as pastor for Calvary Lutheran Church in Wallace, SD, from 2002-04. In the spring of 2004, Pastor Helland resigned from active parish ministry and returned to Fergus Falls, MN, where he found other employment. In 2005, he wrote a devotional for pastors, entitled Pause Before the Pulpit, CSS Publishing, Lima, Ohio. In 2007, he made himself available for call to parish ministry once again and accepted the call to serve Jevnaker Lutheran Church, rural Borup, MN.
Pastor Helland has been married to his wife, Sally, for 32 years. They have 4 children and 3 grandchildren. | more | less
